Chapter 7 #2
"Also I heard about the frisée situation," she continues. "Maya texted me. So I called around and found you a backup supplier in case the microgreen farm falls through."
"We're not going to fall through."
"Probably not. But I made a backup plan anyway because that's what I do."
She's wearing her utility vest and rubber boots. There's dirt under her fingernails and a smudge of something on her cheek. She looks like she's been working since dawn.
"You didn't have to do this," I say.
"I know. But you chose the local option even though it cost more and complicated your prep. So I figured I'd complicate mine and help solve problems before they happen."
Maya grins. "She's good at that."
"Control freak tendency," Ivy corrects. "But occasionally useful."
I look at the kale. At Ivy's determined face. At the temps who are watching this interaction like it's dinner theater.
"Thank you," I say.
"You're welcome. Also, I checked the Purple Cherokee seeds. Viability testing came back at ninety-two percent. We're good for spring planting."
"That's great."
"It is. And speaking of spring planting, I need to borrow your truck Saturday to pick up compost from the cooperative."
"My truck doesn't have a truck bed."
"I meant Maya's truck."
"Still no truck bed," Maya says.
"Then whose truck are we using?"
"We'll figure it out," I say. "Right now we're training temps and managing supply disasters."
Ivy nods. Surveys the kitchen. Takes in the practiced stations and the laminated instruction cards and the teens who look half-dead from repetition.
"You're doing good work," she says quietly.
"We're surviving."
"Same thing sometimes."
She's right. Survival is good work when the alternative is giving up.
The temps finish their fifteenth round of plating. This time Samantha gets it right. Perfect distribution, confident placement, forty-eight seconds start to finish.
"There," I say. "That's what I wanted."
She beams.
Ivy watches from the doorway. Doesn't interrupt, doesn't correct, just observes.
When the temps finally leave, exhausted and blistered and slightly improved, it's just the three of us in the kitchen.
"Four more days," Maya says.
"Four more days," I agree.
Ivy picks up a practice plate. Studies the composition. "You're going to pull this off."
"You sound surprised."
"I'm cautiously optimistic. Which for me is practically euphoric."
I start breaking down the stations. Wiping counters, storing mise, resetting for tomorrow's chaos.
My phone dings. Text from the microgreen farm.
Confirmed for Thursday delivery. Twelve heads, best we've got.
I show Maya. She updates the spreadsheet.
"We're really doing this," she says.
"We're really doing this."
Ivy's still holding the practice plate. "Your aunt would be proud."
"My aunt would tell me I'm overthinking the garnish."
"Probably. But she'd still be proud."
I think about the choices I made today. The expensive frisée. The redesigned mushroom course. The decision to train temps on precision instead of shortcuts.
None of it's easy. None of it's profitable in the immediate sense.
But it's right.
And sometimes that's enough.
Thursday morning starts with Maya's phone ringing at five-forty-three. I know because I'm already in the kitchen, prepping stock for tomorrow's service, when she stumbles downstairs in her pajamas looking murderous.
"What," she says into the phone. Not a question. A threat.
I keep chopping onions while she listens. Watch her face cycle through annoyance to disbelief to actual rage.
"You're joking." Pause. "You're not joking."
She hangs up. Looks at me.
"The delivery driver got lost."
"Lost where?"
"Somewhere between the microgreen farm and here. He missed the turnoff two hours ago and is currently in a town forty miles in the wrong direction."
I set down the knife. "So the frisée—"
"Is wandering the countryside with a man who doesn't believe in GPS."
"When will it get here?"
"Best case? Noon. Worst case, we're making emergency calls to find conventional backup."
"We're not doing conventional backup."
"Then you better pray he finds his way."
The temps arrive at eight. I put them on prep work that doesn't involve the missing greens while Maya makes increasingly frantic phone calls to the driver, the farm, and anyone else who might have insight into rural navigation.
Ivy shows up at nine with a bag of something that smells incredible.
"Breakfast," she announces. "You look like you haven't eaten."
"I ate."
"Coffee doesn't count."
She unpacks warm scones, homemade jam, actual butter. Sets it out on the corner table like she's staging an intervention.
"Eat," she says. "Before you make bad decisions on an empty stomach."
I want to argue but the scones smell too good. I grab one. Bite into buttery, flaky perfection.
"These are dangerous," I tell her.
"My grandmother's recipe. She believed in strategic bribery."
"Smart woman."
Ivy pours coffee from a thermos. Hands me a cup. Our fingers brush and I feel it in my chest. This warm, dangerous flutter that has nothing to do with caffeine.
She notices. I know she notices because her cheeks go pink and she pulls her hand back too quickly.
"So," she says. "Maya texted me about the driver situation."
"Of course she did."
"I have a proposition."
"I'm listening."
"There's a back road that connects to the farm. Cuts twenty miles off the main route. I can call the driver and walk him through it."
"You know rural back roads by heart?"
"I know everything by heart. It's compulsive."
She pulls out her field notebook. Flips to a hand-drawn map that shows every dirt road, creek crossing, and unmarked turnoff in a fifty-mile radius.
"This is impressive," I say.
"This is practical. I got lost once doing seed collection and decided never again."
She's so earnest. So competent. So determined to solve problems before they explode.
I want to kiss her.
Instead I say, "Call him."
She does. Puts the driver on speaker and proceeds to give directions with the precision of a NASA engineer. Turn at the red barn. Cross the stone bridge. Follow the creek until you see the oak with the split trunk.
The driver sounds baffled but compliant.
"Twenty minutes," she says when she hangs up. "He'll be here by ten."
"You're a miracle worker."
"I'm a control freak with a good memory. There's a difference."
But she's smiling. And I'm smiling. And the kitchen suddenly feels smaller in a way that has nothing to do with square footage.
Maya clears her throat loudly.
"Right," I say. "Back to work."
Ivy lingers. Watches me prep vegetables with a focus that makes my hands slightly unsteady.
"You're nervous," she observes.
"I'm focused."
"You're gripping that knife like it insulted you."
I relax my hand. "Big event. High stakes. Totally normal stress."
"You're going to be brilliant."
The certainty in her voice does something to me. Makes me believe it might be true.
"Stay," I say, the word coming out rougher than I intend. "Help me run through the plating one more time."
She hesitates, fingers already reaching for her satchel. "I have a seed distribution meeting at eleven."
"Skip it."
"Rogan—" There's warning in her voice, but also something softer underneath.
"Please." I meet her eyes directly. "I need the honest feedback. Dawn's too kind, the temps are terrified, and Maya just tells me everything looks like a Jackson Pollock painting."
Ivy bites her lip, a gesture I'm learning means she's actually considering something she knows she shouldn't.
She checks her watch with the sort of deliberate slowness that suggests she's already made up her mind but needs the ritual of weighing options.
Responsibility against whatever this strange, magnetic thing is that keeps building between us every time we're in the same room.
"One hour," she says finally, setting her bag down with the decisive thump of someone committing. "That's it."
"Deal."
We work side by side at the steel prep counter, our shoulders nearly touching. I plate, hands moving through the familiar choreography, and she critiques with the unflinching precision of someone who's spent years evaluating growth patterns and structural integrity.
"The radish is crooked," she says, leaning in to examine my third attempt at the composed salad.
"It's artfully placed," I counter, tilting my head to admire the slight angle. "Adds visual interest."
"It's crooked. Fix it."
I bite back a smile and fix it, adjusting the paper-thin slice until it sits exactly perpendicular to the plate's rim.
"Better," she says, and I can hear the approval even though her tone stays matter-of-fact. "Now do it again in under a minute."
I do it in fifty-three seconds flat, my hands finding the rhythm, the muscle memory kicking in. She times me with her phone, lips pursed in that particular expression of concentration that makes a small line appear between her eyebrows.
"Acceptable," she says, clicking the stopwatch off.
"High praise from the woman who labels her label maker."
"I have standards."
"I noticed." I start another plate, already shaving two seconds off my internal count. "It's one of your more terrifying qualities."
Our eyes meet. Hold. The kitchen goes very quiet except for Maya aggressively typing in the corner.
Ivy breaks first. Looks down at her notebook. Tucks hair behind her ear.
"I should go," she says, though she doesn't move immediately. Her hand lingers on the surface, fingers drumming once against the stainless steel.
"Probably," I agree, even though some treacherous part of me wants her to stay. Wants to keep trading barbs and adjustments until the light shifts gold through the windows.
"Good luck tomorrow." Her voice goes softer, losing some of that crisp botanical precision. "With the demo. With everything."
"Thanks." I’m uddenly aware I've been fidgeting with a microgreen stem. "For the help. For putting up with my chaos."