“I was going to say you did good today.”
“I destroyed ten eggs and burned the scrambled ones and there’s egg on the ceiling.”
“And then you figured it out.” Stella hopped down from the counter and picked up the plate with the last poached egg on it—the best one, the one she’d photographed. “You committed to something and you didn’t quit. Even when it was bad. Evenwhen I told you to make toast.” She held the plate up. “A-plus parenting, by the way. Terrible cooking. But the parenting part was solid.
Tyler looked at the egg. At his daughter. At the kitchen that still smelled like vinegar and was going to smell like breakfast in twelve hours.
“What if nobody comes?” he said.
“People will come. Joey’s muffins alone will bring people. And your eggs are good, Dad. They’re actually good.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
“When have I ever just said something?”
Fair point. Stella didn’t give compliments she didn’t mean. She was constitutionally incapable of false encouragement. If the eggs had been terrible, she would have told him the eggs were terrible and suggested toast again.
“Six-thirty,” he said.
“I’ll set an alarm.” She headed for her room, then turned back. “For the record, I think this might actually work.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let it go to your head. You still burned the scrambled eggs.”
“Goodnight, Stella.”
“Goodnight, Dad.”
Her door closed. Tyler stood in the kitchen and looked at the counter — crumbs from Joey’s muffins, lemon rinds from Meg’s hollandaise, the plate of fruit Anna had arranged, the egg still sitting there like proof that impossible things were occasionally possible.
He cleaned the counter, washed the dishes, and set his alarm for five-thirty.
Tomorrow. Breakfast. One egg at a time.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The first customer walked in at seven-twelve.
Anna had been standing behind the counter since six, apron tied, coffee made, grill heating, and she’d spent the last forty minutes convinced that nobody was coming. Tyler was at the breakfast station—a section of counter he’d claimed with a cutting board, a pot of simmering water, and a stack of english muffins he kept rearranging. Joey’s muffins sat in a basket near the register, golden and perfect and smelling like lemon and blueberry and someone who had been baking since four in the morning. Meg’s hollandaise waited in a small pot on the back burner, covered with a towel and a Post-it note that read: WARM. NOT HOT. DO NOT TOUCH THIS, TYLER.
Michael had arrived at six, as promised. He’d taken a stool at the end of the counter with his notebook and a black coffee and hadn’t said a word since. Just watching. Pen out, not writing yet. Waiting for data.
Dante stood near the door looking like he’d been summoned to a job he hadn’t applied for, which was partly true—Joey had texted him at five AM with the words “expanded hours, all hands, bring your apron, this is not optional.” Dante had brought his apron. He had not brought confidence.
The customer was a jogger. Grey sweatshirt, ponytail, running shoes still sandy from the boardwalk. She looked at the menu board, looked at Tyler behind the counter, looked at the muffin basket.
“Are you open?” she asked.
“We are,” Anna said, and her voice came out steadier than she expected. “Breakfast menu’s on the board. Coffee’s ready.”
The jogger ordered a muffin and a coffee. Dante fumbled the register—the morning configuration was different from the afternoon setup and Joey’s laminated instructions were taped to the side but Dante kept reading them upside down. Anna reached past him and pressed the right buttons.
“You’ll get it,” she said.
“Joey’s going to ask me how it went.”
“Tell him it went fine.”
