ONE

When Jack pulls up to Schmidt’s on the day before Thanksgiving it occurs to him that he might just take the offer from DelDine.

Finally give in. They may keep it the same, as they’ve done with some places in town, or renovate it into a bistro with an eco-friendly kitchen and QR code menu or an Italian-fusion restaurant with zebra-print place mats.

Jack doesn’t usually have epiphanies like this early in the morning, especially right before a major holiday, when there are mountains of potatoes to peel, and the stress of all those turkeys defrosting and the phone ringing with pie orders and last-minute reservations. He puts the car in park, and the wind blows sand against his door. He steps out, feet hurting, his old Jeep the only car on the whole beachfront block, the boardwalk looking battered.

He squints at the Atlantic Ocean in the distance, and the restaurant’s blue awning trembles above him.

He looks at his family name written in cursive on the sign, Est. 1954 underneath, and he thinks, It’s time. It’s time to figure out his life.

Their offer is pretty appealing. A no-brainer, his dad would have said.

Jack can keep slogging through hot summers, his feet quitting by ten in the morning and him forcing them to keep going anyway. All summer, him in a damp T-shirt, face pale, working, working, morning until night, married to the place, as Kitty said before she moved west, like some long-ago prospector hoping to find a better life.

Jack is fifty-two, but an old fifty-two. A fifty-two that feels like assisted living is right around the corner. His best friend from high school, Deacon, just had a baby and ran a half marathon.

Jack never wanted to sell, especially not to DelDine, enemy number one to Rehoboth Beach family businesses, all their corporate lingo and management team members smiling and buying everything they can, as though quality and originality mean nothing. They already own ten restaurants up and down the Delaware coast, and it seems they won’t stop until every place has that same menu with a custom font, the same servers repeating the lackluster script, the same overpriced beach-themed cocktails and lobster appetizers.

But this business landed in his lap like Prince Charles’s right to the throne, and he has never really had to struggle. He knows how lucky he is. The money has never not come in regularly. Sometimes he looks out at the Mother’s Day brunch crowd or on Fourth of July weekend, and it’s a sea of people waiting for tables as far as his vision goes. Tell them it’ll be two hours, and they don’t even bristle. The money comes in, he does payroll and handles the utilities and upkeep, and there’s always a nice amount left.

He is blessed, he could say if he used a word like that, to mostly have been free of financial worry. He never had to struggle or prove himself the way so many restaurant people do. He more or less inherited the life.

But it’s a lot.

It’s a whole lot almost all the time because you blink and the shingles outside need painting or the roof needs replacing, or one of the ovens isn’t keeping up to temperature. Property insurance, health insurance, life insurance—the numbers are strangling. Hurricane season comes, and you never know when a storm might rip apart the boardwalk, pulverize the dunes, and dismantle everything you’ve worked for. You find yourself a cook or a server who does a bang-up job, and you think you’re set, and the next day they don’t show.

This morning, Thanksgiving eve, is the first day where he thinks the choice is pretty simple: count his dollars or count his days. He’s scared he’ll die while running the restaurant, like his grandmother Hazel did, like his dad did, like his own kid would, if he had a kid. If he hadn’t wasted all this time.

The thing is, he feels shipwrecked. Left behind. Has he gotten grouchier lately? He used to feel like an older brother to his employees: caring, generous, mostly fun. But lately he feels like Squidward or Snape when the employees are laughing—irritated, distracted, sometimes scowling. He misses the way he used to feel in his twenties, thinking something good was up ahead, like there was a door he could walk through, and inside would be the life he dreamed about: people smiling, as if they were all waiting for him.

He looks down at the keys to the place. How many thousands of days has Jack wiggled that one key, dull and tarnished, into the same lock, pushing his hip against the door and letting it squeak open? He stands before the restaurant, the sun barely up, a woman walking by with a dog in a sweater, the air so bitter it cuts right through Jack’s coat.

I could be done with this.

This could all be over.

He sees the choppy ocean, and he feels a hint of guilt, thinking about his grandmother Hazel, standing at the hostess stand with her hair pinned back, her lipsticked smile, greeting the customers who came back year after year.

"Of course I remember you. She’d hold the menus and lead the eager patrons past the glass case of pies, past the framed photos of opening day and the rubble from the big storm of 1962, past the counter with the barstools, and she’d show them to a seat by the window. Best seat in the house," she’d say.

The door opens easily for him now, as if it knows what he’s thinking, as if the restaurant is on its best behavior. And he sees it all, a landscape of chairs and tables and windows and dusty marine decor he knows too well, and his heart sags for a second.

TWO

Deacon comes by, his baby in one of those chest slings, sucking on a pacifier and studying everything in the room. Look alive, Jackpot, Deacon calls, like he always does, and Jack steps out from the back kitchen, the refrigerator humming its familiar sound as he passes by. The baby kicks her feet when she sees him.

You again, Jack says to Deacon. Then: It’s Evie! His tone naturally softens to something kind, even though he’s preoccupied, already worried that Vivian, one of his servers, will call in sick, as she tends to do every few weeks, and he needs her here to help set up. Or that the host Sam’s anxiety will be too bad and he’ll be in the coatroom doing his breathing exercises, Genevieve helping him through it, while customers pile up at the door.

Deacon stands in the middle of the dining room, the sunlight glowing on his face, his jogging pants and hoodie immaculate, his sneakers brand-new. Deacon could probably still fit into his high school soccer uniform, and Jack, well, could not.

Look at you, he says to Evie, and even though she’s well past the point of doing that finger grip thing new babies do, she clutches Jack’s finger anyway almost like she’s humoring him, and he stands there for a second and feels the warmth of her small hand. Tell Daddy you need a tiny Porsche, he says in that same higher voice, and she looks up at Jack with her small eyebrows that look like a sketch, a first draft of a portrait.

Okay, enough baby time, Deacon says with his usual wry smile, and looks around. Why’s it so damn cold in here, man?

Jack rolls his eyes. Heat’s coming on. I can’t leave it at seventy all night. This place is insulated with gauze and horse hair, I swear.

Deacon looks Jack up and down and sucks his teeth. Are you even trying anymore?

Jack wears a baseball hat because his hair is messy. He’s unshaven, sporting basketball shorts with ankle socks and an old pair of comfortable Crocs. His zip-up hoodie with holes in the sleeves hangs off him. He shrugs. Forgive me for not having a fucking stylist.

As if, Deacon says. He takes Evie out of the carrier and hands her absently to Jack. Jack’s headache seems to go away when he takes her, and her weight feels just right in his hands. She grips the shoulder of his sweatshirt.

Well hello. She is rigid at first, but then he feels her settle against him. Want to look at the fishies? Jack says like he often does, and he leads her over to the big aquarium that his dad installed in the 1980s. He watches her eyes widen as the zebra fish and clownfish zigzag by. If he sold the place, would he sell the fish with it, or would he put this giant aquarium in his living room?

Deacon stands behind him. So how many reservations tomorrow?

Too many to count.

As in…

Three fifty or so.

Fuck.

Language! Jack says, nodding toward Evie. He knows he just cursed a minute ago, but holding her now, he feels a strange duty to protect what she hears. He points at the small frog he got a couple of weeks ago, its legs butterflying in a rhythm, and Evie seems to follow its path. Good problem, though, right?

Hell of a good problem.

Jack clears his throat. So I’ve been thinking about DelDine. I think I’m going to say yes.

Deacon walks over to the beverage station, dips the scoop into the big ice machine, and fills his cup with water. He shakes his head in slow motion. No, you aren’t.

Pretty sure I am. Evie reaches up and tugs on Jack’s ear. He looks past the tables by the window, and the sun is bouncing off the ocean and lighting up the salt and pepper shakers. His head spins with all the preparation he needs to do for the day: the pots of water that should be on the stove to boil already, the bread cubes he needs to soak for the stuffing, the walnuts and gelatin he needs to pick up for the cranberry salad, Genevieve finishing the pies—her pained face as the arthritis grips her every so often—and the phone ringing nonstop.

His mind gallops, but Evie in his arms makes him pause, makes him say screw all that work, it can wait. Look, he says, pointing to the small diver in the aquarium that bobs up and down in the bubbles, chained to the treasure chest below.

You’re so full of shit. Deacon stands next to Jack now, slurping his water in the way that drives his wife, Andie, crazy. What the hell else would you even do? Set up a booth at the farmer’s market? Evie reaches for Deacon, so Jack lets him take her, and Deacon bounces her and pats the space between her shoulders. You’re just going through your annual restaurant crisis. It’s like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

Jack stretches and groans. He may complain about the workload here, but he’s never seriously considered selling the place until today. He takes in the vast dining room filled with tables and one wall with nets and starfish, a seagull-and-dune-grass mural painted by Kitty years ago. He’s stopped thinking about her when he sees it. The wide, half-open kitchen behind it. His office and storage and the walk-in freezer in the back. You’ll see. You’re going to show up here one day, and it’ll be empty.

Deacon kisses Evie’s head. Sure, buddy. He looks at Evie and then back at Jack. More like I’m going to have to stage an intervention when you’re ninety, and drag you away.

You’ll be ninety, too.

Yeah, but a better ninety. Deacon side-eyes Jack to make sure he’s laughing. He takes a squeaky giraffe out of his pocket for Evie. Well, time to hit the boards.

Gotta keep that trim figure.

He grins, but then his expression shifts. "Oh, have you run into her yet?"

He follows Jack into the galley between the hostess area and the kitchen. Jack takes out a giant filter and dumps the coffee grounds in. He presses start and listens to the bubbling inside. Who?

Who. Deacon sighs. Evie puts the whole giraffe head into her mouth. Kitty. He says her name quietly for some reason.

Jack’s stomach tenses, and he feels his face lose some color. Kitty?

I told you.

What?

Didn’t I? Deacon twists his mouth. Didn’t I say the other day that she’s in town again? Her mom’s bad. Won’t be long.

Shit. Jack can see Kitty’s mom, Janet, years ago, sitting by the pool at her house, drinking a wine cooler and reading a paperback mystery or romance. She was always so nice to him. I didn’t hear about that.

I’m positive I told you, man. You just have your head up your ass.

See, it’s the damn restaurant.

Then sell it, and we’ll see if you get any better. He waves goodbye, his empty baby sling still hanging from his chest like a husk, Evie in one arm, his water in the other. He will put her in a jogging stroller the way he does every day. "But Andie saw her last night, and said she asked about you, my friend."

Kitty did?

He nods. Apparently.

She’s married.

Apparently not, Deacon says, and shrugs, and then Jack feels the blast of cold wind as he watches them leave.

THREE

Genevieve comes in at ten, a pleasant smile on her face, but with something guarded and worried about her that Jack can’t put his finger on. Morning, Jack. She wears a Schmidt’s shirt, fresh looking, from many years ago. She sets out her tools on the back table in the big kitchen: giant mixing bowls, two big whisks, rubber spatulas.

Jack always likes working with Genevieve because she’s a calming presence. She doesn’t have a title here—he doesn’t know if she ever did. He pays her a manager’s salary, and she sets her own hours. She’s the most capable person he knows; she’s in her early sixties with grown kids and grandkids, some of whom live with her.

Genevieve will reassure Jack that the soup isn’t burned or tell him if she thinks the dining room is too warm. His dad called Genevieve the angel of the restaurant, and maybe he’s ready to sell because he knows she will want to retire soon. Some days he hears her taking deep breaths when the pain in her hands and fingers gets to be too much. And how would he run this place without her? She does prep work, she can serve, she can run the hostess stand. She knows where everything goes. She can clean better than a professional janitorial service, and she knows if they’re out of something before they’re even out of it.

Once, about five years ago, Kitty wanted to take the ferry to Cape May for the weekend, and Jack kept saying he couldn’t, but he finally gave in when he could tell she was getting seriously pissed about it. He asked Genevieve if she could hold down the fort, and she didn’t even blink. Of course, she said.

Jack wasn’t the best company that weekend because he ended up calling the restaurant six or seven times, and then he called to confirm the two deliveries they were expecting. When he wasn’t calling the restaurant, he was worrying about the restaurant. Kitty found him sitting on the hotel room balcony, and he saw the disappointment on her face. Can’t you just be away? she asked.

It’s hard, he said. He didn’t tell her what else he was thinking about—stuff that had nothing to do with the restaurant. The worry that always seemed to catch him off guard, the guilt he felt whenever he was approaching something like happiness.

But when he returned to the restaurant early Sunday evening, Kitty getting into her car that she left in his parking spot, not saying a word to him and speeding away, he looked up at Schmidt’s. The sun was low. Genevieve was pressing the letters into the marquee board outside, and it stunned him that he couldn’t identify any sort of crisis. I’m back, Jack said.

Yes. Genevieve smiled, her eyes reassuring. Don’t you know I can run this place in my sleep?

But Jack went back to his office and stayed there until after midnight, catching up on bookkeeping and payroll and inventory. He rested his chin on his hand and looked around the quiet room and wondered if he should take more time off and be with Kitty.

But he only wondered about it and didn’t have a chance to do much else.

In three weeks, Kitty gave up her apartment, took her stuff from Jack’s place, broke off their half engagement or whatever their deal was at the time, and moved across the country to Oregon.

He can’t say he was surprised. It was like he had been waiting for it.

Jack’s dad, Johnny, used to sit in this same office and painstakingly go over every single facet of this place with him. He described health inspection guidelines and workers’ comp and food preparation and noncapital expenditures. He showed Jack the grids on the schedule and how to post them and how to handle employee requests for time off.

Jack always felt a little smothered by the restaurant. He sensed its pull, and he didn’t want to get buried in it the way his dad was. He liked it well enough, had been fully involved since he was twelve and his mom went away, but he didn’t want it to be his future. He tried to make that clear to his dad.

What if I find something else to do with my life? Jack, just out of college, said to his dad one night.

They each had a glass of beer, and the leaves were wet outside the window, the wind sticking them to the siding and street. It was dark, and even in the office, Jack could feel the presence of the ocean, like some forgotten emotion thrashing around. He looked at his dad’s blue eyes to see what he’d say, expecting him to say Jack had no other choice. That it was the Schmidts’ duty to keep this restaurant going.

But his dad shrugged. He reached out and put a calloused hand on Jack’s cheek. Well, then it’ll be someone else’s turn to have it.

Jack can’t help but think of his dad when he sees Evie. What would he have said if Jack had a kid? Would he have been enamored the way Deacon’s dad is? Jack thinks of how you pass your life and your family’s legacy on to a child in small and big ways. But he missed that boat, and even if he did have the opportunity now, he wouldn’t want to be an old dad. He’s sure as hell not like Deacon.

The closest he’s ever come to having a kid was way before Kitty. His girlfriend’s name was Alexis, and Jack’s not sure he ever loved someone as truly as her. Kitty used to ask questions about her, and he found himself going quiet. It was a long time ago, he’d say.

FOUR

1989

He met her in the summer. He was nineteen, home from college, and she was staying in her aunt’s house in North Shores that looked like something out of Architectural Digest.

It was warm on the boardwalk, one of Jack’s only nights off, and Deacon had gotten them a pack of cigarettes from the machine next to Tony’s Eats, the smell in the air of cheesesteaks and onions and oil from french fries.

They were walking aimlessly as they did every time they hung out, Deacon never afraid to strike up conversation with anyone who passed by. They were working their asses off that summer, Deacon at Wave Break in Dewey, which rented out Jet Skis and gave paddleboard lessons; and Jack at the restaurant, of course, nodding politely as his grandmother barked something at him, his dad gripping his shoulder every so often, saying, Don’t let her wilt you. She was his grandmother and she loved Jack, and Jack thought the world of her, but man could she be prickly. He was everything that summer: waiter, busboy, dishwasher, host. It helped him learn the restaurant like a complicated language he would someday need to be fluent in.

But that evening, late June, a perfect breeze, he and Deacon wore their new Ocean Pacific T-shirts like jackasses, savoring the early summer evening and all its possibilities. He was just about to light his Camel when a girl his age with hair-sprayed bangs and startling brown eyes stopped him by the pavilion and said, Those will kill you.

He looked down at his pack of cigarettes, and Deacon, Mr. Future Health Nut, shook his head and blew smoke rings at her, his mouth open and defiant. Jack thought of his grandmother’s raspy voice, the way she’d sit in the back office and twist one cigarette after another into the ashtray, always a mint in her mouth, always something vaguely sickly looking about her, and thought this woman might be right. I’m just a social smoker, he told her.