Julie ran out to meet me from the restaurant.
She was a lot more confident on her home ground. I thought for a moment she was going to hug me, but she pulled herself to a stop about three feet away, and fell into place beside me. She was carrying a large conch shell.
"Hi," she said, not quite looking at me.
"Hi." I said.
She kicked some sand in the air, but didn't seem inclined to talk.
"Thanks for covering for me with Officer Barnes." I said, "You didn't have to do that."
She examined the shell in detail.
"You helped Tim and me with his uncle. I guess we're even."
We walked a way in silence.
"What do you have there?"
"A shell. You can hear the ocean in it." She ducked her head. "Sorry, everyone knows that."
I nodded, sagely.
"I used to carry one of those with me all the time," I said. "They're very beautiful, don't you think?"
"It's not really the ocean you hear," she said. "It's only your own pulse."
I laughed.
"Only? We'd all be better off if we spent more time listening to our own pulse, don't you think"
She ignored that.
"What happened to your shell?" she asked.
* * * * *
I did what I could to help them.
I cleaned up that back room and the kitchen, scraping years of grease off the stainless steel.
I put the grill stone to good use, and soon the grill was smooth and even again.
I cooked, and improved the menu considerably, adding fresh fish for one thing. Why they were only using frozen is beyond me.
I convinced Ann to put up a Christmas tree and helped her decorate it. Julie and I repainted the sign out by the highway.
Also, I joked with the customers, making them feel at home.
By the end of the week we were actually making money. Ann hired a cook, but now we needed two, so I stayed on.
Their house was just off the restaurant parking lot: an aging Cape Cod, overlooking the beach.
After I slept in the restaurant for a couple of nights, Ann let me move into their spare bedroom.
