As Jake drove away, I walked up the snow-packed path toward the historic Northwoods Supper Club.
I wore my new camouflage coat, the only jacket the combination gas station/convenience store/gift shop had in my size. I didn’t really want to think about what Tessa might have to say about how stylin’ I was.
On the way here Amber had called to confirm the time, and when I asked about the location, she’d launched into a short history of the place: the site of the Northwoods Supper Club had been used as a lumberjack mess hall nearly one hundred years ago before it burned down in the 1970s. The current restaurant had emerged from the ashes and had benefited from the nostalgia of the site’s past.
A large vinyl sign hung out front with a picture of a man dressed in a blaze orange jacket eyeing down the barrel of a gun. Bold lettering announced “Welcome Hunters.” I wondered which hunting season was open in the middle of January. Bear maybe. Possibly small game-squirrels, rabbits.
I pressed the door open and stepped inside.
Huge pine logs formed the walls, and stout handmade oak tables and chairs filled the restaurant. A bar, peppered with a few customers in snowmobile suit overalls and flannel shirts, took up most of the west wall. Though I doubted it was still legal to smoke in the restaurant, the residual smell of years of cigarette smoke lingered in the air.
More than a dozen broad-antlered whitetail deer heads and one elk head had been mounted on the walls of the restaurant. Tessa, to put it mildly, was not an advocate of sport hunting, and I could only imagine her reaction walking into a place like this. I remembered the two trophy bucks mounted in Sean’s living room and wondered how I was going to navigate that situation if she did end up making it over here, but then I saw Amber seated alone near a window at the far end of the restaurant, and my thoughts of how to deal with Tessa’s potential reaction to mounted deer heads disappeared.
Amber had glanced down at her menu, and the sunlight from the window warmed her face, giving her a soft, warm glow, making her seem almost otherworldly. Angelic.
She hadn’t changed much since I’d last seen her three years ago. Amber was thirty-three now but looked at least five years younger. I’d never thought of her as beautiful in the way that a movie starlet or a model is-with perfect features smoothed over with careful layers of makeup. Rather, she made up for her relatively anonymous looks with an infectious vitality, a contagious love for life, and a disarming flirtiness that she tended to weave, without realizing it, into her frequent and endearing smiles.
She set the menu aside and looked around. When she saw me, her eyes lit up. “Pat!” I gave her a small wave and made my way to her table. She’d already stood to greet me by the time I arrived.
And then she was in my arms. Surprisingly, she still wore the same perfume-gentle and delicate and femininely alluring. The scent seemed so familiar to me. I backed away just as she turned her cheek for me to give her a kiss of greeting. Though it might have been impolite, I refrained, said instead, “It’s good to see you.”
“You too.”
I gestured for her to have a seat, but she hesitated slightly, and we ended up sitting down almost simultaneously, as if we’d planned it that way. This brought a light smile from her.
“Well.” She placed both of her hands palm-down on the table as if she were accentuating that we were officially beginning our conversation. Her coral fingernail polish looked freshly touched up. “We have a lot of catching up to do. Where to begin?”
“I’m not sure.” I looked around the restaurant, even though I’d already scanned it when I walked in. “Is Sean here?”
“He’s coming. Should be here any minute.”
“Okay.”
“You look good, Pat.”
“So do you.” The compliment was out before I realized that it might not have been the wisest thing to say.
“Thank you,” Amber replied. A small grin. “I like your jacket.”
“Thanks. It’s new.”
“I see.”
A server appeared, an anxious-looking woman in her late twenties. Her eyes darted around the room like tiny trapped sparrows. “Welcome to the Northwoods Supper Club.” As she spoke, she tapped incessantly with her thumb and forefinger at her stack of menus. “Do you know what you want?” Her name tag read “Nan.”
“I’ll take a menu,” I said.
She laid one on the table for me. I was going to ask for another for Sean, but Amber cut in. “Two coffees,” she told Nan. “Specialty roast. And kindly bring some cream.” She caught my eye. “And honey.”
She remembered.
“Yes.” Nan backed away. “Okay.” Turned. Disappeared.
“Honey and cream,” I said to her.
“That’s still how you take it?”
“It is.”
Normally, I wouldn’t have chanced drinking coffee at a restaurant like this. Undoubtably roasted and ground months ago. Canned. Stored. Stale. More than likely brewed without using filtered water and with no real concern for the number of tablespoons of beans per six ounces of water. Trying not to think about all that, I changed the subject. “Your pharmacy. How’s it going?”
“They opened a Walgreens in town, so that hasn’t helped. But we’re hanging in there. And you’re still in Denver?”
I was ashamed she would even have to ask such a question. It underlined how poorly I’d stayed in touch with her and Sean. I decided to take the “you” in the plural sense. “We’re still in Denver. Yes.”
“And Tessa? How is she?”
“She’s doing okay. Considering.”
Amber had sent her condolences and spoken with Tessa on the phone several times after her father’s death last summer. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said softly. “I’ve been praying for her.”
Okay, that was a side of Amber I’d never seen before.
“That means a lot. Thank you.”
“Is she going to make it up here?”
“Actually, no. I was worried about the snow and told her to stay in the Cities for a couple extra days. Hopefully, though, we can arrange a visit sometime soon.”
“That’ll be nice.”
Seeing Amber, being with her alone at a restaurant again, made me realize my feelings for her had never completely gone away, and that made things all the more uncomfortable.
This was one time I wished I could just turn off my emotions, but it’s never worked that way with me. Sometimes my feelings come uninvited, when I don’t want them to; sometimes they leave despite my best attempts at hanging on to them. It can be disconcerting.
She smiled again in her free and affectionate way, and I wished she hadn’t. It brought too much back.
Sean, where are you?
“It’s possible we’ll be moving to DC,” I commented. “There’s an opening at the Academy, and they’re asking if I’d be interested in teaching again.”
“Would that keep you out of the field?”
“The Bureau wants its instructors to keep working cases every week.”
“To stay sharp.”
“Yes.”
I looked away, first toward the door to see if Sean might have arrived, then to Nan, who was bringing our coffee.
“Now,” Amber warned her, “he’ll tell you if this coffee is any good.”
“It should be.” Nan looked concerned. “They just made it.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.” I took the cup, added a touch of cream and honey, but before I could try it Nan asked me urgently, “Have you decided what you want?”
“Well, there’s one more person in our party.”
Amber waved her hand dismissively. “Sean told me to just go ahead and order. I’m not sure if he’ll be eating anything or not.” She tapped the menu and told me, “The Reuben’s good.”
I hadn’t even had a chance to look over the menu. “Well, I’m a cheeseburger guy at heart,” I replied. Then to Nan, “Give it the works, except-”
“Hold the mustard and pickles,” Amber interrupted.
“Yes. Hold the mustard and pickles.”
Nan wrote it down.
“I’ll go for the Reuben,” Amber told her.
“Fries or chips?” The question was directed at both of us.
“Fries,” I said.
“Fries for me too,” Amber told her.
Nan left for the kitchen, scribbling notes to herself as if her life, or at least her job, depended on correctly writing down word-for-word our rather unremarkable order.
Amber watched me expectantly. I braced myself and took a sip of my coffee.
Wow.
Nice.
“Well?”
Though I wasn’t a big fan of flavored coffee, this wasn’t bad. “I like it,” I replied. “Air roasted. Mexican beans. They added undertones of caramel, a hint of butterscotch. Graceful acidity, respectable body.”
She smiled. “It’s called Highlander Grog. There’s a roaster down in Watertown. Berres Brothers. They do mostly internet orders. This is the only local place that uses their coffee.”
A thought.
“That’s why you suggested we meet here.”
She held up her hands in fake surrender. “You got me.”
Sean entered the front door, stowed his snowmobile helmet and gloves in one of the wooden cubicles just inside the entryway. Thank goodness.
Amber tried some of her coffee. “I can hardly believe you knew the country of origin from just one sip.”
Sean was weaving between the tables on his way toward us.
“Maybe I was making that up,” I said.
“I doubt that.”
Then Sean arrived.