Read Online A Single Thread (Cobbled Court) by Marie Bostwick - Free Book Online

He pulled on his nose, thinking.
    “I’ve got a friend who’s an electrician. If you want, I can give him a call. He’s usually pretty busy, but if I asked him, I’m sure he’d come right away. He owes me a favor. Would you like me to ask him?”
    “Would you, please?” I swallowed hard and grabbed my purse. “Sorry about the cream, but you and your friend can help yourselves to coffee.”
    “Sure thing, but…,” he said, his eyes narrowing as he watched me head for the stairs. “Lady, where are you going?”
    “To lunch. I need some buffalo chicken wings and Dr. Pepper. And I need them now.”

6
Evelyn Dixon
     
    T he server, a handsome, tall man with gray hair and blue eyes who might have been a few years younger or older than myself, and whose brogue brought forth visions of green hills in the old country, wore a disdainful expression.
    “Madam,” he said, “I may be an Irish restaurateur, but this is a fine dining establishment, not a pub. We do not serve bar food here. I can offer you a very fine duck confit, a dish that recently caused the food critic from the Globe to lay her head on the table and weep for joy, but chicken wings never have and never will appear on the menu of Grill on the Green. And there isn’t a restaurant within five hundred miles that serves Dr. Pepper. This is New England, not the Alamo.”
    There was something in his eye, just the barest glimmer of a twinkle, that indicated he might be teasing me, but I wasn’t sure, so I dutifully ordered a ginger ale and the duck and made no more mention of chicken wings.
    “So you’re the owner?” I asked as he wrote down the order. “I saw you seating people on my first visit to New Bern.”
    “I am. Today I’m also the waiter. One of my servers called in sick. Other days I’m the maitre d’, the chef, the head dishwasher, bartender, and bouncer—whatever is needed. That’s the nature of owning your own business. You’ve got to be a jack of all trades, able to step in and do anyone’s job at a moment’s notice—and do it well.”
    “Yes. I’m beginning to understand that myself. I’m Evelyn Dixon,” I said, smiling. “I’ve taken out a lease on the old Fielding Drug building, in Cobbled Court.”
    His eyes grew wide, and he started to say something, but suddenly flinched and turned around just in time to see one of his servers nearly drop a tray; it was like he had eyes in the back of his head. “For heaven’s sake, Jason!” he exclaimed, grabbing the edge of the tray a split second before it would have clattered to the floor, taking two entrées with it. “Watch what you’re doing!”
    “Sorry, Charlie,” the young server said. “I lost my balance. I’ll be more careful.”
    “You certainly will,” he retorted, the threat of the waiter’s imminent unemployment clear in his tone. He glared at the young man and then looked down at the tray. “Is this order for table twenty-four? The salmon is for Mrs. Wynne?” The server nodded. “Take it back! Don’t even think of serving it like that. Abigail likes her salmon well done, charred on the outside. Black! I’ve told you that a million times.”
    “I know.” Jason nodded earnestly. “I told Maurice that it was for Mrs. Wynne. I told him what you said, but he said he wouldn’t do it. He threw a spatula at me and said it was a crime to serve it like that.”
    Charlie rubbed his face with his hands. “Well, that is as may be, but Abigail Burgess Wynne is the customer, and one of my best, so Maurice is going to have to put principle aside and cook her salmon the way she wants it. You go back there and tell him I said that, and if he doesn’t like it, he can just…” Jason, who couldn’t have been more than twenty, faced with the prospect of delivering this message from his irate, temperamental boss to the equally irate and temperamental chef, had a look of terror on his face. Charlie sighed, his anger deflating.
    “Never mind. I’ll deal with Maurice.