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

Charlie.”
    “So you’re from Texas, are you?” he asked suspiciously. “Where’s your accent?”
    “Don’t have one. I was born in Wisconsin and moved to Texas as an adult.”
    “Oh, that’s too bad,” he said, smiling slightly, the hint of a twinkle returning to his eye. “Nothing like an accent to charm the customers.”
    Just then, a waitress, the same young woman I remembered from my previous visit, approached carrying two steaming plates.
    “Thank you, Gina. You can put them right there.” Charlie nodded his head in my direction. The waitress put both plates down on the table and left to tend to other customers.
    The platters were loaded with a dozen different miniature entrées and appetizers, all beautifully presented. There was a piece of fish cut into a diamond shape, with golden grill marks crisscrossing the tender white flesh swimming in a brilliant green sauce, a miniature crab cake sitting on top of a single leaf of bright red radicchio, a slice of sizzling steak with a pink center that smelled of ginger and garlic and spices I couldn’t name, and several other dishes, including a small duck leg placed artfully on top of a mound of ruby-colored chutney—the confit that made food critics cry.
    “I didn’t order all this,” I said helplessly.
    “No, of course you didn’t. I did. Some of those things aren’t even on the menu.”
    “It looks delicious, but this…Well, it’s too much. I’ll never be able to finish it all. At least sit down and help me eat some of it.”
    Charlie frowned and shook his head. “Can’t do that. I’ve got a restaurant to run. Every table is full. I never sit down to eat until at least nine o’clock, after the rush is over.”
    “But I…” I really didn’t know what to say. The food smelled delicious, and I was starving, but the Grill was not an inexpensive place and I was worried about how I’d pay for all this.
    “Try it,” Charlie said. Clearly, he was not going to budge until I’d tasted the food. “The confit first. Make sure you eat it with the chutney. It’s delicious. My mother’s recipe. Well, go on,” he said impatiently.
    “Charlie…I…Well, it’s just that…a pipe burst at the shop this morning, and it’s going to cost fifteen hundred dollars to fix it, and now I’ll have to delay my opening again. I haven’t had any income for months, just money going out for remodeling and buying stock. I’ve been watching every penny, haven’t even gone to the movies in three months. But today was such an awful day that I decided I just had to have a little treat, but I was only thinking of getting a soda and an appetizer, not all this….”
    I looked up, trying to read his face, hoping for some sign that he understood my predicament, but it was impossible. Embarrassing as it was, I was just going to have to say it. “Charlie, I can’t afford this.”
    Charlie looked at me blankly for a moment. Then one corner of his mouth twitched, and the other followed, and he smiled. “Well, of course you can’t, you silly woman. You’re about to open your own business; you don’t have two nickels to rub together. You think I don’t know that? This is on me, a sort of welcome-to-the-neighborhood dinner. I reckoned I’d better do it while you’re still here, because, as everyone says, you won’t last six months.”
    There was the sound of a woman’s voice, raised and clearly irritated, coming from the back of the restaurant, and Charlie turned.
    “Then again,” he said over his shoulder as he walked off to see what the commotion was, “everyone might be wrong. Eat your duck.”
    I smiled, picked up my knife and fork, cut off a small piece of the bird, and put it into my mouth.
    Charlie was right. Tears came into my eyes. I had made a friend.

7
Abigail Burgess Wynne
     
    J ason, one of the newer waiters at the Grill, finally brought our entrées.
    “Asian shrimp salad for Mr. Spaulding,” he said, putting down the plates, “and the