Keith (Hathaway House #11) - Dale Mayer Page 0,13
a specialist, and she might have leukemia. Her heart had gone out to him immediately, as she became aware that she now had two of her staff dealing with major health issues in their family. “Okay, but I’ll take over the ordering for now,” she said. “These last few days have been a mess.”
He winced and nodded. “Do I still have a job?”
“Of course you do,” she said warmly. “I understand you are distracted. Who wouldn’t be? But I can’t have you doing a job with such big ramifications when a mistake gets made.” She laughed and tried to put him at ease.
He nodded. “I was trying to get it right, then, after finding a mistake, I’d panic. In the course of trying to fix it, half the time I just made it worse. Way worse.”
She looked down at his notes that had been scratched out and written over and scratched off again, and the order forms looked a bit like a kid’s messy homework paper.
She nodded and said, “You need time to clear your head, so you can do whatever needs to be done around here that doesn’t require this stuff.” She held out the papers. “Let me see it.”
He handed her the clipboard with a new ordering sheet in front.
“Do you have any idea what we need?”
He stared at her, then sighed. “Not really.”
She nodded. “Okay, let’s go then. The two of us can walk through and see what we need. Grab the old sheets so we can see what we ordered over the last couple weeks.”
She already knew that she needed fresh mushrooms and green peas. She needed another shipment of flour. Making notes as they walked, the two of them went through the stock slowly and carefully. Not like an inventory but making a list of what they would need going forward. When that was finally done, she’d missed her coffee and realized she hadn’t delivered any to Keith either. But she did have her order sheets done.
She quickly faxed in one of them that she needed today, hoping it wasn’t too late, then sent the other two off for tomorrow’s deliveries. With the lists in her hand, she walked over and readjusted the week’s menu based on the different ingredients they were bringing in now.
When she turned around, Ricky just stood there, staring off into space. She gave him a gentle shake on the shoulder. “Go home. If your family needs you, that’s where you should be.”
He looked at her in surprise.
She shrugged and said, “We can handle this while you look after your daughter. Just go.”
He didn’t waste any time and quickly grabbed his jacket and was gone.
Gerard looked over at her, asking, “What was that all about?”
“He’s a mess right now,” she said, explaining about his daughter going in for leukemia testing. At that news, everybody winced.
“Well, that explains the orders for the last few days.”
“Yes, I’m just sorry he didn’t tell us before we ended up with whatever it is. Twenty-four extra gallons of milk?” She shook her head at that. “We need ways to use it, people.”
“Puddings,” one of them said immediately.
“Cream soups,” another one said.
“Good. Keep those ideas coming,” she said. “We’ve got a seven-day window for the ‘best before’ dates, so let’s book out something every day that’ll use up what we have. Twenty-four/seven. Dividing that up, it looks like we’ll need to use an extra three gallons a day.”
They nodded and turned back to the work they each were doing.
She walked over, finding the coffee was once again gone, and put on a fresh pot. As soon as it had dripped, she poured herself one and another for Keith, even though it was two hours late. She slipped out of the kitchen and headed toward his room.
When she walked inside, he was sitting up and looking a little worse for the wear. He had a sheet thrown across his leg, but the other leg she could see was purple and black. She stopped and winced. “Man, I hope the other one doesn’t look quite so bad.”
He stared down at the puffy-looking mess. “It does, unfortunately. Maybe worse actually.”
“Can you walk at all?”
“I can,” he said, “but not very far, not very fast, and not very long.”
“Still, being ambulatory is huge,” she said, putting the coffee down. “Sorry, things got crazy in the kitchen.”
He looked at the coffee in surprise. “I’d forgotten. I fell asleep and didn’t remember when I woke up that no cold coffee waited here for