This Place of Wonder (17)

But in months of looking, I haven’t been able to find a single shred of anything about her before she arrived in Carpinteria, her very young daughter in tow. No school records, no marriages, nothing. It’s not such an ordinary name that it shouldn’t have connections to something.

I’m starting to think she made it up. Which leads to the question, Why? What did she leave behind?

As I’m assembling a set of clear questions, a woman breezes in through the door, ringing the bell. I know her instantly. Maya Beauvais, Augustus’s daughter. I’m not sure what I was expecting from someone who has such a reputation for drama, but not this calm-looking person who introduces herself to the owner. Her hair is her best feature, thick and curly, just this side of out of control, and she covers it with a yellow paisley scarf to go to work. I like the way she works efficiently, without hurry, someone who knows her way around the food business, because of course she does.

Observing her from the corner of my eye, I wonder what it was like growing up with such big personalities, people who were obviously a bit obsessed with each other. Augustus didn’t talk much to me about his past or his family until Maya crashed and burned three months ago, and then it was his main focus. Getting her into rehab, making sure it was the best available, working on her legal issues, trying to find ways to get back into her good graces. One of the great regrets of his life was that he’d left Maya to her addicted biological mother when he married Meadow. He never told me the whole story, but I could piece some of it together. Upon the breakup of her marriage, the mother succumbed to her addiction to booze and pills. It didn’t even take quite a year before she killed herself, and Maya went to live with Meadow, Augustus, and her stepsister, Rory.

I lean against the window and take a sip of cold coffee. What was that year like for a little girl? When Augustus told me the story, I kind of hated him for leaving her. How could he have done that? Why didn’t he take her with him? I said it aloud: “You abandoned her.”

Augustus only nodded, looking at his hands, as if the answer to why were written on his palms.

My watch dings on my wrist, reminding me that it’s time to go see about finding a job. I gather up my things, and reluctantly leave yet another fascinating Beauvais. At least I have a face now when I hear her moving around upstairs.

Briefly, I wish we could be friends. We’re close in age. We have some things in common, the food business, me writing, her doing. And she must have loved Augustus on some level, even if she hadn’t spoken to him in eight years.

Which is exactly why we will never be able to be friends. I sling my pack over my shoulder, glancing back just once to see she’s absorbed in making a coffee.

Onward.





Chapter Eleven


Meadow


After Maya drives away, I let myself into Peaches and Pork. The manager, Kara, is going to meet me here so that we can go over what the next steps should be, both for handling employees and for the near future of the restaurant. Technically, all but my 10 percent of the restaurant belonged to Augustus, but practically, I’ve participated at least peripherally forever, even after the divorce.

It’s hard to let go when you’ve been married a long time. It felt as if we had to find every single one of the threads that connected us and snip each one individually. A long and trying process. Some of the threads were more like steel cables that couldn’t be severed.

Like the restaurant into which we’d poured so much of ourselves, and my first book, which is not only a history of the foodie world in the area and Peaches and Pork, but our love story. And of course we couldn’t divorce the girls. He could no more stop being Rory’s father than I could stop being Maya’s mother.

The restaurant is cold inside, the chairs upturned on the tables so the staff could sweep and vacuum after the last service. The bar is tidy, with only a few glasses on the drainboard, the evidence of after-work drinks. A red wineglass, a highball, a pint glass. I look in the bar fridge and see that the beers have been stocked. Containers of limes and cherries and other bar standards stand at the ready. They’ll be slimy by the time service starts again, but that’s not my concern.

It’s luxurious to be here by myself. I always like a restaurant after hours, seeing the bones of the place, moving freely, and this one is deeply familiar. I wander through the bar, adjusting a couple of bottles—Jim Beam and Johnnie Walker Red—then move into the kitchen.

I’m not prepared for the mess. No one has been here; the restaurant has been closed since his death. Unlike the dining room, the kitchen is strewn with paper and muddy footprints, everything out of order. Most of it is the detritus of a lifesaving operation, discarded medical supplies, the rolling pass-out bar shoved out of the way. A plastic container that must have been sitting on the counter has been knocked over by the walk-in, shriveled carrots spilling out on the floor. An enormous skillet is upended nearby, and piles of bar towels, some stained, some not, are scattered everywhere. I don’t know whether I should enter to pick things up.

Probably not.

I creep closer, frowning. For a heart attack, there is a lot of mess. Discomfort swirls in my belly, and I move a little closer, trying to see if there’s evidence of anything. Muddy footprints smear the white tiles, and there’s a touch of blood on the floor, too, but not much. Maybe he hit his head on the way down.

Otherwise, I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. The stainless-steel counters are clean. The kitchen, like the front of the house, had been put to bed.