I stopped rubbing the dog to a sound of general displeasure from him and moved closer to the blueprints. Duncan was shaking his head and sipping on a coffee. He had been doing this even longer than I had, and as he scratched his grizzled beard on his chin, it looked like he was trying to think of something to say. If I knew him as well as I thought I did, it was likely that he was searching for an alternative to cursing my brother out.
“So, these changes, they done?” he asked, finally.
“I believe so,” I said. “I mean, they had better be. Derek and that damn blonde woman have been here every day of the week last week in the mornings. They always seemed to have some other new thing they needed or wanted, but I kept shooting them down.”
“Blonde woman?”
“Yeah, you’ll meet her, I’m sure,” I said.
“I might have already,” he said. “She’s a looker.”
“I wouldn’t have noticed.”
“Sure, you wouldn’t have,” Duncan muttered under his breath. Something about the way he said it told me he didn’t believe me.
He might have been right, but I wasn’t going to let on.
“Well, at any rate, she and Derek have been here spit-balling changes every damn morning, and I kept having to veto them,” I said.
“Really, now?” Duncan looked up from the blueprints for the first time and pushed his hat back up off his forehead. It was an old baseball cap, so faded and worn that it was like it had molded to his head. I couldn’t imagine Duncan without it, even though I knew for a fact I had seen it at least once.
“Yeah, they hit me up separately and then tag team me in a corner,” I said. “It’s pretty predictable, but I haven’t been able to stop them from doing it yet. I figure once I move on to the tasting room, I might get a reprieve.”
“Unless they want to add a walk-in freezer there too,” he grumbled, and I laughed.
“Yeah, well, don’t put that past Derek. I’m sure he had one in LA or something,” I said.
“I’m sure. They do all kinds of weird shit down there.”
I laughed again and leaned against the back of my truck.
“Any more of that coffee?” I asked.
“Bought a box of it, actually,” Duncan said. “In the front seat. Your brother drinks that espresso crap, right?”
“He does,” I said, nodding. “I have a machine in there to make it, but it uses those pods. I could go for a donut shop’s coffee.”
“Well, help yourself. There’s some donuts too. But you’re buying lunch.”
“Fair enough.” I walked around to his passenger seat. Indeed, he had a box of hot coffee with a spigot on it. It looked like one of the boxes of wine soccer moms bought. There was also a box of donuts on the seat, and I helped myself to a jelly one.
“So, you vetoed any more changes other than these?” he asked.
“Outright,” I said, “though I expect them to try all the way up until we say it’s done. I told them changing blueprints was a pain in the ass, but neither of them seemed to care. As far as they are concerned, that’s what I do, so what does it matter.”
“They know the difference between construction and design, right?” he asked sarcastically.
“I don’t think so. They make food, not houses.”
“So, they understand that designing the damn thing is different than actually building it. One’s a whole lot harder, and you have to follow the rules, or it all falls apart. Once you get it done, you can add all the icing you want as long as it fits.”
“You’re a regular philosopher this morning.”
“Yeah, well,” he said. “It’s the sugar in the donuts. What did they say when you said no?”
“The woman just glared at me and walked away on Wednesday after I told them I wasn’t changing the blueprints anymore,” I said. “She ignored me for the rest of the week after that.”
“Are you complaining?” he asked, a sly smile on his face.
“Not a damn bit,” I said. “Not one damn bit.”
4
Ally
“A built-in cutting board wouldn’t work in a table for a cold prep area,” I said. “Areas like that have far too much potential for cross-contamination. Fish, meat, and poultry are going to be prepped back there, but so will vegetables and fruit. There can’t be an area that isn’t easy to wash and disinfect.”
Noah looked at me like I was speaking a different language. “Isn’t a table just essentially one giant cutting board?”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at him. He was a carpenter, I had to remind myself, a contractor. He didn’t work in kitchens and had no idea about everything that went on in them. Just like I couldn’t be expected to understand what all the tools he had hanging from his belt did, I couldn’t expect him to fully understand the importance of the right prep areas and equipment.