Taste: A Love Story

by Tracy Ewens

  Bathrooms done. Now if he could just figure out the small table in the corner of the restaurant that Summer dubbed “the love corner.” She could spot couples falling in love, or celebrating love, a mile away. The Yard had only been open a few months and they’d already had two proposals in that corner. The lamp that currently cast a dim light over the lovebird perch wasn’t right. It was too shiny and while the actual light was fine, he wanted something with character. Another space that still needed work was the private dining area they used for large parties. He wanted a chandelier-type thing, but definitely not some fancy crystal mess. He wanted something unique.

  “Morning,” Makenna called as she pushed through the side door holding her keys in her mouth and a big box.

  “Need help there?” He took the box before she answered.

  Her keys fell into her now free hands and she dropped them and the purse from around her shoulder into one of the empty booths by the door.

  “Fall menus finally came in. Printer called me this morning so I swung by after I dropped Paige off.”

  Logan set the box down on the pizza counter and opened one of the clear-wrapped stacks.

  “They turned out great. Sage’s handwriting is perfect.” Makenna was now standing next to him.

  Logan scanned over the long, cream-colored piece of card stock, through the “Starters” section, and all the way down to the “Finish Up,” where they listed their two reoccurring desserts: Banana Pudding with Handmade Vanilla Wafers and Chocolate Cake with Italian Cherries and Vanilla Cream. They were the only two desserts Logan knew how to make when they first started out. He’d never been good in that area and his father always said, “Stick with what you know.” Logan now had a part-time pastry chef. She made a featured dessert each morning and had taken over the pudding, the cake, and most of the bread, although Logan still loved making bread. There was something essential about bread that he found gratifying. Looking over the menu, his menu, written in his bartender’s perfect box lettering, his heart warmed with pride. This is good work.

  “I’m pretty sure we caught any mistakes, but have everyone look at it and let me know. Oh, I wanted to show you Paige’s Halloween costume.” Kenna grabbed her purse. “I took a picture when we tried it on last night.”

  Makenna found her phone and began flipping through her pictures. Logan leaned in.

  “Wait,” Logan cried, but Kenna kept flipping. “Were you naked in a few of those pictures? You’re into that?”

  “Oh yeah, I’m all about the naked shots. I send them to all of your friends. Thinking about starting a newsletter.” She hit Logan with the hand that wasn’t holding her phone.

  He laughed. “A newsletter. That was a good one.”

  “Ooh, here it is.” Kenna turned her phone. “Isn’t she a sweetie cakes?”

  “An owl!” He grabbed the phone, feeling all mushy that Paige was getting so big. It was hard to believe Makenna had her almost six years ago. She and Adam were married their senior year in college and Paige arrived less than a year later. Logan’s dad was nuts for his first grandchild and Paige was the most beautiful baby Logan had ever seen. Makenna and Adam had been pretty wild in college, but once Paige was born, they were great parents, took her everywhere. Adam worked for a boat designer. Three weeks after she was born, he was working a boat show and didn’t want to spend the night in Newport, away from Makenna and Paige, so he started home just after one in the morning. It was only an hour-and-twenty-minute drive, but he fell asleep behind the wheel. His car hit the median, flipped, and Adam was killed instantly. Makenna had called Logan at three in the morning the night Adam died, sobbing that she, “sensed he was gone,” even before the police called. Logan was living in Seattle, but he flew home in time to hold his sister as she collapsed in a corner of the emergency room. It was a horrible time—one of their worst, he thought now, looking at another shot of his adorable niece.

  “So cute, right? She’s really into that National Geographic channel these days, made me follow them on my Instagram.”

  Logan laughed and noticed, as he had lately, that his sister’s eyes were less vacant. Over the past few months, Makenna seemed better. Logan was certain that Paige had saved his sister. Structure, love, and a “have-to” attitude were what picked Makenna up off the floor.

  “That’s awesome,” Logan said. “Where did you get the costume?”

  “I made it.”

  “You made this? When, between three and four in the morning?”

  Makenna laughed.

  “Well, Paige helped. Lots of feathers.” She held out her hand and Logan handed back her phone.

  “Nice job, Mom.” He pulled her in and kissed her forehead.

  “Yeah, well you know, I have to make up for the McDonald’s somehow.”

  “True.”

  They both laughed.

  “Text me that picture, will ya? I’m going to put it up at the hostess station on Halloween.”

  “Okay.” Kenna flipped her thumbs along the screen of her phone and then threw it back in her purse. “Done. I need to get going because I’ve got payroll to approve and I have to pick up our third-quarter tax reports from the accountant.” She leaned up and kissed her brother on the cheek. “You giving out candy at your house next week?”

  “I’ll be here, but I’ll leave a basket out. Since it’s on a Saturday we should hand out candy here and Travis wants to make popcorn balls.”

  “Travis knows how to make popcorn balls?” Makenna asked, moving toward the door.

  “He does. He’s dressing up too. He won’t tell me what his costume is, so I’m already scared.”

  “I love Halloween.”

  “Me too. Hold up, I’ll walk out with you. I want to go to a few places and look for a new lamp for that corner.”

  “Oh yeah, that one sucks.” She stepped out the front door.

  Logan shook his head and locked the door. “Never one to mince words, are you Kenna?” Why didn’t you tell me when I put it there?”

  “You didn’t ask.” She waved and got into her car.

  She was going to be all right, he thought. Hell, she’d been all right for years now, but she was his baby sister. She’d lost her mother when she was barely five and then her husband. He wanted more than all right for Kenna; he wanted to see her silly happy again someday.

  The lamp in the window at zenDeluxe on Holly Street was perfect for “the love corner.” It was an old brass desk lamp, but the shade was an incredible mosaic of glass pieces. It had a Tiffany lamp feel, but it was more weighted and each piece was a different shape. He fell in love with it on sight, but the store didn’t open until ten. Logan needed to be back at the restaurant to get ready for lunch, so he called the owner when they opened. The woman told him the lamp was the only one they had and that each piece was unique. The shade was made from sea glass and hand designed and assembled in Pasadena. Logan was sold. He paid for it over the phone and texted Summer to have her pick it up on her way to work. Happy with the sale, the shop owner and Logan exchanged niceties, and he invited her to come by for lunch sometime. He explained that he wanted a piece for the restaurant’s private dining area, and asked if she could provide the name of the artist. The owner, Jill, promised to look up the artist and get back to him.

  Summer arrived with the lamp, and by the time they opened for lunch, it was in the romantic corner and it was perfect. Something about it sitting at the table reminded him of Paris. He and Kara had gone to an exhibit on Émile Gallé and his influence over Louis Comfort Tiffany, the designer of the Tiffany lamp. It was a brilliant exhibit and on the way back to Kara’s apartment it had poured rain. That was the night they . . . People were seated and the hum of lunch filled the space, but the lamp stood there, holding his memory. That was the night they made love. They weren’t exactly “in love,” but there wasn’t an actual word for what two people did in between sex and making love, so he was going with “made love.” It had been more than sex. He had peeled her out of her wet
clothes and then reached back and pulled his own shirt off. Her hair was soaked and water droplets sparkled on the eyelashes of her playful face. She’d pulled him onto the bed as she fell back, giddy with the day they’d shared and so damn beautiful . . . Logan closed his eyes in the middle of his busy restaurant because he could still see the pink in her cheeks, feel her cold rain-soaked lips.

  It had been his first time with Kara, but her first time ever. Kara, or Winnie back then, seemed to be checking off a lot of firsts during her time in Paris. Logan’s twenty-three-year-old self had been more than thankful he got to participate in many of her firsts. He wasn’t sure when he’d sorted through those memories and turned them into “some girl I met in Paris,” but it had been quick. Sort of like the immediacy of putting your finger in your mouth after cutting it on a sharp blade to stop the bleeding. He’d put her away that fast. She had made it pretty easy when he’d walked into her apartment a few weeks later thinking they were heading to lunch, only to find two guys in suits standing over her as she packed her things. She had told him they “came to collect her,” which at the time he thought was such an odd thing to say. Once she told him her real name was Kara, everything else went kind of fuzzy. She was the daughter of US Senator Patrick Malendar. Some crying happened after that and then, “I’m sorry, so sorry,” was all she’d said as the men escorted her through the gate and into a waiting black SUV. He never saw her again.

  Logan could still hear the clinking of dishes and the laughter of his guests. Years apart should have dulled his feelings, but there was something about the lamp. Damn if it didn’t remind him of Winnie Parker in all her vivid colors.

  “I’m here to see Travis, but he’s pretty busy in the kitchen right now. Do you mind if I sit in the bar and have some tea while I wait for things to die down?” Kara asked tapping his shoulder and scaring the crap out of him. What were the chances that he would be in some kind of Paris trance and she would just show up? She was standing so close he could smell her perfume. It wasn’t flowery—more woods and spice. He had no idea what it was, but if a smell could be dangerous, that one was.

  “Shit,” he exclaimed, louder than an owner should during his lunch rush, after being startled. Logan smiled an apology at the two people sitting closest to him at the pizza counter, took a deep breath, and turned.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be.” He glanced one more time at the lamp and then turned to the very real, present-day, Kara. “I’m fine. Sure, you can have lunch while you wait.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Hungry,” Logan interrupted her. “Right, when do you eat, princess?”

  Kara said nothing, but took her bottom lip between her teeth and Logan’s eyes dropped to her mouth. He cleared his throat and met her eyes.

  “I got a new lamp.” He turned toward the bar.

  “I can see that. It looks great there.”

  “Yeah.” He looked at her. “Much better.”

  Logan followed Kara into the bar and by the time he’d put out his first fire of the afternoon—the broken ice machine—things were back to normal. There was no Paris, no rain, and all was right with the world. Kara worked on her laptop while she waited for Travis, so Logan slipped some bread, a board of cheese and soppressata, and some olive oil on the table. She ate. He wasn’t sure she even realized she was eating, but she was. On his way back to the kitchen, he smiled, oddly thrilled that she had at least remembered how.

  “So how did you meet Logan?” Kara asked after she and Travis finally settled at a table in the bar. The lunch crowd was starting to die down and Travis pulled up a stool.

  “How did I meet Logan, you ask?” Travis was purposefully loud enough for Logan to hear him in the kitchen. “Well, I stole his girlfriend.”

  “That’s a lie,” Logan said from behind the wall. “I hope you have a fact-checker at the Times.”

  “See, he can’t come out here because someone has to cook while I’m talking with you.” Travis was like a child planning a prank. “So anyway,” he said a little louder, “Logan is quite the ladies’ man. He goes through them like nobody’s business, but me, I’m a little more stable. I’m a settle-down kind of guy.”

  “Is that so?” Kara was enjoying their game.

  “Yeah, so this woman wanted something more stable and Logan had like three, maybe four on deck.”

  Logan appeared behind the bar, sizzling pan still in hand.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Travis laughed.

  “This is for the restaurant. There’s no time for your sick delusional stories. I’m the ladies’ man, me?” Logan raised his brows.

  Travis shook his head. “Hey man, I’m only trying to be honest here.”

  “Really, well maybe you should tell Kara all about how handcuffs work, or what was her name, yeah Sheila and the duct tape. Yes, Trav, tell Kara all about how your ladies’ man friend here had to pick you up at the emergency room after you had an involuntary body wax.”

  “Hey”—Travis looked around—“that was traumatic and private. I can’t believe you would share that with our lovely guest.”

  Travis eyed Kara, who was loading some salami onto a piece of bread.

  Where did this food come from? Dear God, this olive oil is incredible.

  “Behave.” Logan shot him a playful warning glare. “I’ve got more stuff, my friend. Don’t make me lay your shit bare.” He pointed the frying pan at Travis and both men laughed. So did Kara because they were fun to watch. Between their show and whatever delicious cheese she was currently eating, she almost forgot she was there to work.

  “Fine.” Travis held his hands up in surrender, but when Logan disappeared again into the kitchen, he leaned in. “Don’t tell him I said this, but he’s honestly the best human being I’ve ever known.”

  Kara took a sip of water because the sincerity in Travis’s eyes was a little unsettling.

  “Wow,” she tried to lighten the mood, “he must really have dirt on you.”

  “I’m serious. If you are writing an article on this place, on him, you need to know that. The man lives by a set of ethics that are just . . . he’s a great friend and an incredible human being.”

  For a moment, she wasn’t sure what to say. She was supposed to be objective, but part of her wanted to say, “I think you’re right!”

  Fortunately, Kara kept that part of herself under control. Besides, she barely knew the man he’d become. Travis must have seen something in the way Kara was looking at him because he moved on.

  “So, what do you want to know?” he asked, reaching over and popping an olive into his mouth.

  Kara started from the beginning and asked again how the two of them had met. Travis explained that he met Logan when they both worked in Seattle under head chef Benji Paradis. They were young and those were the days of killing themselves in the kitchen and then hanging out at the bar until closing.

  “Well, that was my plan anyway. Logan would go along and then spend the whole damn night studying for his online classes.”

  “Classes for what?”

  “Anything he could get his hands on. By the time we left Seattle, he had another damn degree in restaurant management.”

  Kara took notes and Travis told stories about their escapades, the endless months that went into planning and getting the restaurant to where it was now. He gave some examples of how they put together their menu, and he told a funny story about a melon salad he’d never make again. Kara found Travis to be much more boy next door under his bad-boy surface, but he did finally admit that he was, in fact, the ladies’ man of the two of them.

  “Although, Logan wasn’t a monk, let me say that.”

  “Sure I was.” Logan came back out of the kitchen, pulling an apron over his head and throwing it at Travis. “We’ve got to get ready for dinner, so your interview is over, celebrity chef.”

  “Aw, we were just getting started.”

  “I’ll bet.” Logan poure
d a glass of water from one of the pitchers at the server station. “Orders are current except for the one pizza that’s got another couple of minutes. It needs the greens salad and it’s out.”

  Travis stood up and shook Kara’s hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you. I’m sure we will talk again very soon.”

  She laughed and Logan popped Travis with the towel he was holding.

  “Get to it, Romeo. We don’t want burnt crusts.”

  “Thank you, Travis,” Kara said, “it was informative and entertaining.”

  He stepped into the kitchen and Logan took the seat across from Kara, dipped a piece of bread in some oil, and put it in his mouth.

  “That oil is great.” She finished the last bite of bread on her plate.

  “Unfiltered. The monks make it.”

  Kara laughed.

  “No, I’m serious. We get it from one of the monasteries. They make small-batch oil, unfiltered and you’re right, it’s so nutty and smooth. I’m hooked. Can’t use anything else.”

  Kara made note of the oil on her pad.

  “Travis spoke very well of you.”

  Logan snickered, but when he saw she was serious, his eyes warmed.

  “There’s more to Travis than he lets on.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Comes from a big family, played high school football. His mom still sends him cookies.”

  Kara smiled.

  “He’s one of the very best people I know. I’d trust him with my life.”

  “Huh, he said the same thing about you.”

  “Well, we’ve been through a lot.” Logan looked down at the empty cheese board in front of her and Kara wanted to ask for more detail about what they’d been through, but instead she opted for a joke.

  “It seems you two have been through a lot of women too.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t hungry?” Logan ignored her comment, which was probably just as well.

  “Oh, yeah, well I guess I was.” She glanced at him, but found herself not ready to meet Logan’s smile. It wasn’t his smug smile, but this one was uncomfortable too. “Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”