Kevin O’Connell was as far from being Italian as humanly possible—his fair skin and ginger hair instantly gave his Irish heritage away. So, it surprised everyone when he scraped together the money to rehab the abandoned café on the corner and opened Siobhan’s Delight, Fine Italian Cuisine.
Siobhan was his grandmother who taught him how to make the most amazing spaghetti sauce when he was a boy. Throughout his life—culinary school included—he couldn’t find any other chef who could duplicate the taste.
The thing they don’t teach you in school is that when you open a restaurant, everything falls to you, from cooking and reservations to finances and maintenance. A decade flew by and as Kevin approached 40, he realized he’d never made time for two things: vacations and relationships.
On a whim, he hopped in his apple-red ’72 Mustang and drove to the Jersey Shore. He found a nice hotel and unplugged, taking in sun and surf.
His last night there, while strolling on the boardwalk between the taffy and T-shirt shops, Kevin saw a store window with the words “Fortune Teller” in it. He thought those people were phony, but something moved him to walk in.
The woman gestured for him to sit and then started silently flipping a strange deck of cards with odd symbols face up on the table between them. Every now and then she’d stop and jot down a letter
on a scrap of paper.
When she was finished, she asked Kevin if the word “Sage” meant anything to him.
“I’m a chef,” he replied. “I use sage in some of my dishes.”
“Your love cards point to Sage,” she replied.
Kevin handed her $20, shook the sand from his shoes and returned home to his restaurant.
A few months later, Kevin was gearing up to host Single Mingle, an annual event at Siobhan’s Delight where people who were “single and looking” could come out to dine and meet other available people. Only that year, it’d be tricky, because Kevin’s sous-chef had left to open her own place, leaving Kevin with a vacancy. He placed a “Chef Wanted” sign in the window and went about planning the event.
If Kevin was honest with himself, he was very lonely. So, thinking back to what the silly fortune teller had said about his love cards, he made certain to include the herb sage in every single dish for Single Mingle, from Pollo al mattone to Riso e salvia.
Single Mingle sold out, and there had to be two dozen women around Kevin’s age literally standing in his restaurant ready to be swept away. He took breaks from the kitchen to mingle himself, but no one caught his fancy. The women were nice and attractive, but there wasn’t the spark that Kevin had convinced himself he’d feel when he finally met “the one.”
A few hours later, the customers gone, Kevin was stacking chairs when there came a knock on the door.
“Closed,” he called out.
Another knock.
His bartender, Bobby, who was still there helping, said, “I got it.”
He saw Bobby chat briefly with the person, then shut and lock the door.
“Who was it?” Kevin asked.
“Some woman—a chef. Saw the sign in the window. I told her to come back tomorrow.”
“Good,” Kevin said. “I’m exhausted.”
As the bartender turned to go, Kevin asked, “Did you catch her name?”
Bobby paused, thinking, then said, “Sage. Odd name for chef, don’t you th–“
He hadn’t finished the sentence before Kevin blew past him out the door calling her name into the night.
