“How do you know him?” I said, sneaking a menu off the pile Sunshine had left at the end of the table.
Manda remained unruffled in the face of my sneering. “He lives on our block. Cute little bungalow, two doors down.”
“Really nice paint job,” Jack said. “And a killer front porch, though he had to strip the thing down to its studs when he moved in. The floor was all cattywampus, but nothing a little jack-up job couldn’t fix.”
Manda put her hand on Jack’s arm, and he seemed to realize the issue was not a sagging porch floor.
“So he’s handy,” Jack said in summary.
Manda continued. “I scouted him out months ago but you weren’t here, and now you are. Plus, he likes food and so do you.”
“Just hold on,” I said, defeating Zara in tic-tac-toe with a vicious diagonal line. I redrew for another game before she could notice. “Saying we both like food is like saying we both enjoy breathing oxygen. It is no basis for a love connection. And what’s his boss Howie up to here, anyway, at this ‘diner’?” I made quotation marks with clenched claws. “Is this some kind of cult-y diner? Everything is vegan? Are we talking meat-substitutes here, because I told you about my bacon waiting for me in my brand new, stainless steel fridge. Seitan is just what it sounds like. Lucifer—” I took a breath to open the menu and felt my salivary glands kicking in.
“I love that girl’s name!” Zara said. “I’m going to name my Barbie Sunshine Ruby Mae Henrick right when we get home.”
“Barbeeeeee!” Dane said. He was gripping an oversized crayon over his kids’ menu and coloring an oversized drawing of French toast.
“Charlie,” Jack said, one arm holding Polly, the other spinning some kind of psychedelic rainbow mobile in front of her face. “You know you’re in the Pacific Northwest when your waitress’s name is Sunshine.” He shook his head and went back to getting his baby stoned with a toy.
Zara paused in her coloring. “I have a girl in my class named Begonia. And a boy named Cloud.”
Manda shrugged under my gaze. “People are allowed to make their own decisions, Charlie. You might surprise yourself. When your own little one is looking up at you one day, your entire body heavy and tired after you’ve pushed out the placenta—”
“Eww.” I shuddered. “Please don’t mention any more birthing details before breakfast.”
“You might, in that moment, think, ‘This child is called to have the name Maple.’ You will feel it in the depths of your bones.”
I scowled, turning my shoulders more deeply to one side so my back was to the kitchen. “Maple is not a real name.”
“Totally is,” she said, nodding thanks to Sunshine, who had delivered her tea. “And androgynous. Works for boy or girl.”
“What’s wrong with Sam?” Jack said with sudden vehemence. “Or Jane? Or John?” He handed Polly across the table and into Manda’s arms. “Why must we wonder if it’s a girl or a boy when we see the kid’s name on the class list for his or her whole life?”
This sparked a spirited dialogue between Manda and Jack, during which I played roughly eighty-seven games of tic-tac-toe with Zara and eighty-seven games of pretend tic-tac-toe with Dane. I loved hearing Jack push Manda’s buttons and watching her erupt, curls bouncing. I also loved the way Jack laughed in exasperation at his prickly wife, and the way she watched him with smitten eyes. I nearly forgot how cruel and unusual they were to conspire against me for a breakfast blind date. All in the name of fun, but, inevitably, these meetings left me feeling more empty-hearted than when I’d walked in.
Buttermilk pancakes weren’t typically equipped to fill gaping holes in one’s heart, but the ones I ate that day at Howie’s came pretty darn close. My first bite of Wilma’s Cakes made my mouth water while eating. They were spongy and light but still had some gumption. The buttermilk seemed to be paired with something fantastic—sour cream? Crème fra?che? Not here, certainly … There were subtle notes of nutmeg and cinnamon, just the right touch without the pancake turning into a spice fest.
I moaned when I bit into a raspberry muffin.
“Exactly,” Manda said, her eyes closed around the joy of a pecan roll. “Better than you-know-what.”
“Watch it, now,” Jack said, but without heart. His bacon, asparagus, and goat cheese omelet was nearly gone, but he ate with one protective arm curled around his plate in defense anyway.
“Everything tasting all right?”
I looked up, startled from my happy pancake moment. Kai stood at the head of our table, but the diner was so packed, he had to lean forward slightly to allow room behind him. I tried not to notice how close he was to me.
Jack reached above Zara’s head to offer Kai a hand. “Wow. We heard about your restaurant from the Harpers, but honestly, we thought they were exaggerating. Dude, they were not.”