Page 10 of A Breeze Over Rosewood Beach
He remembered times during his career when he’d been treated with the utmost respect. At galas and other city events, he’d been given special places at dinner, and he’d been given VIP treatment when it came to his car or buying a hotel room. He shook his head, trying to dispel all the memories. They made him feel as small as one of the grains of salt lying on the cobblestones.
He found an envelope poking out of the front door. He tugged it out and opened it, finding the key and a cheerful note from his landlord. He frowned, weirded out by the lack of security. Were there really no people there who would have taken the key and gone into the cottage to steal valuables?
He turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. It swung inward slowly, revealing a short hallway decorated with a colorful pastel rug and a thin table sporting a few colored glass vases and a stack of books on photography.
Heat wafted around his face, kissing his cheeks. He stepped inside and set his suitcase down on the floor, glad to enjoy the feeling of warmth. He shut the door behind him and looked into the room to his left, which was clearly some kind of living room. There was a comfortable couch and an armchair, and a little fireplace with a stack of real wood beside it.
He wandered into the kitchen, which was clean and smelled pleasantly of lemons. He opened the refrigerator and found fresh eggs, a loaf of homemade bread, and a quart of milk. There was another cheerful note from his landlord, welcoming him to Rosewood Beach and stating that the food was complimentary. A welcome gift.
He frowned. There would be some catch in it somewhere. Business owners never gave you anything for free, not really. There would be some request for a tip or a fine print addition to the final price of the cottage, something like that. But he didn’t really care. Eggs and milk and bread would be nice to have.
His stomach growled loudly, and he realized that he was hungry. He opened the cupboards, looking for dishes, and found that everything was clean and put away in an orderly fashion. He pulled a frying pan out of one of the lower cupboards and set it on the stove. He noticed a bottle of olive oil on the counter, and he poured a little into the pan. He hadn’t cooked for himself in a decade or so, but it couldn’t be that hard, right?
He cracked open a couple of the eggs and threw the shells away in the garbage can, which had a fresh, empty bag in it. He washed his hands, noticing that the hand soap smelled like mint and blueberries.
He left the eggs cooking on the stove and made his way up the little staircase to the second floor. It was small, but it contained a four-poster bed covered in a handmade quilt and a small bathroom with a bathtub and an old wooden medicine cabinet over the sink. Here too, everything was clean and smelled nice. Even though it was clear that many of the items in the house were antiques, nothing gave off an indication of decay. The place was clearly well-maintained. Oscar had to admit that he liked that.
He’d just finished putting away some of his clothes in the dresser when he noticed an odd smell. He sniffed the air inconfusion. Was something on fire? A problem with the electric system maybe?
All at once he remembered the eggs. With a groan of dismay, he thundered down the stairs and found them burnt, already sticking like a crispy, immovable film to the pan. He turned the fan on over the stove and opened the back door to let in fresh air. Along with the fresh air came a blast of cold winter wind, but Oscar found himself pausing to let it race over him. It smelled invigoratingly of the sea, and it had a clean quality that seemed to wake him up all the way down to his core.
Once the smoke had subsided, he placed the frying pan in the sink and shut the back door. His cooking attempt had been a complete failure, and he was hungrier than ever.
He noticed a “Welcome to Rosewood Beach” brochure hanging on the fridge and he took it down, moving the magnet that had held it in place. He noticed that the magnet was shaped like a smiling waffle wearing a sailor’s cap, and underneath it were the words, “Ocean Breeze Café.”
He made an expression of distaste. The waffle magnet seemed unnecessarily goofy to him, even downright undignified. He opened the brochure and looked for a section on local restaurants.
“The Lighthouse Grill,” he muttered. “Ocean Breeze Café.” Both restaurant names seemed stereotypical to him, and he imagined that they served tired, basic diner food. The last time he’d been at a small-town family diner, he’d had a clam chowder that tasted like a refrigerator and had been paired with stale crackers.
He glanced at the magnet on the refrigerator again. He felt a twinge of curiosity about the place. The magnet implied that they served waffles there, and after burning the eggs he had a hankering for breakfast food, despite the fact that it was the afternoon.
They’re both bound to be of the same quality,he thought.Or lack thereof. I’ll go to Ocean Breeze Café.
He left the cottage, locking the door carefully behind him. He didn’t trust people anywhere, even if his landlord seemed to trust everyone in town. He got back inside his car, glad that it was still somewhat warm from the heat having been on during his drive.
He pulled the car out of the driveway and started toward the center of town. He soon arrived at Ocean Breeze Café, and his jaw almost dropped when he saw how small it was. It was charming, that was without question, but it looked more like a shoebox than a restaurant.
He parked his car in front of the café and got out. Immediately the rich, flavorful aromas of savory food met his nostrils. He took a deep breath, and his stomach growled even more loudly than before.
He went inside the little café, and a bell jangled cheerfully over his head. The place was somewhat crowded, but not extremely so. A couple of people were waiting in line for coffee at the counter, but it was clear that the café was also a sit-down kind of establishment, since there were many tables scattered around, and he saw a box of menus at the end of the counter.
“Would you like a table?” A smiling teenager approached him, holding a tray of dirty dishes.
“Yes,” Oscar said.
“Great! Go ahead and sit anywhere, and I’ll be right back with a menu.”
She waltzed away and Oscar sat down at a little table in the corner of the room. The wonderful smells were even stronger there, and he felt a pang of hunger. Maybe he wouldn’t get breakfast. Maybe he would get something with a little more protein.
The teenager dropped off a menu and a water glass at his table a few moments later. “Take a few minutes to look at this and I’ll be right back,” she told him.
He didn’t say anything, he just took the menu from her. It was a two-sided, laminated piece of paper. He noted that it was clean, and that it was charmingly designed, but he disliked the fact that there weren’t many options on it. His eyes scanned the breakfast menu, and nothing jumped out at him as something he wanted. There were waffles, of course, but now that he was feeling grumpier, waffles didn’t seem like enough to satisfy his hunger.
He began to look at the lunch menu, and he noted that many of the options seemed commonplace compared to the upscale restaurant food he was used to. It was a basic diner menu, just as he’d feared. Some of the items had some creativity to them—salmon benedicts, for example—but he had no interest in a bacon cheeseburger or alfredo with meatballs, even if the meatballs were supposedly seasoned with a special blend of herbs. Then his eyebrows lifted with interest. There was a chicken waffle sandwich with a side of tater tots. He hadn’t had tater tots in a very long time. The meal sounded delicious, and it was a perfect way for him to get his waffles and a lot of protein at the same time. He felt a little weirded out by how perfect it was.
“Do you know what you want?” the teenager asked, stepping up to his table a moment later.
“Yes. I’ll take the chicken waffle sandwich with tater tots.”
