Page 34 of The Beach Shack Legacy

“How many could you make?”

“No idea.” She stopped walking and he had to come back three steps.

“A number, Stella.”

Anna was at the grill with the cheese in its order and one hand up over the flat-top, counting. She pulled back at three and looked at the two of them and did not say anything.

“Margo texted me,” Stella said.

“Okay.”

“She said to put the shortbread on the board.”

Anna’s hand stopped on the way to the cheese.

“She said that?”

“She said exactly that.” Stella held the phone out so Anna could see.

“It’s four words. That’s the whole text.”

Joey, from about two feet behind her, said, “There’s no punctuation.”

Anna read it. She read four words for a length of time that suggested she was reading something longer, and then she handed the phone back and turned around to the grill and stood there for a second with her back to them.

Stella exchanged a quick glance with Joey. “If it’s okay with you,” Stella said. “It’s your kitchen. I know it’s your kitchen.”

“It’s not my kitchen.”

“Anna, it is completely your kitchen.”

“It’s the Shack’s kitchen and you work in it.” Anna turned around. Her eyes had gone bright and she made no attempt to do anything about it, but she was smiling. “Put it on the board.”

Joey was gone before she finished the sentence.

“I’ll need to know the yield,” he called, from somewhere near the wall. “And a name. It can’t go up without a name.”

“It has a name. It’s shortbread.”

“That’s a category.”

Stella looked at Anna. Anna waved her off toward the board with the spatula, and then turned back to the grill, and did not touch anything for a minute.

Joey had the specials board off the wall and flat on the counter before Stella had finished tying her apron.

“What is it called?” he asked. “Properly.”

“It’s called shortbread, Joey.” She got the apron strings tied on the second try.

He clicked the blue pen twice and did not write anything. “Everything on this board has a name. Stella’s Anzacs. Meg’s focaccia. Joey’s muffins, which I did not name.” He held the pen over the board. “What do I write?”

Stella thought about it longer than she meant to. Margo’s grandmother, in a kitchen nobody alive had stood in, measuring sugar in teacups and writing down comfort for other people. And Margo’s hand on the card underneath that, and the towel, and the trunk.

“Just shortbread,” she said. “Plain. Nothing in front of it.”

Joey looked at her for a second, and then wrote SHORTBREAD in blue capitals across the corner of the board, and stepped back, and frowned.

“The spacing’s wrong.”