The first warning came before Diane Whitfield ever opened her mouth. It came in the way my daughter smiled when she walked into my restaurant that Sunday morning, the kind of smile a person wears when they have decided, very firmly, that everything is going to be fine. Emma had never been good at pretending.
As a little girl, she could not hide a broken lamp, a bad report card, or the fact that she had eaten the last slice of Key lime pie from the walk-in cooler at one of my restaurants. Her face told the truth even when her mouth tried not to. So when she stepped through the private entrance of the Coastal Pearl wearing a pale blue sundress and a gold bracelet that had belonged to her mother, and she smiled at me with all her teeth but none of her ease, I knew something was wrong.
I had been in the dining room since nine, even though brunch did not start until eleven. Owners who still show up early are either fools or men who remember what it took to get there, and I have always been the second kind. I checked the table settings myself, ran a finger along the windowsill to make sure there was no dust, tasted the hollandaise, sent back a tray of stone crab claws because they were just a little too warm, and told Marcus twice to keep the champagne chilled until the guests sat down.
“You’re fussing,” Marcus said. “I own the place,” I told him. “Fussing comes with the lease.”
Marcus had worked for me for eleven years.
He knew when to laugh and when not to. He laughed that time, but his eyes cut toward the front door, where Emma had just come in with Brandon and his parents behind her. Marcus had seen enough families at enough tables to recognize the kind of tension that does not come from traffic or hunger.
Emma kissed my cheek. Her hand lingered on my arm for half a second too long. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, sweetheart.”
Brandon stood beside her with his shoulders slightly hunched, as if he expected someone to toss something at him.
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