Joey appeared from the back office with a clipboard and a pen behind his ear. “A reservation.” He grabbed the pen out from behind his ear and made a note.
“Bernie is at home in a recliner.”
“I’m aware. The reservation is for when he’s not.” He looked up. “I had a situation Tuesday. A woman with a large bag sat in the booth and stayed for forty-five minutes. She ordered one coffee. She did not tip. I can’t have that happening on an ongoing basis.”
“You could have asked her to move.”
“There was no system in place to justify the request. Now there is.” He tapped the sign. “Reserved.”
Anna came through with a tray of clean cups and stopped when she saw the sign. She set the tray on the counter and picked up the card.
“He’s been gone a while,” she said, reading it.
Margo raised her eyebrows. “And Joey made him a reservation.”
“It’s precautionary.” Joey straightened the plastic stand where Anna had lifted the card from. “His spot has a specific function in this restaurant. Bernie will return and when he does it will be in the condition he left it.”
Anna put the card back in the stand. “The salt shaker’s been moved,” Margo said.
Joey’s head turned. “What?”
“Half an inch to the left.”
Joey crossed the dining room in four steps. He examined it like he was defusing something. Moved it half an inch to the right. Stepped back. Moved it a quarter inch further.
“The woman with the bag,” he said.
“Probably.”
“This is why we have systems.”
Anna was behind the counter pressing her lips together, stacking the cups from the tray she’d brought through.
“Don’t,” Margo said.
“I’m not laughing.” Anna set a cup on the shelf without looking at Margo.
“You are.”
“He measured the pepper shaker yesterday with a ruler he brought from home.” She set another cup on the shelf.
Margo sighed. “I saw the ruler.”
“And he has a backup ruler.”
“Of course he does.”
The lunch rush came at eleven-fifteen, the grill hissing and the smell of melted cheese filling the kitchen. Margo workedthe grill. Anna worked the floor. Joey worked the pass with the clipboard he’d been carrying all week, which now had a column labeled BOOTH STATUS that he updated every thirty minutes.
The room worked, except it didn’t, quite. It was the same number of tables, the same menu, the same light through the front windows. But the quiet in the corner had a weight to it Margo hadn’t expected.
She caught herself looking at it during a lull. Just her eyes going there—the clock, the door, the ocean, and now the corner.
A man she didn’t know came in at twelve-thirty and started toward the booth.
“That one’s taken,” Anna said, intercepting him with a menu and steering him toward table six. “This one has a better view of the ocean.”
The man sat at table six. He did not look convinced about the ocean view.
