Love in a Nutshell

TWO

By the time Friday’s lunch rush hit full swing, Kate knew too well what Hobart was. Instead of being paired with an unfortunately named coworker, she stood in front of Depot Brewing’s noisy, sloppy, and steamy commercial dishwashing machine. Hobart had been named for its maker. It had a four-foot-long stainless-steel prep counter running at a right angle to its boxy entry and a staging area for clean racks of dishes at the exit. The machine waands bulkier than her Jeep. More demanding, too.

“Hot!” called one of the line cooks as he dropped a dirty skillet onto the end of the prep area.

“Thanks,” she replied from her side of the counter, but he had already hustled back to his station.

Every inch of the white tile-walled kitchen had been designed for food production, and the staff worked it to the max. Elbow-to-elbow, the three line cooks held their territories in front of the stove, grill, and fryer. Servers darted in to pick up orders, the barback hauled glassware, and pretty much everyone brought Kate more work. Her job was to clear the food debris and paper trash from the gray plastic bus tubs delivered to her. Then she had to rack all the dirty ware, send it into Hobart, and circulate the clean stuff back out for use.

“You’ve never done this before, have you?” a male voice asked.

She glanced up from her duties to see Steve, one of the servers, watching her. Tall and slender, with a dark tan and blond highlights in his hair, he looked like a surfer dude.

“Nope,” she said.

“Definite bummer, but you’re gonna have to speed up. We’re almost eighty-six on forks.”

“Eighty-six?”

“Out of.”

“Gotcha,” Kate said, moving a silverware rack into the cleaning line.

Jerry, who was currently MIA, had demonstrated the job to her well enough. In fact, it had seemed easy before crunch time came. But Jerry must have left something out of his instructions, because this just wasn’t working out the way it should. In the battle of woman versus machine, the machine was kicking her butt.

“Do you have any tips on how I can go faster?” she asked Steve.

Steve’s mouth widened into a goofy smile. “Nothing much I can say right now.”

Something was up. Something no one had shared with her. Not that she could do much about it, other than feed more dishes through Hobart. Without thinking, she used her arm to wipe sweat from her forehead, forgetting that hot sauce and ketchup were smeared on that particular arm.

“Careful, there. You don’t want it to end up in your eyes,” Laila, the most senior of Depot Brewing’s servers, said as she made room for another tub of dishes. The silver-haired woman pulled a clean napkin from her server’s apron, and handed it to Kate.

Kate wiped her forehead. “Thanks.”

“I’ve been in this business a lot of years,” Laila said. “Worked most everyplace in town, too.”

Kate nodded. She’d seen Laila’s plump and smiling face in an old staff photo behind the bar at Bagger’s, right next to Harley Bagger’s vintage lighter fy”age ligcollection.

Laila adjusted her apron and patted Kate on the shoulder. “Over the years, I’ve collected some nuggets of wisdom, and I’d like to share three with you.”

Kate brightened, despite the fact she probably still looked like an accident victim. “Really? What?”

“First, don’t go anywhere with empty hands. There’s always something that needs tending.”

“Okay.”

“Second, comfortable shoes are a must.”

Kate looked down at her food-speckled, white leather sneakers. “Got that covered. What’s the third?”

Laila grinned. “How about we let you stew on that until you get caught up?”

Yup, Kate smelled something, and it wasn’t just the hot sauce she’d been wearing. The scent was that of a rookie dishwasher being roasted. But she could appreciate a little gamesmanship as much as the next girl. And when inspired, she could engage in some, too.

THE CLOCK on the wall opposite Kate inched its way to three P.M., one hour before her quitting time. The kitchen’s rhythm had slowed from its earlier frantic beat to a busy yet congenial hum. The line cooks cracked jokes and laughed with one another. The servers took brief breaks, chugging soft drinks and counting their tip money. And Kate finally caught up.

“Awesome job! I can see the counter,” Steve said as he approached with a heavy load of dirty dishes.

“But not for long,” Kate replied. “Where was this stuff hiding?”

“Hiding?” He set down the bus tub. “Dude, it wasn’t hiding.”

Just like Steve wasn’t hiding another goofy grin. Now, at least, she knew what was up.

“No biggie,” she said. “I’m game. Bring it on.”

And he did. Two more tubs soon joined the first.

“Is that the end of it?” she asked.

“Dunno. There might be more,” Steve said before ambling off.

“How’s it going?” Laila asked when she arrived with yet another stack of dishes a couple of minutes later.

Kate gestured at the mess. “Could be better. I’m not sure I get the rhythm of this place.”

“And that, my new friend, is where the third nugget of wisdom comes in.”

“Which is?”

The older woman smiled as she added her contribution to the mess. “Ask Steve once you’ve caught up.”

Another dishwasher might have whimpered, but not Kate. She was made of sterner stuff. Craftier stuff, too. After feeding another couple racks into Hobart, she took a quick glance around the kitchen. The servers and the cooks were all out front, too wrapped up in their current conversations to be paying attention to her. She quickly stowed the three remaining unwashed tubs on the floor, in the open area beneath Hobart’s exit ramp.

She’d barely had time to hide her grin, too, when Steve arrived with another load. He did a double take at the clean counter.

“Wow! Did you really get through all those dishes, Tink?”

“Tink?”

“Short for Tinkerbell. You made that stuff disappear like magic.”

Tink wasn’t the sort of nickname she wanted to encourage, but she’d have to deal with that later.

“Just doing my job,” she said, knowing that his view of the dirty tubs was blocked. “And Laila said you’d share her third restaurant hint with me as soon as I was caught up. So how about it?”

“No can do,” he said with a nod to the dishes he’d just delivered.

She’d been expecting this.

Kate gave Steve her best smile. “You know, that’s one awesome-looking orange-and-white VW van with all the old surf shop stickers out in the employee parking area. It’s yours, right?”

“Down to her tires,” he answered with obvious pride.

“I thought so!”

“Betty’s the real deal. I found her in a junkyard when I was seventeen, and…” His brows drew together. “Hey, why are we talking about her right now?”

“Steve, order up!” one of the line cooks called.

“In a second,” he answered without looking away from Kate.

“Now, before it’s cold!” the cook bellowed.

“Betty looks like you keep her nice and neat,” Kate said.

“I do.”

“Then you’d probably be real sad if all these dirty dishes ended up in her, wouldn’t you?”

His tan seemed to fade. “No way. You wouldn’t.”

If her mascara hadn’t already been sweated off, she would have batted her eyelashes. “I might.”

“Yo, Steve!” the cook shouted. “ND; d. ow!”

Steve briefly looked his way. “Yeah, just hang on, would you?”

“Sounds like you’re pretty busy,” Kate said. “I, on the other hand, have plenty of time to go out to the parking lot and bring Betty a little gift. Or you can tell me Laila’s third nugget of wisdom.”

The cook had started hissing something unintelligible in the secret language of angry fry cooks.

Steve winced at the sound.

“So what’s it going to be?” Kate asked.

Steve hesitated for just a second, appraising Kate with a friendly stare. “You’re tougher than you look, Tink.”

It was nice to hear. For so many years, Richard had told her that she wasn’t tough. Her moving to Keene’s Harbor and her nutty plan to turn a broken-down family vacation spot into a B &B was all about showing that she could survive-and more than that, succeed-without anyone’s help. She had something to prove to herself and the world before she was ever going to let a man back into her life.

“Thanks, Steve,” Kate said.

Over at the grill, the cook seemed to be speaking in tongues.

“You might want to hurry this along,” Kate said.

Just then Jerry strolled into the kitchen from the taproom area. Unlike Kate, he looked well rested and free of food stains. “Sounds like you have an order up, Steve,” he said.

Steve bolted for his food, glancing back over his shoulder at Kate and Jerry. “Understatement.”

Jerry toured the dishwashing area, then gave Kate a crooked grin. “Looks like you have a couple of stragglers. Are they there for a reason?”

“Persuasion for Steve.”

He laughed. “So I’ve heard. I’ve been getting Hobart updates out in the taproom. Those dishes you’ve hidden have been doing double-duty today.”

“What do you mean?”

“Yesterday, you rushed by me. Today, I kept you rushing.” He hitched a thumb at the bus tub still on the prep counter. “Servers are supposed to clear the trash before dumping everything else in the tub. I figured for today, that job should be shifted to you.” He paused, smiling. “See, Laila’s final nugget of wisdom is do unto Jerry as you would have done unto you.”

Kate laughed. “Golden, all the way.”

Now she got the rhythm of Depot Brewing, and she had a feeling she was going to fit right in, too.

EA”jufy”› afternoon, Matt stood in the parking lot of his latest purchase, a decrepit Traverse City motel called the Tropicana Motor Inn. Next to him stood Ginger Monroe, his local office manager.

“A flamingo mural? Are you sure about this place?” Ginger asked, flipping her aviator sunglasses from the top of her bright red head down to her elegant nose as she surveyed the motel’s front wall.

“If I weren’t, I wouldn’t have bought it.”

“I can’t believe I never noticed the painting before. Those birds are wrong in every possible way.”

Matt didn’t respond. So far as he was concerned, a glam-looking twenty-five-year-old who had a burning love for 1950s fashion and B movies shouldn’t freak out over flamingos. Those quirky birds and she were kindred spirits.

“Their beady eyes are following me,” she said.

“Then look away.”

“I can’t. Trying to avoid looking at this place is like turning away from a train wreck. I don’t know what you’re thinking.”

He grinned. “That’s half the fun of working for me, isn’t it? And I’m working on building a sister restaurant on the lake in Keene’s Harbor. If you think this motel’s going to be work, you should see that place.”

Ginger laughed. “All the same, how about if I just wait for you at the truck? And much as you might want to stand here all morning admiring your buddies, remember you have a meeting back at the office in ten minutes.”

“Don’t let Ginger hurt your feelings,” he told the fading birds after she’d walked away.

In truth, the flamingos were his buddies. They amused him as much now as they had when he’d been a kid and his parents would bring the family here on vacation. With five kids to clothe and feed, and a business that had never exactly cranked out money, the relatively cosmopolitan atmosphere of even sleepy Traverse City, and the Tropicana Motor Inn, had been a treat. His mom said the mural made her feel as though they were in the Caribbean instead of on Grand Traverse Bay.

Ginger was dead-on about the train wreck part, though. The city had grown in popularity and wealth, but the Tropicana hadn’t been so lucky. The former owners had moved to Florida five years ago, believing they could sell waterfront land to a developer in a heartbeat. Not so. The real estate market had gone south directly after them.

Matt had kept an eye on the languishing property while he’d worked to find the cash to cut a deal. Earlier this year, he’d played with the numbers and figured out how to both retain the motel’s character and make it work. Last week, he’d finally been approved for a resort liquor license. After renovations and the addition of a restaurant, this place would be a gold mine during tourist season. As would the property in Keene’s Harbor he planned to renovate.

Matt was all about envisioniiveut enving. While he’d negotiated this deal, he’d imagined himself kicked back on the new restaurant’s terrace, saluting his bird buddies with an ice-cold beer. Weird, though. Right now, as he pictured it, a small and curvy blonde named Kate had planted herself in the middle of the vision. He’d had a lot of daydreams about the brewery over the years, but they’d always been his daydreams. Just him and the brewery. He kind of liked having Kate there.

After checking his watch, Matt headed back toward the truck. The last thing he wanted was to be late for a meeting with Travis Holby. Like Ginger and the Tropicana flamingos, Travis was an original. A sometimes cranky original. He was also a prodigy of a master beer brewer and key to restoring this motel. For that, Matt would deal with the guy’s quirks.

NINE MINUTES later, Matt pulled up to the office building housing his third-floor walk-up office space on Traverse City’s Front Street. It was small but had a great view over Grand Traverse Bay, the long natural harbor separating Lake Michigan from the town. The largest city in the area, Traverse City was a grown-up version of Keene’s Harbor, with a sleepy population of 15,000 in the off-season, swelling to the breaking point with tourists and summer people in July and August.

Travis had made himself comfortable in Matt’s office, taking up residence in the reception area from the seat behind Ginger’s desk. “You’re late, Culhane.”

Matt fought back a smile. You had to admire the kid’s style. “Last I checked, this was my office. So I’m not late. You’re early.”

Travis gave Matt a flat stare that usually came from the kind of man who had teardrops tattooed at the corner of his eye. And while twenty-something Travis was missing that particular mark, he did have his share of tats and piercings, including a gauged ear that made Matt wince every time he looked at it. The younger man was both wiry and wary, like a cage fighter. Sometimes he had the combative attitude of one, too.

Ginger entered the office on Matt’s heels. “He’s not late. And I’m betting you got here early just to snoop around.”

Travis did his best to look indignant. “I’m not snooping.”

Ginger cut her eyes first to Travis and then to Matt. “I really should start locking the door.”

“You did,” Holby said. “I just didn’t feel like waiting in the hallway.”

Matt glanced back at the door. No visible signs of damage. The guy was good.

Travis smiled proudly. “Don’t worry, I’ve been keeping myself amused.”

And there was plenty of stuff filling the office for Travis to amuse himself. Matt had to admit that he’d been kind of annoyed when Ginger had stuck a television and a mini-fridge in the outer office. He’d kept his mouth shut, though. She worked here forty hours a week, managing his books, taxes, and investments. He spingments. ent most of his time at the brewery, so if he made it up to T.C. three times a month, that was a lot.

Travis picked up a bag of potato chips from Ginger’s desk and popped one into his mouth.

“Those were in the drawer,” Ginger said.

He popped another potato chip, daring her to complain. “Jalapeño. Spicy, just like you.”

Matt had no idea what was going on between Holby and his office manager, but this clearly was not the first time they’d met.

Matt inclined his head toward the closed door to his private space. “Do you want to head into my office?”

“When I’ve got football on the TV and your amber ale chilling in that fridge? Hell, no.”

Matt looked over at Ginger. “Why don’t you head on home? I’ll catch up with you on Monday.”

“Okay.” She shot Travis another glare. “Not a single crumb or you’re a dead man.”

“Sorry about that,” Matt said after Ginger had left. “She’s not usually so-”

“Locked and loaded?” Travis said. “Don’t worry about it. Actually, I’m surprised she didn’t body slam me.”

Matt dragged over one of the guest chairs so he was seated next to Travis. “I take it you know her?”

“Used to date her. She dumped me for cause.”

Matt didn’t especially want to know the cause. He was sure he’d either done it or had it done to him at one point or another.

“Thanks for coming into town and seeing me.”

“No point having you drive all the way out to Horned Owl.”

Which was part of Travis’s problem. He’d sunk a ton of money into a brewery and taproom so far off the beaten path that visitors needed to drop a trail of bread crumbs in order to find their way back to the highway.

Matt stood, got two ambers from the fridge, and handed one to the younger man before sitting. Travis opened the top-right desk drawer and pulled out a bottle opener.

“You’ve got this place scoped out, haven’t you?” Matt asked.

The brewer opened his beer with a well-practiced motion. “It’s good to know what weapons a woman can use against you.”

Matt’s thoughts traveled the road south, back to Keene’s Harbor and Kate Appleton. Weapons like wide hazel eyes and a mouth made to linger over? Oh, yeah. That was good stuff to know.

Travis waggled the opener in front of Matt’s nose. “You coming bt hYou comack from wherever you are?”

Unfortunately, yes. He took the opener and dispatched his beer cap.

“I’ve learned there’s no good way to start a conversation like this, so I’m just going to put it out there,” Matt said. “Word is, you’re having cash-flow problems.”

Travis took a long pull on his beer. “Bull. Where’d you hear that?”

Matt shrugged. “You know how it goes. There aren’t that many of us in the business, relatively speaking, and we’ve all got bar gossip down. They were just a couple of passing comments, but enough that I wanted to talk to you.”

Silent and clearly torn between anger and embarrassment, Travis turned his attention to the television. Matt did the same.

After the Spartans completed a fourth-down conversion that was a work of art, Travis asked, “If I do have a cash crunch, why would you care?”

“A few reasons. First, I like your product. And you remind me of me, ten years ago. You’ve got all the enthusiasm of a homebrewer and, unfortunately, all the business skills of one, too. But I think, given some time, you’re gonna kick ass.”

“If I’m so hot, why didn’t you hire me as a brewer when I came to you four years ago?”

“You and Bart working together?” he asked, referring to his brewmaster. “One or both of you would have been dead inside a month.”

Bart was one of Matt’s closest friends, and also the only guy out there who could consistently kick Matt’s butt at poker. Bart’s competitive streak didn’t stop at cards, either. When it came to beer, he was as determined to remain top dog as Travis was to attain that status.

Travis scratched the spider tattoo on the side of his neck. “Suppose I was having money troubles, just what is it you’re proposing?”

“A loan and a leg up,” Matt said. “There’s a niche market I think you can fill. And I also think you can help me. You have both the skills and the edgy attitude for a project I’m working on.”

Travis shook his head. “So you think I’m good, but not good enough to make it big?”

“Not yet.”

“You pulled it off.”

“Yeah, but I also screwed up plenty along the way. Why not ride along on a little of what I’ve learned, like how you’re killing yourself by changing up recipes so often? It’s like you’ve got beer ADD.”

“So what? I like creating.”

“You probably also like keeping the lights on and heat running in your brewhouse, too.”

“Yeah.”

“Winter is coming. Business might be so-so at best for you right now, but in another month, no one is going to follow that donkey trail out to your place. What then?”

“I’ll deal with that when I get there,” Travis said.

“Wrong. Too late then. You always have to have a plan.”

“I can think on my feet. It’s all good.”

“You can also fall on your ass. Out of curiosity, how much do you need to get through the winter?”

Travis took a swig of his beer, clearly considering the matter. “Thirty grand.”

Yeah, the guy had major cojones. “Okay, how much do you need if you don’t spend February in Mexico or whatever you’ve factored in there?”

“Twelve to fifteen grand, assuming prices stay stable,” he said. “I don’t suppose Ginger has that much cash hidden in a secret compartment in her desk?”

“No, but for the right terms, I can scrape it up.”

“So, deal.”

“Any money I lend you is going to come with an interest rate of five points above prime. And no complaining about the rate, because it’s more than fair. It’s a gift. If you’re at the point I was when starting out, your equipment is leveraged to the hilt and you have no other assets.”

“Close,” Travis admitted. “I’ve got my car and my house, both of which are mortgaged.”

“Okay, then. For any outstanding loan, you pay me interest only for twenty-four months, with the balance due at the end of that time. I don’t cut into your cash flow with principal payments, and in exchange, I get the exclusive right to feature your beers in a restaurant here in Traverse City. You can sell by bottle in markets, but I’m it otherwise.”

Travis’s pierced eyebrow met his unpierced one. “Small point, but you don’t have a restaurant here. Best I can tell, you’ve got nothing north of Keene’s Harbor.”

No shock that Travis wasn’t aware of Matt’s activities. Under the radar was generally his style. Exactly four people on the planet knew about his Tropicana buy, and that he was already corporate angel to another struggling brewpub in this city’s warehouse district: Bart, Ginger, his lawyer, and his accountant. And Matt trusted all of them not to spread news until he was ready to have it spread. What Matt did outside of Depot Brewing was his business and his way of stepping out from under the microscope that could be Keene’s Harbor.

“I’ll have a place for your beer by next Memorial Day,” he said to Travis. Assuming spring actually arrived in April and he could get the footings dug. That was a dicey proposition near the tip of Michigan’s mitten.

“What happens if I can’t pay you back?”

“I’m not through with the conditions yet. You also have to agree to have Bart come up and do a one-week consult with you on your recipes. They’re original, for sure, but rough yet.”

Travis pushed out of his chair. “No way am I consulting with that jerk.”

Matt fought to hide his grin. His reaction would have been the same, back when. “Huh. And yet you wanted to work for him.”

“I was desperate.”

Matt didn’t reply. Travis would do the math and see he was desperate now. To point that out would cut into the guy’s spirit, and Matt liked that spirit, warped as it was.

Travis stalked over to the television set, blocking Matt’s view. No problem. Travis could contemplate wherever he wanted. He drew down his beer and thought about taking the rest of the jalapeño chips. Except, as he recalled, Ginger also usually had some locally made sourdough pretzels in her stash. He leaned over and reached into the appropriate drawer.

Travis swung around and faced Matt when he was halfway through his second pretzel twist.

“For fifteen grand upfront, I can kiss up to Bart,” Travis said.

“Twelve grand.”

While Matt was fair, he wasn’t into giving away money. “And just so you know the final deal points, before you get dime one, you need a business plan. A real one on paper and with financial projections that I have approved. And if you default any principal payment, I get a controlling interest in Horned Owl Brewery.”

Travis went slack-jawed. “So if twelve grand is all you end up lending me, you think that should entitle you to run my life?”

“If you can’t pay me back, maybe you need someone to run your life for a while. And at least I’m giving you a fair shot at making it.”

“The last four years of my life are worth more than twelve grand.”

“I can’t deny that,” Matt said. “But that’s the price of a start-up. Hell, I did the math on what I was earning per hour after my first year and almost crawled under my bed. It was depressing and unfair. But you have to look at it from my side now. If Horned Owl fails-and I don’t think it will-all that money buys me is some recipes, beer names, and label art.”

“So why are you doing it?”

Travis still looked skeptical, and Matt didn’t blame him. This was a big step.

“There’s no scam here and no motive other than to get your beer out there for people to find,” Matt said. “I’m going to have a place for that soon, and you are straight-up the best brewer for the spot. And like I said, you remipayid, yound me of me.” Minus the tattoos, the piercings, and the attitude. Okay, add back in the attitude. Ten years ago, Matt had been happy to brawl for the sake of brawling, just as Travis was.

Matt gave the idea a final push. “Tell you what, think about it for the rest of the weekend, and if you’re interested, give me a call on Monday. I can have my lawyer draw up the paperwork for you to take a look at. For now, let’s catch the end of the game.”

Travis settled in, and both men drained the last of their Rail Rider ambers. Matt had done all he could. If Travis Holby was the man Matt estimated him to be, he’d take this deal even if it chafed his pride, and he’d also pay back the money as agreed.

“No need to wait until Monday,” Travis eventually said. “Let’s do it.”

“Okay,” Matt replied.

Though he’d kept up a mellow front for Travis, Matt was feeling damn good. Someone had once bailed him out, and now he got to pass along the favor and make a few bucks in the bargain.