Christmas Recipe for Romance novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Diner Door

Hattie asks the only man with an eight-burner range, the diner's returning grandson Abel, for a kitchen, and he says no until his grandfather speaks from the stairs.

At seven the next morning, I sat on the step of Cushman's Diner with a box of cinnamon rolls and a plan.

The plan was short.

Cooking for two hundred people takes eight burners, two ovens and a walk-in.

The only place in Alder Falls with all three that Barton did not own was this one.

The sign in the window said CLOSED, and under it, in marker, SOLD.

I knocked anyway.

The door opened on a chain, and a very large man looked down at me through the gap.

He had a shaved head and a trimmed beard with salt in it.

His flannel shirt had lost an argument with a lot of grease.

"We're closed," he said.

"I know. I brought rolls."

"Why?"

"Bribery," I said. "It's the only form of persuasion I'm any good at."

He considered the box, and then me.

"You're Hattie Doyle," he said.

"Yes."

"Third grade. The county fair. You beat my pie."

I blinked.

"Abel Cushman," I said slowly. "Sixth grade. You cried."

"I did not cry. I had an allergy to losing."

"It was an apple pie, Abel. It was not close."

"The judge was your grandmother's friend."

"The judge was blind in one eye, and she still picked mine."

The chain came off the door.

I will admit I liked him a little for the way he did it, slowly.

Inside, the diner smelled of old coffee and pine cleaner and a griddle that had been seasoned for fifty-five years.

Half the booths were stacked with boxes, and the menu boards were stacked against the counter with the prices still showing.

A pie case stood empty by the register, and somebody had left a single fork in it.

He took the box from me and set it on the counter without opening it.

"I heard you at the tree lighting," he said.

"Everyone heard me at the tree lighting."

"My grandfather watched it on the town page three times."

"Did he like it?"

"He said nothing. He does that." He folded his arms. "What do you want?"

"Your kitchen."

He laughed, one short breath through his nose.

"Nights," I said. "Nine to five in the morning, from now until the twenty-fourth."

"I'll clean up after myself, and I'll leave the range cleaner than I found it."

"No."

"You haven't heard the offer."

"Is there an offer?"

"There will be," I said. "I'm working on it."

I walked past him through the swinging door, because the best way to ask a man for his kitchen is to stand in it.

It was perfect.

The range was a black Garland with eight burners, and the two ovens had steel doors the size of a church's.

The pot rack hung heavy and honest above the pass, and the walk-in hummed in the corner.

Every inch of it was scrubbed.

"Eight burners," I said, to nobody. "Two ovens. A proof box."

"A proof box that doesn't hold temp," Abel said behind me.

"And a range that's been lit every day since 1971, so if you're thinking of anything fragile, don't."

"I'm thinking of two hundred dinners."

"I'm thinking of a closing on the twenty-second."

"Whose?"

"Pinecrest's," he said.

I turned around.

He didn't look away.

"The buyer who sponsors my uncle's ticket scheme," I said, "is buying your family's diner."

"It's a lodge. They want the lot." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I didn't know about your uncle until last night."

"Does that change your mind?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I have a grandfather with a hip that cost more than my car," he said.

"And a restaurant in Chicago that closed on me in October, and a closing date that won't move because you gave a good speech."

It was the most words he had said in a row, and none of them were unkind.

I looked at the pass window and the two clean ticket rails.

The long steel counter had been worked on by somebody every Christmas Eve for most of a century.

"Can I at least tell you what I'm making?" I said.

"No."

"Turkey. Gravy. Gingerbread. Relish. And eight things I don't know how to make."

For one second his face did something, a small flinch, as if I had touched a bruise.

Then it was gone.

"Eight things you don't know how to make," he said.

"I'll figure them out."

"That's a bold plan."

"It's the only one I have."

He opened his mouth to say no again, and I saw it coming.

"Give her the back burners."

The voice came from the stairs by the dish pit.

It was dry and cracked and not loud, and it stopped both of us cold.

At the top of the narrow staircase stood a very old man in a cardigan.

One hand gripped a walker with yellow tennis balls on its feet.

His white hair stood up like dandelion fluff, and his eyes went straight to me.

Abel went white under his beard.

"Grandpa," he said. "You haven't said ten words since the hip."

Ansel Cushman didn't answer him.

He looked at me for a long moment, and then he said it again, slower.

"Give. Her. The back burners."

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