who scurried over to drape her bone-thin frame beside his stool under the pretense of taking his order.
I turned to Evie. “Did I do something to offend him?”
“Oh, Cooper’s just . . . well, he’s surly as all hell, but he’s family, so I put up with him, even when no one else will. He’s a cousin on my mother’s side, so we sort of grew up together over in the Crescent Valley,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s got a thing about outsiders moving up here. Just don’t let him hear you say the words ‘commune with nature,’ or the top of his head will pop right off.”
While I’d experienced little of it so far, I’d read about the Alaskan feelings toward outsiders, a general attitude of distrust and exasperation for people who came to their home looking for the peace and fulfillment of living off the land. You could live there for twenty years and still be considered an outsider. I’d been warned by Mr. Gogan that the local postmaster, Susan Quinn, wouldn’t bother delivering my mail until I’d made it through my first winter. I’d have to pick it up at the post office myself. Susie Q, as the natives called her, was a bit of a character in a town full of them. Platinum blond by the good grace of Miss Clairol, with a countrified ’do that would put Dolly Parton to shame, she wore tight western shirts on her heavily endowed frame and drew a little beauty mark on her cheek every morning. But when it came to running the post office, she was all business, save for the fact that she kept her beloved dachshund, Oscar, in the mailroom for company.
I eyed Cooper again, trying to discern exactly where the territorial bubble he seemed to have established began. No one got within a foot of him, everyone shying around him to place orders at the counter, reach for ketchup. Again, except for Lynette, who couldn’t have communicated her eagerness to burst that bubble any more clearly if she’d been wearing a sandwich board that read, “10 Seconds from Naked!” So far, Cooper hadn’t responded to her overtures with more than a few disinterested grunts.
He was a charmer.
“If you stay past the first big snow, Cooper might actually speak to you without rolling his eyes,” Evie offered, her voice full of hope.
I muttered, “Well, woo-freaking-hoo. And you know, we had winter in Mississippi.”
Evie gave me a pitying shake of her head.
“We actually had to wear long sleeves,” I told her, but she seemed unimpressed.
“Shit fire!” I heard Buzz yell from the kitchen.
My eyes went wide, but everyone else seemed too occupied with their food to respond. Evie read my expression, smiled to herself, and rolled her eyes. “My husband, the poet.”
But then someone called in a stage whisper, as if not to disturb the customers, “Evie! I need some help back here.” A lanky Asian teenager in a stained white apron stepped around the corner, pulling a pale Buzz in his wake. Buzz’s hand was wrapped in a white dish cloth already soaked with blood. Evie’s expression changed to one of alarm.
“What happened, Pete?” she asked, concern roughening her voice. I quietly stepped around the bar and helped Pete steady Buzz. We took him back into the kitchen and sat him down on a case of canned chili beans. I gently lifted Buzz’s arm over his head so Evie could pull the cloth away. I saw enough of the wound that I thought I might have to sit down, too.
“Just a little accident,” Buzz mumbled, wincing with pain.
Poor Pete had worked himself up into a fine froth. Whether it was panic from the sight of blood or fear of losing his job, I had no idea. He babbled, “We were waiting for the fries to finish, and we got a little bored. And you know, Buzz just got these new knives, and he was bragging on them and trying to tell me that they were sharp enough to cut through a beer bottle, and I said, ‘No way.’ And he said, ‘I’ll prove it to you . . .’”
“John Matthew DuChamp, are you trying to tell me that after getting through two tours of duty unscathed, you’ve maimed yourself trying to cut a beer bottle in half?” Evie demanded.
Buzz was looking rather sheepish at the use of his full name . . . and green.
“It’s pretty bad,” Pete told her. “We need to get him to the clinic right now.”
“I’ll take him,” Evie said, whipping her apron over her head and reaching for her purse.
“It’s the middle of the lunch rush,” Buzz protested queasily. “You two can’t leave. I’ll drive myself.”
“You can barely stand,” Evie told him. “I’ll take you. Pete can handle the counter.”
“Alone?” Pete squeaked, sounding panicked. “You know what happens when you leave, Evie. Homer Perkins picks apart his food, yells that I got his order wrong, and throws stuff at me.”
“Oh, it was one time,” Evie said, patting his arm.
“It was an ax handle!”
Evie kissed Buzz’s forehead. “Fine, I’ll stay here, but Pete’s going to take you to get that looked at.”
“Well, if I take Pete with me, who’s going to cook?” Buzz asked.
Evie chewed her lip.
“Evie’s a disaster in the kitchen,” Pete explained to me, a conspiratorial note in his voice. “She started a fire boiling eggs once.”
“But Cooper said to try her pie,” I whispered. Evie was too distracted with Buzz to pay either of us any attention. “He said it was a life changer.”
“Well, being trapped on the can for a week probably would change your life,” Pete conceded. My jaw dropped, and I glared at Cooper. Well, that cinched it. He was an asshole. I was definitely going to end up sleeping with him.
From what I recalled of the menu, it was very basic all-American diner food with little embellishment. Burgers. Fries. Pancakes the size of hubcaps. Bacon. Eggs. Steak, steak, and more steak. I’d done all that and more manning the stove at the Tast-E-Grill.
“I can do it,” I told Evie. The words had left my lips before the implications of taking on such a task settled heavily in my chest. I scanned the kitchen and saw hamburger patties already shaped, veggies already chopped. There were several orders close to burning on the grill. “I worked my way through school at a drive-in. It looks like most of your prep work is already done. And I can do short-order stuff.”
Evie’s face flooded with relief. “Would you?”
Buzz was not so eager to relinquish control of his grill. “Really, Evie, I think I’ll be fine in just a—” He stood up, turned two shades paler, and little beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. He leaned heavily on Pete and said, “Yeah, I need to go to the doctor now.”
Cooper, who’d had difficulty getting around the determined Lynette to help immediately following the accident, managed to steal around the counter before Buzz slumped to the ground. He caught Buzz’s elbow and held him upright, sort of dangling by his good arm.
“You want me to go along, Evie?” he asked in his gruff baritone. “Pete won’t be able to hold Buzz down when they try to stitch him up.”
Evie chewed her lip. “Would you, Cooper?”
“Buzz is scared of needles,” Pete confided in me. “Just about loses his mind over getting shots. He threw Dr. Gordon halfway across the room when he had to get a tetanus booster.”
Cooper ignored Pete, shrugging in Evie’s general direction. “Sure. Otherwise, I’d just end up bailing Buzz out of jail later, after he tears up the clinic.”
Buzz was packed off to the clinic with another kiss and a stern look from Evie. She returned to her place behind the bar with a fresh apron and a serenity I wouldn’t have thought possible just a few minutes before.
Except for the pooled blood, the kitchen was meticulously clean. I got out the rubber gloves and disinfectant and carefully wiped down any area that might have been affected by Buzz’s accident. I washed my hands carefully and turned the heat down on the monster griddle, hoping I could save most of what Buzz had been cooking. In keeping with his haircut, Buzz also had a military eye when it came to organization and ordering. In bulk. So it was easy to find my way around the kitchen.
I eyed the waiting tickets and turned out two plates of steak and eggs and a tuna melt. The next few hours were a blur of filled plates and pleasantly popping grease. It was funny how quickly my hands recalled those summers at the grill. The sounds and smells hadn’t changed. Only now, there was a murmur of conversation, which had been contained behind car windows at the drive-in. Several customers praised their lunches and asked Evie about “that new girl behind the stove.” Occupied by constant orders, I was able to keep my head down and pretend I couldn’t hear.
Pete called to report that Buzz had severed a tendon in his finger and would have to go to the nearest hospital, 127 miles away in Dearly, for surgery. Evie took this in stride, considering, and asked me if I wouldn’t mind
