Theo’s stomach heaved. The idea of eating a piece of bread plastered with hot, melted cheese at ten in the morning didn’t sit right with him. But he didn’t want to say no to Nellie.
As they waited, Nellie pulled out a little notebook and wrote down her ideas for her menu. He could hardly read her handwriting, but when he twitched to try to see more, to try to get a handle on what she was thinking, she hid her book against her chest and smiled.
“Sorry,” Theo said, drawing himself away from her. “I didn’t mean to read your secrets.”
Nellie laughed, but it was a sort of sinister laugh. “I think I’m a little in my head. I’ll try to just, I don’t know, enjoy myself?” She put the little book away, but she seemed to regret it immediately. She tapped her thighs with the tips of her fingers. “How was your drive?”
“It was good. I listened to an audiobook,” Theo said.
Nellie wrinkled her nose. “Do you call that reading?”
Theo was caught off guard. “I still read. I mean, I read when I have time?” But the truth was, with his demanding schedule at The Dockside, he often struggled to sit down with his physical books. He adjusted his sunglasses, hoping that Nellie would at least ask him about the audiobook. He loved the slightly creepy story with a historical element that surprised him.
But Nellie was talking about how reading was a commitment you had to make to yourself. “I always wake up at five in the morning to go running, read thirty pages, and get ready for my day at the restaurant,” Nellie declared.
“Wow.” Theo ached to be sarcastic with her, to ask her something like, “Have they contacted you about your award yet?” He smiled.
Maybe it would be good for him to date such a go-getter. Maybe she would rub off on him!
They reached the front of the line, where they ordered two raclettes, and Nellie asked the chef behind the counter how long he’d been in business. The chef was maybe in his late twenties, with a thick head of hair that—Theo guessed—would recede once the stresses of cooking caught up to him.
“I started working in restaurants in Boston after I graduated from culinary school,” the chef said as he spread cheese over their bread. “But it wasn’t for me. Too stressful. I always wanted to be my own boss.”
Theo felt as though he were talking to a previous version of himself. Rather than tell the chef to “lower his expectations for his life,” Theo asked him if raclette was all he specialized in.
“For now,” the chef said. “But I have plans to widen my reach. Melted cheese is only the beginning.”
“A great start,” Theo said, his smile false and his nostrils filled with the smell of stinky melted cheese.
“Good luck to you,” Nellie said, taking their plates while Theo paid.
Theo and Nellie walked to a nearby picnic table, where they sat, tasted their raclette, and people-watched. Theo felt as though his throat was a big knot. As Nellie chewed and swallowed and was unable to resist making additional notes to herself in her notebook, Theo thought back to his early days behind a market stall similar to the chef’s. He’d been idealistic then. He couldn’t have known.
“Did you have a market stall like that?” Theo asked.
Nellie raised her chin and blinked at him. “What? No. I started in restaurants. I would never dream of backsliding into market stalls. Didn’t I tell you that back in October?”
Theo couldn’t remember much of what they’d discussed back then. That night, there’d been so much food and wine and laughter. After a mutual chef friend had introduced them, there’d been a bubbling expectation between Nellie and Theo. He remembered thinking that he and Nellie had so much in common, that maybe, sometime down the line, they could merge their knowledge of restaurants, hire other people to manage the restaurants they now owned, and move somewhere warm—like Florida? —to open still more restaurants.
“Did you have a stall like that?” Nellie asked, frowning.
Theo nodded. “After I got out of high school, I went to culinary school, but I was up to my ears in debt. My dream of opening a restaurant down the line seemed silly or useless. I had no capital to get started, and the bank wouldn’t dream of offering me a loan.”
“Why didn’t you ask your parents?” Nellie asked, her lips glistening with oil from the melted cheese.
Theo wasn’t willing to get into the backstory of his parents, of why he wouldn’t have imagined asking for their help. He never told anyone about them on a first date, certainly. And he hardly dated anyone long enough to dig deep into the secrets of himself.
“They couldn’t help,” Theo said flatly.
“But they could have, like, co-signed a loan?” Nellie pushed it, raising her eyebrows.
Theo’s stomach churned with a mix of resentment and too much cheese. Why did Nellie think she could tell him now what he should have done nearly twenty years ago? Was she that much of a control freak? Why hadn’t Theo sensed this about her during their six months of correspondence? Why hadn’t he felt it during their one night of drinking and laughter six months ago?
“I started a stall at the market to make ends meet,” Theo said, ignoring her prying eyes. “Just looking at that guy with his melted cheese and bread makes me nostalgic. I was so sure that opening my own restaurant would get rid of all my problems. All I had to do was save enough to rent out a place in Bluebell Cove and create a name for myself in a community that had known me since I was a little kid. All I had were my dreams.”
“I guess it worked out for you,” Nellie said.
Theo bent his head and wiped his hands on his napkin. Before them was a bustling market, filled with friendly families, mothers and fathers carrying babies, and teenagers grabbing sweet breakfast treats on their way to their friends’ places. Neither he nor Nellie was from here, but it felt so much like Bluebell Cove, a community of friendly and fun-loving people that he would always love despite everything that had happened there.
