Page 9 of The Grumpy Side of Paradise

It doesn’t end that way in real life. Even if that big city girl used to be a small-town girl who said she loved a flannel-wearing boy. In real life, that boy is left with a closet full of flannels and the Boston Terrier the girl leaves behind.

I hang up the shower head and let Rosie out. She shakes her entire body head to toe and water flies everywhere. I sigh. One more mess to clean up, but that’s on me. I should have had a towel ready. My head isn’t where it should be.

“Paradise is fine the way it is,” I say to Rosie because, of course, she’s interested. “We don’t need more people moving in.”

Rosie yaps twice, obviously agreeing with me, then turns in two circles and flops down on my bathroom rug. She rests her chin on her paws and looks up at me with sad eyes.

I should feel sad myself, but I don’t. Maybe a little angry, but not sad.

Despite vowing not to help Zach and Georgia with whatever they have planned for the Little Copenhagen, I almost enjoyed taking Grandma Rose’s down to the studs. She paid me well, which means I can keep mom’s restaurant—mine now—open another week. I can’t be sad about that.

But there’s more to how I feel than saving the restaurant.

I thought it would kill me to tear everything out of the house I’d spent so much time in during those long-ago summers. Georgia, Dakota, Zach, and I were always going between each other’s places. Our grandparents all had cottages in Little Copenhagen, and we lived at the resort all summer long, swimming, playing on the lake, and causing trouble.

So I expected to feel some remorse when I tore out the shag carpet, vinyl floors, and avocado green kitchen counters that were as familiar to me as my grandparents’ similarly decorated house.

Turns out, that décor didn’t look as good as I remembered. In fact, it was therapeutic tearing it out. I started with the carpet I was sitting on the first time I kissed Dakota in a game of Spin the Bottle. Next, I tore out the wall she’d leaned against a few hours later when I kissed her for real and not because a bottle told me to. Every corner that I demoed today seemed to hold a memory of Dakota and me.

Maybe it was the hard work, but something loosened in my chest as I slung my sledgehammer into walls. My shoulders hurt, but they feel lighter than they have in months. And I wonder if taking down a piece of my past will help me move forward.

Which doesn’t mean I want the past to disappear entirely. Just this one piece of it. I’ll do what I can to stop Georgia and Zach if what they have planned for the Little Copenhagen, and Paradise, involves more tourists and second-home owners.

Rosie’s shower cuts my own short. I have prep work to do at the restaurant before we open. I quickly rinse off, then put on the dark jeans and shirt I always wear to work at the restaurant. If I’m lucky, we’ll be busy, and I’ll need another shower when I get home. I always do during the summer when we’re packed with customers, and occasionally during the off-season when locals decide to eat out. The problem is, they haven’t quite embraced the menu changes I’ve made since taking over for mom this past summer. They love the food. It’s the prices they have a problem with.

I’d love The Garden of Eatin’ to be a local-only place, which is why I haven’t updated the outside of the building. And I won’t. Too many of the summer residents and newcomers would love a high-end place like they’ve got in whatever cities they live in. My plan is to have a summer menu for them with over-priced “gourmet” hamburgers and fries. During the off-season, the locals will get Danish food with my own twist.

But I’m having a hard time finding the right balance between serving my neighbors incredible food that’s our own secret and charging them what I need to turn a profit. I know tourists would pay that price and more. I might even get people from as far away as Florence to come during the off-season. Financially, it would make sense to advertise what the Garden is, but I want Paradise Valley to have something it doesn’t have to share.

I get to the Garden before Britta and Bear, my sister and brother who help me keep it going. I always do. Sometimes I can get local kids to help with serving and bussing too, but most of them already have jobs working at their own family businesses. Off-season Paradise means both jobs and good help are hard to find. Everybody does their part to keep year-round businesses open.

By the time I’ve got my kitchen set up, Britta arrives and Bear shortly after. Zach’s offered to help too. I’ve told him no. I don’t need anything else to be angry with him about, and I guarantee having him in my kitchen would give me something.

We get a dozen customers the first two hours, including a few who come from as far away as Fish Haven, which is on the far side of Paradise Valley. That’s a good sign. Word is spreading that mom’s restaurant is open again, and the food is still good.

But by eight o’clock, things slow to a stop. Not surprising. Days are getting shorter, so people turn in earlier. By this time of year—after Labor Day and the last few warm days of September—everyone in Paradise Valley is ready for a break from the work and fun of summer. It’s the time of year when we look forward to warm drinks and cozy nights by the fire. We’re ready to surround ourselves with the people we know and love until we have to roll out the red carpet again for our summer guests who bring in the money we need to keep this town going. I hate it, but it’s the truth.

In my family, we play music on these off-season nights. When I moved back to Paradise six months ago, Sebastian, Bear, Zach, and I started playing together again. That’s what we—minus Zach now, for obvious reasons—do most evenings in between customers on slow nights, like tonight, or after closing time on the occasional busy night. Sebastian on bass, Bear on drums, me on guitar and lead vocals.

“Okay, Bear,” I say to my brother. “Looks like we’re done for the night. You wanna play?”

“You don’t want to wait for Sebastian?” Bear wipes his hands on his apron, then takes it off. He already knows my answer.

“Nope. Let’s start without him.” We’ve got our first show this Saturday to try and draw in more customers. A cover fee gets people food (buffet-style, since I’ll be on guitar, not grill), a drink (Dad is bartending), and music.

It’s mainly just for fun, and just for locals. In the off-season, everyone —or maybe it’s only me—in Paradise is done entertaining people. Even those people who are friends of friends and have friendly eyes that match their totally out-of-place dress.

So when the bell over the entrance jingles, and I hear the voice of Georgia’s minion, I keep plucking the strings of my guitar. When I do glance at her, she’s watching me, her blue-black eyes shining.

But I blame my brother’s drums for the vibrations that travel through my body.

Chapter 5

Evie

After leaving Grandma Rose’s, I spend an hour searching for the condo Georgia made arrangements for me to stay in. Zach owns it, but he doesn’t answer my texts, and Google maps utterly fails me. I’m tired and hungry when I spot the one restaurant in town that looks open. By the time I park the truck, I don’t care what they serve, as long as they make it fast.

As I walk to the door, the smell wafting from the run-down restaurant is more promising than its rutted parking lot or the old wooden sign hanging over the door. The faded lettering readsThe Garden of Eatin’.

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