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Together, we surveyed the dining room. There was a good place to set up a refrigerated display case in the corner of the dining room. It would be easy enough to restock, and we could store all of the subs in plastic wrap so that they wouldn’t contaminate each other.
“I’m glad to see that we could come to a compromise,” I said honestly.
Mr. Delaney nodded and walked away without another word. I didn’t feel the need to stop him. The uneasiness I sensed from him as we had been working to get the menu put together felt as though he had accepted my apology, but only because I had the sense to apologize. My being at the bar must have really shaken him up…
I shook my head and went to finish the dishes.
It wasn’t until I was taking the garbage out that I realized there was a chill to the air outside. I had thought it was just the air conditioning inside, but this appeared to be coming in through the door now that I thought about it. I glanced up at the sky. There were dark clouds approaching, but they looked so far off in the distance that I was sure they wouldn’t be arriving at all today.
It was honestly the chill that had me the most worried.
I shook my head and put the bag in the large dumpster. Then, I made my way back to the lodge. The door to the kitchen thankfully didn’t lock automatically, and I had had the foresight to unlock it. I slipped back inside, careful to make sure that the door latched behind me so that I wouldn’t get any more of a cold draft in the kitchen.
“Hey, Laurel.”
I jumped and spun around. My mind immediately preparing arguments for why Mr. Delaney couldn’t change his mind about the sandwich bar. But his face was calm and noncombative.
“What’s up?”
“There’s a large moving truck and a car outside for you?” He didn’t seem too sure how to phrase this. “They asked for you.”
“Oh, that’s the rest of my things! Thank you,” I said.
With that, I walked out to the lobby. There were people milling about now, and I noticed that most of them had suitcases and were heading out to the waiting shuttle.
“Miss Pennington?”
I looked towards the source of the voice and found a burly man speaking to me.
“Ah, you must be the one who drove everything here. Thank you so much.” I smiled at him.
We went through the usual routine – I had to show my ID, and he let me see the manifests and be sure that everything had arrived before we took anything off the truck. Honestly, the truck didn’t have all that much in it. The car had been the largest thing there, and they had gotten it out of the truck easily enough. Nothing had gotten broken, either, which was nice to see.
“Thank you so much for all your help,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
With that, I started taking the things up to my room, passing the leaving guests on my way through the lobby. I had them move the truck so that we could use the stairs by my room, and it took less than thirty minutes to move the last of my boxes into my room with the help of the movers.
During those thirty minutes, the dark clouds approached the lodge quickly. They still didn’t appear to be heading directly towards the lodge, but I worried that we were about to get a good storm. I hadn’t even yet found all of my winter gear, which was not good. With the way this chill was going, I had a feeling I’d need it.
“Good luck here in Idaho,” the man said as he loaded up in his truck. “I hope you enjoy it here. Looks like you’re in for a good bit of snow. I’m going to see how far I can get before it makes me stop.”
“Of course. Drive safely,” I said, looking in surprise at the sky. I never paid much attention to the weather report, so I hadn’t heard that snow was on its way.
My stomach sank. If there was going to be a snowstorm, I didn’t want to be stuck here in the lodge if I could help it. Rick had told me he was headed to some warehouses near Boise for minifridges, and it looked like most of the guests were also on their way out. Things were still too awkward between me and Mr. Delaney.
I went to the lobby to see if I could find anything out for myself, only to find Mr. Delaney on the phone with a customer. He appeared a bit irritated, and I waited to the side while he finished on the phone.
The lobby, which had been absolutely bustling just an hour or so ago, was dead quiet now except for Mr. Delaney’s voice as he spoke to the customers on the phone.
“What’s going on?” I asked when he hung up.
“There’s a large storm approaching,” he said. “Snowstorm. It’s not that odd to get snow this late in the season here, but not like this. This is… this is something that should have come like two months ago while we were in the dead of winter. If you have your winter gear, now is the time to get it out. Thankfully, this lodge can survive such storms, but it’s not going to be pretty if this is the first Idaho snowstorm you’re going through.”
I waited to see if he would explain why he’d seemed so angry on the phone.
After a pause, he added, “It’s rolling in even earlier than expected and not everyone is happy about adjusting their plans for the weather.” He sighed.“Since I had Rick go get all of the ingredients you wanted, unless the power goes out, I think we’re set,” Mr. Delaney said. “I… I suppose I should be thanking you for your insistence that we get more on the menu. I’m not sure any of us would have enjoyed sandwiches for days if the storm had hit before we could compromise like that.”
I nodded slowly.
