“What’re you doing?” Her question was angry, nearly accusing.
“Getting ready to clock in,” I informed her.
She cleared her throat. “I just want you to fix the kitchen first, then the bar, so I’m making sure you come with me before you go see Kyle.”
“Sweetie, if you guys know what should be happening, why don’t––”
She took a breath. “Because Lance is working, and you’re the only one he listens to.”
Technically, it was his grandmother who had his ear, no one else.
I pulled my cell phone from the back pocket of my jeans. “Go back out. I’ll be right behind you, I swear.”
She nodded, pivoted, and flew out of the room.
I got the Bowen house on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Jenny,” I greeted softly, walking down the hall toward the door. “How’re you, dear?”
“Why, Jeremiah Wolfe, I’m good. How’re you, boy?”
“Well, I would be better if I didn’t have to call you to come down and help us make some of your signature dishes for folks.”
“You need me to come cook?” she asked, and I could hear the excitement in her voice.
“If you would,” I told her, trying to sound as pitiful as humanly possible. “Your grandson doesn’t like it when folks wanna change things on his menu, so he’s throwin’ a fit and makin’ some dishes, but not all of them, and not in any order, so we’re gettin’ pretty backed up.”
“Oh my Lord,” she gasped, clearly horrified. “Lance is on the grill and actin’ the fool!” she yelled to someone other than me, who I’d bet was her husband. “Jeremiah, honey, I’m so sorry. He’s got a bit too big for his britches here lately.”
It wasn’t “lately,” but I wasn’t about to argue. “Yeah, and you know how he gets when we try and rush him, and Oz can’t do nothin’ without gettin’ in his way, and Harley’s stuck in the middle, so if you could come on over…” I made sure to exhale deeply, adding a whine in there for good measure, sounding a bit more desperate than the situation actually was. “And maybe bring Mel, if you would. I could use him too.”
“Oh, he would just love that,” she assured me cheerfully. I could hear her move through her house and then the jingle of keys before she yelled for her husband. “We’ll be right on over.”
“Thank you, darlin’,” I murmured, and hung up.
Slipping my phone into my back pocket, I walked past the empty break room, the time clock—where I stopped to punch in—and the bulletin board, where everything from coupons to band flyers were tacked up. There were lockers on the right, the POS office, where the safe was and where the cash drawers were counted at the end of the night, and in front of me, the swinging door that opened out into the loud, bustling restaurant.
The place was packed, which was normal every night, but the closer it got to the weekend—like this Thursday night—the crazier it got. Instantly, though, I saw problems. There were people with kids sitting at tables with no food, only water, and the bar to the right, near the front door, was four deep with people ordering drinks but also, I was sure, waiting to be seated. It was noisy, tempers were flaring, as there was some shoving going on, and I could see the outside seating was not being used at all.
Crossing the dining room, I rounded up four servers, the frat boys, our boss called them, all working nights while they went to college. I was in the same boat, just much older than them, currently working on my master’s. Of course, they’d all started the semester after they graduated. I wasn’t able to start my foray into higher learning until I could save enough for tuition, which meant two years of working after high school, not starting until I was twenty. To go sooner I would have needed student loans, and because there was no way to verify my mother’s income, since she’d split when I was fourteen—the year I started working as a barback—it would have been impossible to get any money for the Bachelor of Social Work I hadn’t finished until last year when I was twenty-four.
There was no father on my birth certificate, and when I’d asked Marla Wolfe years ago if she could recall which one-night stand he was, she assured me she had no earthly idea. She was drunk the night she gave birth to me, so it was a wonder