Savor It

Chapter 8. Fisher

I’m trying to run down a gravel driveway, but the pebbles keep slipping away beneath my feet, sand through an hourglass that’s trying to take me with it. Freya stands by her old car and waves at me, and I’m trying to reach her. I need to warn her not to go. I’m shouting without a voice; no sound will come out. My feet keep scrabbling away at these fucking rocks, but she just keeps getting farther and farther away until I fall, and now the ground is slipping away under my hands, too. And then I notice my parents on the porch, somber and benevolent as always.

“Can’t you get to her?” my mom asks.

“I can’t,” I try to say, but the words never come, only a choked sob.

When I turn back to Freya, she’s gone, and Indy’s there instead, climbing into a Jeep with a scowl. I try again to get my feet under me, to yell, but nothing comes. It’s hopeless, and I’m just uselessly falling farther and farther away. And now there’s—wait, what the fuck—a goose? The thing lets out a honk, and I—

I lurch up from bed, sweat-drenched and panting. I reach up to my face and find tears that I wipe away, slapping at my phone to stifle off the alarm and trying to catch my breath. It’s already light outside, still overcast like it seems to be more often than not here.

Here, in Spunes, Oregon. Where I am stationed for the summer while I try to prove my worth again, to both my niece, my boss… and to myself, too, I guess.

I focus on trying to steady my breathing while I untangle my legs from the sheets, throw on jeans, and go about my morning business. But I can’t seem to shake the jittery, hollow feeling the dream left in me. Without being conscious of doing it, I make my way to the kitchen and start pulling things out of places, putting them back in others. It’s not my home or my restaurant, but I still move the flatware to a drawer that makes more sense to me. I do the same to the knives. I stare into the refrigerator, which might as well be a black hole to another dimension.

I’m a chef that can’t cook, I finally admit to myself. Or doesn’t want to, at least.

I can go through the motions, I can make the things I’ve made a thousand times before.… But I sure as hell can’t think up anything new, and I can’t even seem to force the gears in my mind to turn quickly enough to mix up some of the conventional classics. I keep thinking about what Carlie said to me about a reset and getting back to basics, and I want to, but I don’t think I know how. Doubtlessly I could make Marrow’s stinging nettle agnolotti with white truffle butter and black trumpet mushrooms, but why can’t I remember what Freya’s favorite breakfast was or what Indy’s used to be? I’d been paralyzed at the store yesterday, too. Just remembering the produce staring back at me has my heart racing again and my palms numbing. Everything had felt like it was anthropomorphizing in front of my eyes, mocking me.

The doorbell cuts through the din of my deafening brain, and I seize up more, if possible.

Between the nightmare and—and whatever else this is, I absolutely cannot deal with meeting another new person today. I won’t do it. I refuse. But if I try to escape back to my room, I’ll be discovered through those damn windows. I can’t get to the stairs without passing too many of them to get away with it.

A flicker of gold catches my eye through the window above the sink, and I watch the grass sway slightly in the meadow. The stuff is dense and tall. Not tall enough for me to crouch inconspicuously in, but maybe if I were to lie down, it could hide me?

I don’t give it long, my brain still misfiring and failing to help me get my bearings. I drop low and sneak out the side door like I’m on a SWAT mission. I tiptoe down the side porch, then skulk and weave around the truck. When I make it to the edge of the grass, I crawl underneath the fence slats and don’t turn back.

Tossing humiliation and overstimulation on top of my dark emotional state has just made this all feel like too fucking much. I don’t want to do this song and dance. Or this crawl, I think idly.

I want to find the ability to do my job again—even if this is just the rehearsal for the real thing, I want that chance to get it all back, to identify with that version of myself again. Which means I still need to do this job, however temporary, well enough that I not only prove myself but also might carve out some splinter of self-esteem again.

And fuck, I want to be done with this, whatever this is that episodically sends my blood rushing and my breath thinning over innocuous things these last few years. I want to be done with this never-ending nightmare parade. I want to fix this, and the only way I know how is by finding something to work toward, which I’ve got now with this summer gig. And yet I still can’t figure out where to fucking start.

But instead of pushing myself to remedy this, I’m hiding in a fucking meadow just for a moment of solace. Hiding to avoid talking to another human being.

Jesus. I ran a Michelin-starred kitchen once. I reveled in attention—preened in it, even. What am I doing here?

I put an arm over my closed eyes to add another layer between me and the sun while I try to practice the breathing exercises Dr. Deb assigned me. Rather than settling me, though, my mind takes this opportunity to recall the same bullshit it always does, replaying it without my permission.…

“Has something ever been so good that you wanted to push it away? Maybe you’ve seen a film, read a book, or even had a vacation that was so incredible, you didn’t want it to end. You wanted to hit Pause and stave off the inevitable.” I’d kill for a shred of that fire again.

I once had the most feared food critics in the world fawning over me. I was in the top percentage of a career field that is notoriously hard to succeed in, and I loved every second of it. I craved it—thrived in that environment. It was passion and heat and a constant, wild adrenaline pumping through my veins. The problem is that when I let go of the numb and remind myself to be present, when I try to reach for that old me, all the bad shit manages to sneak in first.

Which, again, is why I’m presently lying supine in a bug-infested field, with scratchy weeds poking me through my shirt, and… something walking toward me? The swish and scrape of grass being stepped on gets louder. There’s nothing I can do at this point but try to come up with an explanation—

The three-legged cat from the other night pops through the blades and appraises me with an impatient look. I wiggle my hand in a dull wave.

“Hi,” I grunt.

I swear the cat sighs at me, his nostrils flaring and his whiskers twitching before he begrudgingly hobbles closer and steps onto my chest, where he proceeds to sink his weight, kneading against my pec with his only front paw.

“Ouch—hey. Shit.” He purrs loudly, claws pressing against me like tiny blades. I try in vain to unlatch him, which only makes him cling harder. I tug again, and I’m certain he draws blood. “I didn’t consent to this!” I say into his furry face. He’s got the nerve to look annoyed to be doing this, his ears pressed back and his eyes narrowed to slits.

“What are you doing to my cat?”

I squint up just as Sage walks into my line of sight, blocking out the sun. A faint glow circles her head like a halo, gray eyes glittering. I’m stunned for the briefest second, and I completely forget about my circumstances, about the misdirected anger I had toward her the other night and my irritation from yesterday. Forget to be embarrassed at all as I stare back at her.

“What am I doing?” I point to her feline friend. “I’m being assaulted. Thank god you’re here to rescue me again.” My voice remains flat and vaguely annoyed even though I mostly mean that last bit. She’s not at fault for any of the chaotic shit that keeps happening. She just keeps showing up for it, it seems.

“Ah, I see,” she says, nodding seriously. “The one-armed felon. He’s notorious around here. He traps all his victims by convincing them to lie down in a field.”

“My attacker has three arms,” I say lamely.

“Of course. Big, sophisticated, worldly man such as yourself couldn’t be brought down by just any old limb-different assailant.”

I slide a palm beneath my head and feel my face smile at that. Something about this pattern of Sage repeatedly finding me in vulnerable positions has cracked me, I think. Her cat stays heedlessly at ease on my chest, like he obliterated any personal space boundary I had left. And whether it’s from the little weight pressing me into the earth or Sage’s bright expression, I can’t help but give in under the ridiculousness of it all, blood returning to my limbs, muscles relaxing helplessly.

“No robe today, huh?” I ask her, which is when my grin falters because I realize I’ve just alluded to watching her like some sort of pervert over the last few days. She wasn’t wearing one yesterday when I found her working with Indy. Christ, did I just try to flirt while plopped in a field like a cow patty? I quickly take my arm back from behind my head and try one last time to peel off the cat.

“I was hoping you’d forget my robe,” she replies, scrunching her nose and biting her lip in a cringe, and I laugh in relief. She assumes I meant the one from the night we met.

“Here—” She shifts to her knees, the sun glaring back in the movement.

With a short growl of protest, the beast is dislodged. He scurries off into the brush, and as I sit and dust myself off, I try to think of some sort of story to explain what I’d been doing out here in the first place.

But before I can come up with anything that doesn’t sound too eccentric, she says, “Try this,” with a smile so warm it’s like she trapped some of that sunshine. She grabs something from the basket she’d set down and holds out a scone between us. “I was only coming over to bring you and Indy these to say thank you both for yesterday.”

I eye it warily. “I’m actually not huge on sweets.”

“Don’t be a baby. Just try it,” she says. The bratty eye roll she does with it sends… something through me. Something that makes me want to tug on her ponytail. “I mean, unless you have an allergy of some kind, of course,” she adds hastily.

Martha O’Doyle’s sputtering glare surfaces in my mind. “Is it poisoned?”

She gives me a bemused smirk and takes a hearty bite. I try not to watch her mouth or her tongue when it licks at a crumb in the corner. “Satisfied?”

Not in a very long time.The thought and the quick zing of desire that follows it both startle me. Another feeling jumping up unexpectedly, though this one wasn’t necessarily bad, just… surprising. I hold out my hand and take the scone back, biting over the part that she already has. It’s tangy, sweet berry, cool lemon, bright floral, then rich and buttery at the end.

“Damn,” I say in genuine surprise.

“Yep. And these are over a day old. Hey, do you have time to help me with something?” she says.

I sigh. I should’ve known the treat would come at a price.

Still, I think I’d like to make up some sort of ground after being caught at a disadvantage again. It’d ease my conscience to atone for some of my previously bad manners, too.

“Yeah, sure,” I say, successful at keeping the ire out of my voice.

“And before I forget,” she says, “I should probably get your number so I don’t scare you into running away next time I ring your doorbell, huh?”

Shit. “Sage, I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know it was you, genuinely. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I—”

“Stop,” she says, lightly tapping my shoulder. “I get it. But”—she huffs out an airy sigh—“you did offer to return the favor, so I think I need to take you up on that. It’s my sacred duty to teach you a lesson about small towns.”

I notice the shirt she’s wearing now. It features a series of different-colored horse heads, some with braids, some with shaggy bangs, one with a mohawk. The scroll across the top says HAIRY STYLES. I am so certain this woman owns an entire line of punny tops. “That so?” I reply.

“Oh yeah. Lesson number one: Empty gestures don’t exist around here. People will take you up on offers. Case in point.” She flourishes her hands in the sky. Pink nails today, a big turquoise ring.

With that, she stands and nods over her shoulder before she turns and heads in the direction of her house. I pop the rest of the treat in my mouth and clumsily follow behind, letting myself take the rest of her in, starting at the fitted top, down to her denim shorts. Petite upper body, with strong little arms, shapely muscled thighs that meet generously curving hips and… “Shit,” I hiss when my toe catches on a knot in the ground… I’m jarred away from staring at her ass by the jolting bark of her dog as it comes hopping over from the back porch. I’ve seen the thing lumbering around from a distance the last few days, but up close, I’m still taken aback by its size. It’s got to be over six feet tall standing on its hindquarters.

“That thing friendly?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says ruefully. “Too friendly, in fact. Sable flunked as a livestock guardian, so I took her in when her owners brought her to a shelter nearby. She’s too big for most, so they called me.” She gives the lovable giant some enthusiastic scratches before we continue on. Sable slathers a wet kiss against my forearm like a quick seal of approval. Maybe she’ll relay her thoughts to the cat.

I’m then formally introduced to the geese, Gary and Gronk, and I meet about a dozen chickens whose names I will in no way ever remember. When we round the farthest corner of her house to the side of her property that can’t be seen from the rental, we come to a shockingly large flower garden. Rows and rows of some sort of tarp-covered mounds take up most of it, with a big iron-and-glass greenhouse at the back, and flowering hedges lining the sides of the space. Hundreds of colorful flower heads nod along happily in the breeze, the smell pleasant and light.

Scents were always important to my mentor, stuffy albeit brilliant prick that he was. His kitchen brigade was never allowed to wear anything fragrant. Couldn’t risk it clashing with his food. I recall him verbally dressing down a sous chef for his deodorant once. For the same reasons, he was highly specific about any flowers he’d let onto his dining floor, almost never permitting arrangements on tables. Still, even if my knowledge is comparatively limited, kitchen life has forced me to grow acquainted with plenty of florals. Things that are either edible or complementary. So as Sage takes me through a detailed tour, I recognize a variety even as she names them off: lavender, roses, and decorative buds that we’d use for plating, like pansies and violas and button flowers. I recognize the stalks of a sunflower patch—Sage says they’ll be a white variety when they bloom. She proudly points out a section of ranunculus and anemones, and a whole plot dedicated to impending dahlias—she tells me they have been pesky for her to grow. Her hands float across everything as she passes it by, the touch loving and sweet. I imagine the plants all smiling at her adoringly as she goes.

She breaks away from the garden and points off in the distance to a fenced-in pasture over by a dilapidated barn. “And I may as well tell you now,” she says, “Bud can be wary of most men, so I wouldn’t go skipping over there to try to give him a carrot or anything.”

It’s only then that I notice the giant Clydesdale grazing lazily in the field. “Jesus. No normal, regular animals for you, huh?”

Her head cocks to the side. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, a three-legged cat, a dog the size of a MINI Cooper, and a horse the size of a dually?”

“You know what a dually is?” She laughs. “And listen, I have a dog, a cat, a horse, and some birds. Not exactly exotic. Plus, they were all sort of bestowed upon me. I didn’t seek them out.”

The same thing that happened the night we met materializes again. Gazes catch on each other’s, and I think she’s waiting for me to fill the silence, but I don’t know what to say and I don’t look away quickly enough. Instead, I watch her adjust her ponytail, twisting it into a complicated knot on her head, and I get hung up on a piece she missed. The end of it curls around the base of her throat and below her collarbone, just above one of her freckle constellations at her chest peeking out above her shirt. They remind me of cinnamon dusting the top of a dessert.

“What the hell was in that scone?” I wonder out loud.

A blush eats its way up her cheeks as she chuckles again, and the trance breaks mercifully. I clear my throat before I ask, “What’d you need my help with?”

“Come on,” she says, walking back toward the barn.

She takes me to a separate garden, this one significantly smaller than her flower setup, but packed with vegetables and fruits spilling out of their boxes.

“It’s overgrown, but there’s not really enough to sell and too much of it would go bad before the next farmers market anyway,” she tells me. “I could use some help picking it. Keep whatever you’d like in exchange.”

Her casual indifference comes off a bit forced. I can’t help but wonder if she’s trying to help me by… by letting me help her?

I also can’t deny that it works. I load up baskets with squash, beans, some early melons, a bushel of basil, and every variety of tomato. I remember picking up some burrata at one of the stores I popped into and think about some simple combinations with all of it. By the time I’m done I’ve mentally assembled a week’s worth of semibasic meals and I don’t find myself resenting the idea of putting together any of them. There’s soil caked under my nails and in the lines of my palms, and my legs ache from squatting, but it’s a welcome burn. I feel relaxed, somehow.

Sage stands and wipes her hands on her shorts. “Thanks for your help,” she says.

“Thank you,” I say. “Pretty sure you’ve got Indy and me covered for the week with all this.”

“You know, I could use some help tomorrow, too?” she adds tentatively, a smudge of dirt on one cheek. This crafty woman has thoroughly managed me, hasn’t she? Lured me into her garden and used her flowers and food to put me under her spell. I feel my mouth struggling not to smile.

“All right. I’ll come by in the morning.”

Her grin splits and she starts walking backwards toward her house. I start slowly backing away toward mine. “Great. Come by at eight? We’ll take my truck and head out from there.”

“Oh.” I halt in my tracks. “You need me to go somewhere with you?”

She props her hands on her hips and kicks at something with her boot. “Would you mind? You can take your own car if you’re more comfortable. It’s just that they’re short-staffed at O’Doyle’s, and I need a few bigger things, so I’ll inevitably need a hand. I feel guilty whenever one of the older employees with various braces on various joints has to help me, and—”

“No, I’m not—I’m not worried about going somewhere with you like that. I’m not uncomfortable,” I say. “As long as I don’t make you uncomfortable,” I clumsily add. “I mean, as long as you’re not worried about me.”

She hitches a brow and grins in a way that makes me feel like I should be in on the joke. “I’ll take my chances.”