Savor It, page 3
She told me they’d been running into delays at nearly every step, that the town had been giving her trouble, and that she needed to get representatives on the ground to see it through the rest of the way. She told me she’d be sending Frankie, a general contractor we’ve worked with for projects in New York before, the same general who oversaw construction on Marrow, and that his objective would be to push through the remaining build.
“Where do I come into this?” I asked quizzically. “And Archer?”
Archer cleared his throat. “I want the job,” he said. “Want the CDC gig there when it’s done. Spunes isn’t too far from home for me.”
People auto-referring to wherever they grew up as “home” will never cease to amaze me.
“But,” Carlie interjected, “I need him here for the time being. Otherwise I’m without a chef. I can’t have you back yet, not until things cool off.”
I covered a flinch. And waited for them to finish their explanation.
“Help me with Starhopper,” Carlie said. “Come up with a menu like you did when we started Marrow. Figure out what that area needs and what people will want, what will work for that whole immersive experience. All that artsy, atmospheric stuff I know you’re great with.” She leaned forward and gave me a hard stare. “Show me you’ve got your head on straight and I’ll bring you back here, back to Marrow, when it’s done. I don’t care if I get shit for it. We’ll work together and we’ll get that star back plus another one if you want.”
It was like gas to flame, the feeling that sparked to life in me. It flickered weakly, but it was there. The notion of a comeback was something I could set my sights on, even if it would only be pride or vanity motivating me.
Indy snorted from her seat to my right and looked up from her phone. “You’re telling me I just ditched one shitty town, and you’re immediately gonna cart me off to another?” she said. Then added, “Whatever,” before she stalked away, slamming the door to the guest room behind her.
“I’m trying, Carl,” I explained to Carlie’s worried gaze. I just also felt like I was trying to breathe through a straw while simultaneously running uphill all the time. “I don’t know why she wants to be here or why the hell she wants to live with me, but I guess she does so I’m … I’m trying.” I shrugged.
“Seems obvious to me,” Archer supplied, earning a sharp look from Carlie and me. “I mean, Chef, you’re a legend. You know you are. And she saw you make it here, right?” he said. “You’re probably her hero, in a way.”
I find that laughable and think Indy would, too. Maybe that was partially true for the old versions of ourselves but not anymore.
I do understand why she’d want to get away from her home, at least, and can only conclude that she got desperate enough to get out of there that she ran here. Without Freya, I imagine that shitty town back in Nebraska lost any shred of appeal.
“And you don’t mind that you wouldn’t have a hand in this part of things?” I asked Archer. I think we’re as close as I am to anyone, which is to say, not very. The guy is a great chef, though, and does deserve his own kitchen.
“I just wanna cook, Chef. You know me,” he nonchalantly replied. “Once I’m there I’ll have the freedom to do what I want, but I trust that you’ll set things up all right, at least,” he added with a cocky grin. Good, I thought. You need an ego if you expect to successfully run a place.
Carlie got up and gathered her purse onto her shoulder. “You can give it a think, but I know this could be good, Fisher. It’d be good for you and Indy to get a reset, at least.”
A reset.
The thought of being in a kitchen again still fills me with palpable angst, swiftly followed by self-disgust. I’m so sick of this thing I can’t shake or name. It feels paramount that I figure it out, though. Now that someone else’s happiness could be affected by mine. And since nothing else I’d been doing was working, I knew I needed to agree.
“I’d need to be back by the end of summer,” I said to my guests’ retreating forms. “So Indy can start school in the fall.”
Later, I was certain to thank Carlie for her relentless faith in me, for wanting to give me another chance. I took a recommendation from her for a therapist that Indy and I started having weekly video appointments with, and have been generally doing my best to get us on our feet since.
The minutes and miles drag on, set to the dulcet sounds of the truck, and eventually, Indy’s quiet snores.
It’s exactly midnight when the headlights shine on the town’s welcome sign, which states:
SPUNES, OREGON
(Not to be confused with Forks, Washington)
I’m just glad that Indy isn’t awake to sneer at it.
By the time we get to the rental house, the moon is high in a foggy, blue-black sky, but I’m too depleted to unpack anything other than myself, or to take in any of the details of the place. I blearily pull up the lockbox code and let Indy and me inside, before we both slog up the stairs to the first bedrooms we find. Her door slams, and I toe off my shoes, letting myself collapse into bed.
CHAPTER 3
FISHER
“Fisher!”
I swat at the hiss in my ear and try to burrow back into the bed.
“Fisher, wake up. Please!”
Awareness creeps over me as I start to make out my niece’s face in the low-lit room. “What is it?” The glow from a monitor in the corner casts her in blue fear, and I try to clear the rest of the fog. “What, Indy?!”
“Something’s in the house,” she whispers. She’s terrified, the edges of her voice shaky.
A thud and a bang clatter from downstairs, followed by a low, scraping growl.
“Do you think it’s a bear?!” Her panic instantly catapults mine because how the hell should I know? This rental is in a more rural tip of an already dismal-sized town, but still, fucking bears being prevalent enough to bust into the house is not something I accounted for here. Where I come from the only real predators are the people.
Shit, I don’t know my way around this house yet, let alone anything about the wildlife. I didn’t even change before I let myself fall into a dreamless sleep.
More noises. A muffled sort of hiss.
My heart kicks off to a gallop, blood rushing in my ears as I slip out of bed and start looking around for something that vaguely resembles some sort of weapon. Indy’s nails dig at my arm.
“Ohmygodohmygod, was that a voice?!” she squeaks.
Christ, I don’t know, I want to screech back. It might’ve been?! I suddenly can’t hear over my own adrenaline, and my mind is still trying to catch up. The chemicals blend and peak into consolidated extremes: Something or someone is in this house. Indy is terrified. She knows—we know, by experience—that both bad and random shit can and does happen. And I know that it’s now my job to show her that she’ll be okay, that she can trust me to make us okay. Keep us safe. I lunge for my phone on the nightstand and call 911, an eerie calm plummeting through me as I fire off the facts in measured tones.
“Stay here,” I tell her when I hang up. Her head quivers in a nod.
I pad as quietly as I can into the other upstairs rooms until I come across an old wooden baseball bat. Between it and a rolled-up yoga mat, it’ll have to do.
The rattling sound gets louder, like whatever it is is rifling through things, searching for something. Jesus, I know home invasions happen but has one ever happened in this place?! How fitting that this would happen to us, mere hours after arriving.
The gears in my brain feel like they’re moving through Jell-O. Jesus, don’t think of Jell-O. I physically shake my head to toss away the thought. Jell-O makes you remember the funeral. The gelatinous thing in the shape of a Bundt cake and your former high school principal’s powdery face asking you if you’d made the food.
That growling sound again.
It can’t be a person. It must be an animal of some kind, rummaging through the pantry. The sounds it’s emitting are somehow … rhythmic? It has to be an animal. I just need to get down there and be loud, scare it off before it gets any bolder and considers coming upstairs. Maybe … maybe it’s just a raccoon or an opossum and maybe it’s not something massive and/or deadly. Fuck it, I can’t keep thinking on this. I have got to man up and fucking handle this.
Be loud. Be big. It’s more afraid of you than you are of it, dammit.
I glance back at Indy one more time, tears glimmering on her cheeks, and determination steels my spine.
I step off the landing and the wooden stair creaks beneath me. Another thud and more dragging sounds from below.
This feels like the part in the horror movie where the moron tiptoes down the haunted hallway, some monster crouched and waiting around the bend.
Be loud. Be big. It’s more afraid of you than you are of it! I internally chant again.
It could also be a bridge for Indy and me—my chance to prove to her that we can make it through hard things. That yes, her mom is gone, and I know I wasn’t there for her before … that yes, this is all so fucking scary, but even when something is unfamiliar and frightening we can tackle it and be okay. Be loud. Be big. It’s more afraid of you than you are of it. I’m going to prove to her that she can count on me. That even though she’s been robbed of her mom, even though I’ve been a lackluster uncle at best, I’m determined and committed to keeping her safe now.
I suck in a breath and leap down the last steps, letting out a forceful bellow as I pivot into the kitchen, bat wielded and ready.
The war cry dies a rapid, pitiful death. The energy deflates from the room.
The scene takes a moment to process. The thing is half-stuck on a corner of what looks like an apron and partially on a plastic bag. It thuds and spins against a twenty-four pack of soda on the ground in the pantry before it tries to redirect, whirrs, and bangs into the doorframe. It twirls around the wrong way again and bumps into more boxes it’s presumably knocked down in its foraging.
“Fisher?! Fisher, what is it?!” Indy shrieks.
It’s my new low, is what it is.
Is this rock bottom? I know if I considered each of the events over the last few years, I wouldn’t think so. But if I began with Freya’s death and then collected every shitty thing along the way like stones in my pockets, letting them sink me further and further down this spiral, then … maybe this is finally it? The thought is oddly optimistic.
“Come look,” I yell back, because it bears seeing more than explaining. Then I remember that I already called 911. “Shit. Hey, bring my phone with you, please!” I shout.
She scrambles down the steps on shaky legs and passes me my phone before she stares down at the thing. She groans and sighs, hands balling into fists before she searches the ceiling. “Who has a vacuum set for four A.M.?”
I shake my head in silent, irritated shame before I try to call 911 back.
Maybe rock bottom is just above sea level, in a rental house in some nowhere town, staring down at a robot vacuum. Maybe things can only go up after this.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“Hi, uh, I just called in and reported an animal or a burglar in our house. It turns out it’s not that,” I say. “It’s not either of those.” I try to laugh, then silently curse under my breath when I see the lights flashing outside. I want to sob. Stomp my feet. Punch something.
“Never mind, they’re here,” I say. I hang up and bolt for the front door.
It’s dark beyond the porch light, but I can make out an officer emerging from his cruiser. A fire truck comes burning in behind it, sirens blaring. I suppress the urge to groan again.
“Officer, I’m sorry.” I hold up my palms before I step out onto the deck, set on getting everything out as quickly as possible. “Hey, listen, everything is all right here. There was just some—some confusion, and I’m sorry. I’m staying here for the summer, I got in super late last night but I guess the owners have their vacuum set up on a four A.M. timer and I swear to god, the thing sounds like an animal from a distance, but I apologize for bothering you and—”
The cop steps into the light and cocks his head to the side. “I’ll still need to have a look around, sir. It’s protocol.” He plants his feet wide and sets his hands on his holster. His gaze narrows as he studies me from head to toe, like he’s sizing me up for some sort of takedown. I have to fight against rolling my eyes. I’m six-foot-five and I probably have twenty pounds on him, but even with that in mind, I am categorically not threatening right now. I’m recovering from an existential crisis over a vacuum.
“Honestly, sir, everything is fine,” I insist, just as Indy comes through the door at my back.
“He’s telling the truth, Officer,” Indy says. “Whoever owns this place has their vacuum set at a deeply ridiculous time,” she adds, her tone both cutting and sullen in the way that only a teenager can master. My head whips in her direction in shock, the tiny show of solidarity washing over me like renewed hope. Like maybe this might finally shake Indy and me out of the deadlock we’ve been stuck in.
The cop—Officer Carver, according to his uniform tag—balks when he notices whatever my face is still doing in light of Indy’s corroboration. I don’t cover the hopeful grin quickly enough.
“Is this a joke to you?” he asks me.
I swipe my palms through the air like erasers. “No, no. I’m sorry.”
“Because here’s the thing, sir,” he sneers. “You could be coerced into saying that things are fine. This could be a hostage situation. That is why I still need to have a look around.” Indy laughs through her nose, but I nudge her with my shoulder.
“All right, yeah. Of course.” I scrub a palm down my face and dig the heel of it into an eye.
“What’s going on?” another man asks when he steps up onto the porch, this one a firefighter. More bodies exit the trucks behind them.
“A rabid vacuum, apparently,” Officer Carver drawls. I clamp my teeth together, anxious to get this over with so I can wither away in private.
And now, yet another man walks onto the porch, judgment rolling off all three of them in waves while the rest hang back by the vehicles. The newest firefighter to join this trifling party gives me a look so wide-eyed it’s painfully sarcastic, before he slowly lifts an ax into the air. Ready to save me from my robotic foe, I gather.
Maybe I could walk out into the dark night and lie behind the truck tires until they leave. Let them end it for me.
Instead, I gesture once more for them all to come inside.
CHAPTER 4
FISHER
Officer Carver takes Indy aside first to ask her some questions while one of the firefighters starts with me.
“What’s your name?” the tallest one asks, fixing me with a hard glare.
“Fisher?” I reply, still not getting the need for the intensity.
“Fisher what?”
“Fisher Lange.”
We go through the rigamarole of them checking my ID and verifying that I am Indy’s legal guardian, with a few cursory questions about how that came to be.
“This says that it went into effect three years ago?” one asks.
“Uh, yeah,” I manage to eke out. I dart a furtive glance around for Indy, hoping she didn’t hear from the other room.
I expect them to leave once they’re satisfied and have returned my documentation, but they only appear to make themselves more comfortable.
“What do you do?” the other firefighter asks me when he joins, coming back from the direction of the kitchen. Suddenly I can’t help but think that this part of the inquiry feels … unrelated to the issue at hand. And come to think of it, why are these guys asking me anything in the first place? I’m not an expert, but I don’t think that’s part of their job description. I’m also exhausted, though, and it’s plain that I need to cooperate if I’d like this to be over as quickly as possible. So, even though the question is more complicated than he realizes, in an effort to wrap this all up I answer, “I’m a chef.”
“Hmm,” the second one hums. “The earrings made me think yoga instructor.”
The first one turns to him. “That sounds judgmental, Silas. Maybe he just brews his own patchouli cologne, or dabbles in hemp jewelry.” He swings back to me before looking down at his notepad. “Sorry about my brother. Where do you cook?” I notice that both have the name Byrd on their uniforms. This one appears to be older, his hair graying around the temples.
“I—don’t? Currently,” I respond, ignoring the jabs.
“So you’re not actually a chef, then,” the older-looking one says, dubiously. His gaze stays on his paper.
“Uh, I am. I’m just—”
“What is it that brings you to Spunes?”
“I’m consulting.”
“That sounds like a made-up job,” the younger-looking one—Silas, his brother called him—pipes up this time.
“Why would a chef not cook?” Now it’s Officer Carver chiming in, finished up with Indy but apparently not satisfied with his interrogation.
“Because I’m consulting.” And that is a long story that I prefer to keep between me and my therapist, jackass.
“On what?” One of the brothers again.
I stand up and frown at the three grown men trying to nose into my business like Gossip Girl parodies. “Listen, is any of this pertinent to your—I don’t know, incident report or whatever it is you need before you’ll be done here?”
They share a look among themselves before the cop pivots back to me. I don’t miss the way the brothers’ gazes narrow on him when he turns, though. Interesting.
Carver blows out a breath. “It’s clear that you’re more accustomed to a city, so this concept might be lost on you, but it’s a waste of our town’s more modest resources, not to mention our time, for us to haul ass out here for a vacuum,” he says.
