Page 27 of Every Beautiful Mile

I mention lettuce because even when it isn’t in season, I keep a salad on my menu year-round. What changes are the additional ingredients which I try to keep fresh and seasonal. So, in the summer, I might have blueberries in a salad, while in the winter, I might have beets or roasted sweet potatoes. Believe it or not, lettuce isn’t locally grown around here in January.

I change my menu regularly, but my menu is also small. I’ve found it’s easier to keep things local if you aren’t trying to make everything. Stay in my lane, so to speak.

Tell me about what you do. I looked up your restaurant, and I see it’s in Key Largo. I also see that if anyone should be asking anyone for advice, it should be me to you. I may have gotten a couple sentences in the magazine, but your whole article puts mine to shame. Most fun restaurant? That’s damn impressive.

Ethan

I laugh at the same time pride swells in my chest. I’ve been so stuck in sadness and surviving that I forget we have accomplished a lot. It is damn impressive and has taken so much work. But he’s looked me up? Not that my face is plastered on the internet, but somehow the notion has me savagely chewing my fingernail. I put my phone down and pick it up too many times to count before deciding to respond.

Ethan,

I’ve watched enough crime documentaries to know that your research on us is a creepy red flag. Lucky for you, I give people the benefit of the doubt and am going to assume your curiosity is just normal weird and not stalker weird.

Our fun ranking is due mostly to the fact I have kids and needed to get creative with our space to figure out ways I could bring them to work without having them drink all the vodka. Also, we rigged the voting process. I’ll let you decide if I’m joking.

In all seriousness, I'm just a bartender—nothing too exciting here.

Thanks for the insight into the lettuce/salad situation.

Is everything always fresh, or do you sometimes take fresh local ingredients and freeze it for a different season? I’m thinking soups, sauces, etc…

Penelope

Eleven

Time moves so slowly as we drive across Texas, I can feel my own body starting to decay.

We stay in constant motion as we check off the boxes on Travis’ list while we trudge across the huge state.

San Antonio.

Austin.

Dallas.

The greenery of the east fades sharply into the dry and dusty monochromatic landscapes of the west. Texas is a place to go to forget or be forgotten.

The days it takes for us to cross the state wear on me.

On us.

Hours of sitting behind a steering wheel with the idiotic wooden beads digging into my sticky skin have me on the brink of snapping like a dry twig.

Somewhere between the ridiculous yoga postures Marin insists on showing me at the rest areas to help me relax and the moment Johnny Cash’s voice flips from soothing to completely unnerving, I rip the beads off the seat and throw them out the window as we barrel down the highway.

“I don’t care if they’re made of wood. It’s still littering and bad for the environment,” Marin says, appalled.

I don’t have the heart to tell her in that moment, I don’t give a flying fuck about the environment.

With every too-long mile that registers on the odometer, I mentally list and re-list every single reason the trip is the worst idea of my life.

The morning we find ourselves sitting and staring at something labeled as art at the edge of a sun-bleached field in a town called Marfa, I am certain it’s the end.

We squint at the series of rusty shipping containers set in rows in the middle of a barren field. The three of us sit on a bench with a different expression on each of our faces: Marin’s admiration, mine skepticism, Finn’s annoyance.

“The artist who made these, a lady named Zefra Lox, said that these symbolize the obsessive need to over-consume with the balance of lonely isolation,” Marin says.

I frown.

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