“What?”
Jimmy rarely left the kitchen when he was working.He didn’t even sneak out back for smoke breaks like my ever-revolving door of dishwashers always seemed to do.
I joined Dave at the window, seeing Jimmy sitting at the picnic table where my other staff ate their lunch on nice days.He just stared at the ground, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped and hanging loosely between them.
“I hope he’s not sick,” I said, moving immediately toward the back door.“Dave, you need to figure out what apps that table with the kids ordered and dish it up.They just complained they’ve been waiting thirty minutes.”
He nodded.“Sure.On it.”
I stepped outside.“Jimmy.”
My usually silent cook didn’t reply, as expected.I walked down the wooden steps.
“Jimmy,” I tried again.Still no answer.
I was pretty used to this reaction from him.I was accustomed to his silent treatment, though his hung head and blank expression were a little unusual—and a little unnerving.Carefully, I sat down on the bench seat beside him.
“Are you alright?”I asked.
He nodded.
I waited a moment.“Jimmy, I know you’re a man of very few words, but you’re really worrying me.Could you give me some inkling of what’s going on here?”
“Just thinking about Peanut.”His voice was low and hoarse, sounding like his vocal cords were rarely used and needed to warm up to the rare practice.Which was true, I suppose.
I remained silent for a moment too, respecting his grief, then said softly, “He was a good friend to you, wasn’t he?”
He nodded again.
I wasn’t sure how he would react to it, but I patted his back, feeling the bones of his spine through his cooking smock.Jimmy was such a strange character, that I sometimes forgot that he was a man getting up in years.He usually seemed almost timeless—the mythical, magical cook who made chowder and other wonderful New England delicacies—but at this moment, he looked like a tired old man.
We sat there, both quiet.Then I asked, “Tell me about Peanut.What was he like?”
Not surprisingly, Jimmy didn’t answer right away.He scuffed the ground with the toe of his worn white sneakers.
“He was a bit of a loner.”
That made sense, considering I’d been here in Friendship Harbor for nearly a year and a half, and I’d never seen him before.He certainly made an impression upon our one and only meeting, so I was pretty sure I would have remembered him if I had met him in the past.
“He liked to drink,” Jimmy added, which was another obvious fact about the man.“He loved being the town Santa.”
Jimmy wasn’t really sharing anything that I hadn’t already deduced in the brief time I saw him.
“Peanut was misunderstood.”
Well, that I could buy.
“We met in grade school.”
“Wow,” I said, “so you’ve had a long friendship.”
JImmy nodded.“Over sixty years.”
Oliver and I had become friends when we were in our teens, so about fifteen years ago.Sixty years.That was wild.Although I knew Oliver and I would be friends forever.
We fell into compatible silence again.But after a moment, I built up the courage to ask the question I’d really been wanting to know.
“Jimmy, do you really believe Peanut’s death was an accident?”
