City Kitty and Country Mouse

by Alyssa Linn Palmer

  “Oh, she’ll know,” Lucy assures me. “She’ll know.”

  I bury my face against her shoulder.

  “She’ll be glad to see you,” Lucy says, stroking my hair. “And trust me when I tell you that she won’t be shocked at our state. At least as long as we don’t walk starkers into the house.” Her shoulders shake with her laughter.

  “I can handle that.” My cheeks heat. “Maybe.”

  “She loves you,” Lucy says. “And I know she’ll be even more delighted when she hears the news. All the news. She’s been wanting me to settle down for years.”

  “Years?” I echo.

  “Years. She wants grandkids, if you’re up for that. I think I’m getting a bit long in the tooth myself.”

  “I hadn’t even thought that far.”

  “There’s always later,” Lucy says, kissing me again. “Let’s go have a shower. Then we can plot the return of Ming Kitty.”

  Epilogue

  Six months later

  “I’m starting to think we should have chosen a slightly less ambitious date.” I poke my head out from the kitchen, peer at the packed dining room for Ming Kitty. Ming Kitty, the restaurant. No more pop-ups.

  “Valentine’s Day is so romantic, though,” Lucy says, coming up behind me, her voice a whisper. “Now come on back. Ella and Jessie are great servers, and they’ll keep things running. We need to be in that kitchen.”

  My stomach is in knots, but this anxiety is something different. There’s nervousness there, sure, but there’s also excitement. Finally. Not the worry that I wouldn’t work hard enough to become partner, or impress my boss, but that tingling excitement that says we’re doing something amazing. And we are.

  Ming Kitty graduated from pop-up to the real thing. The pop-ups were packed, the demand crazily high, enough that we were able to negotiate a real lease with Beatrice and talk her into replacing the old oven. And now, on our real grand opening, we have two servers, two cooks, a host, and a dishwasher. I can hardly believe it.

  Lucy grabs my hand, tugs me back into the kitchen. “We can rest later. That food won’t cook itself.” The servers have brought back their first orders, and we get started. We’ve upgraded the menu a bit, added a couple of appetizers and a salad, but the mains are the same, with some flexibility. Until we can make enough money to hire another cook, that’s how it’ll have to be. For now. I have dreams of a more substantial menu, with a dozen mains, another dozen appetizers, and a selection of desserts and wines. But I’ll take what I can get. My head buzzes with ideas, but I push them aside to focus on cooking.

  And cooking. And cooking.

  Valentine’s Day is insane. But you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way. All those lovey couples out there, having their intimate dinners? It’s exactly what we both want.

  Lucy bumps my hip with hers. “I think we’re going to run out of ginger beef. Genius putting it on the menu, but oh my God, it is nuts.”

  My stomach growls. “I hope there’s some left for us.”

  Lucy grins. “I got Mama to make us some at home, so it’ll be there later.”

  “You are a genius.”

  “You know it!” Lucy sets down her plates and goes back to her side of the kitchen. I plate up the frisée, portion out the spicy daikon fries, and put the plates up on the pass-through. Then, my favorite part, I ring the little bell. Jessie comes hurrying back, grabs the order, and takes it out to her table.

  The evening proceeds in a blur, a rush of plates, food, desserts, and hauling clean plates back to the kitchen.

  I pop out into the dining room briefly, spotting Cindy and one of her friends at a table for two. “Hey, Cindy, where’s Roy?” We’ve kept in touch since I quit the firm, but we haven’t been quite as good at confiding in each other. We’re both working insanely hard, and it’s not leaving much time for rest lately.

  “Oh, him.” Cindy sighs. “Jerk broke it off a few weeks ago, said he just didn’t see himself getting into a really serious thing.”

  “Damn. I’m sorry, Cindy.”

  She waves off my concern. “I’m better off. Besides, Jen here wanted to finally experience Ming Kitty, so who better to be my date?” Jen holds out her hand, and we shake. She’s a gorgeous, curvy woman, her dark hair shining in the light from the chandelier we had installed. And from how she smiles at Cindy, I wonder if there’s a little something more between them.

  “I’m glad you could make it, even if things didn’t work out with Roy.”

  “I’d never miss your grand opening.” Cindy stands and gives me a big hug. “One day I’ll be just like you, running my own business.”

  “I know you will,” I say. “And we need to do coffee so you can tell me all about it.”

  “I’ll text you,” she says. “And you’d better get back in there before you get overrun.”

  “See you later!” I hurry back, finding dessert orders waiting. It’s a rush to fill those, everyone seeming to finish their dinners at once, but the rush is exhilarating.

  But then finally, oh so finally, we see the last satisfied customers walk out the door into the snowy February evening.

  Jessie and Ella take care of their cash-out, and Lucy and I clean the kitchen while our dishwasher, Jessie’s younger brother Ethan, takes care of all the dishes. I’m just sweeping the floor when Jessie comes to me with her cash-out and Ella’s. “We’re going to take off,” she says. “Ethan’s just finished too.”

  “That’s great.” I set the cash-outs on the counter. “Thanks for all your hard work tonight.”

  “I’m so glad you guys opened up,” she says. “This sure beats working in the local pub.” She grins. “See you tomorrow!”

  Now it’s just me and Lucy. She comes back from the dining room, having wiped all the tables and straightened all the chairs. She has a bag full of tablecloths which we’ll toss into the washing machine at home and bring back tomorrow.

  “I am beat,” she says, hefting the bag to the back door. “And I’m starving.”

  I scoop up the cash-outs. “Let’s go home.” I hook my arm around her waist, and we head out to the van, locking up behind us. It’ll be another long evening tomorrow, but I’m hoping it’ll be a bit quieter post V-Day. The drive back to the farm is quiet, the radio tuned to CKUA’s Friday Night Blues Party. Lucy reaches out over the stick shift, and I twine my fingers through hers.

  Once home, we head straight to the kitchen. Michelle has left food warming in the oven, and we take it out. Lucy tears off the foil, and steam rises from the ginger beef, fried rice, and chop suey. We don’t even go for chopsticks, digging in with forks and standing at the counter. Once my immediate urge has been sated, I straighten. She looks at me, and I look at her, and she’s smiling. I know I’m smiling too. My face hurts from all the laughing we did during the dinner rush.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day,” Lucy says. She leans against me, and then we’re embracing, food forgotten. The mood shifts.

  “Shower?” I ask.

  “Only if you’re in there with me,” Lucy says.

  “Consider it done.”

  Our food is forgotten on the counter. Showers with Lucy are too good to pass up.

  About the Author

  Alyssa Linn Palmer is a Canadian writer and freelance editor. She splits her time between a full-time day job and her part-time loves, writing and editing. Her book Midnight at the Orpheus won a Rainbow Award in 2016, and her book Betting on Love was a Rainbow Award honorable mention in 2015. Find out more about her and her books at alyssalinnpalmer.com.

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