to do that, and as soon as I sign my report, it will be official. So call all your employees and tell them not to report to work. No one other than you, the manager, and the sous chef are allowed in here until we get this figured out.”
“You’re kidding me? I can’t even have the staff come in for a special cleansing?”
“Nope, not until we figure out where it is coming from. Nothing can be added or removed until then.”
“Not even dry pantry goods? We have a major delivery tomorrow.”
He inhaled deeply, and then released it in a huff. “Normally, I’d say no, but your pantry storage is very separate and well contained. I can’t imagine that is where the bacteria is coming from. I’ll let you take the delivery tomorrow, but again, only the three of you may accept the inventory and put it in storage. No one should be in the kitchen working with any tools or food, and no other deliveries.”
“How long do you think we’ll be closed?”
“Well, it’s Thursday, so the samples won’t be there until tomorrow. I’m going to say probably at least until Saturday, but it could be Monday.”
“Monday?” I squeaked.
Chapter Nine
Harvey
Thursday afternoon was a little intense. I met them at the location, and we ran through the dance four times. I struggled the first two times, feeling uncomfortable being out in public and dancing.
Holly had pulled me aside after the second one. “Harvey, since when have you ever cared what people think of you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that you are distracted, and you keep looking around. It’s obvious that you aren’t comfortable doing this in front of others.”
“You are one hundred percent right; I am not.”
“Forget they are there. They mean nothing, Harvey. The only person who means anything is your partner. You can do this, but you need to forget about the audience and get your head on straight.”
“You’re right, Holly.” I was stuck in the fact that people were watching us practice. Had we been doing tactical things, I wouldn’t have cared because I was comfortable with it—but this was dancing. Over the last few days, I’d had a handful of people who had been present during the practices while they recorded everything. I just had to pretend that those other people here now were just like them. They were doing a job, not judging me.
Holy shit, I was going to dance in public with someone I didn’t even know! A panic I hadn’t ever felt before gripped my gut for a second. Get it together, Harv! You got this. You got this.
A few minutes later, I had things back under control, and we ran through the dance two more times. Both of them were flawless, or, well, as flawless as they were going to be with me doing them.
Now I just needed to make it through the next day and do it for real. As I left the park, I wondered if I was more nervous about messing up or having a connection with the woman and never seeing her again.
Friday morning, I woke up feeling even more anxious than the day before. As the day progressed, I began to feel downright nervous. I tried everything to keep from thinking about it, but the closer it got to noon, the twitchier I became.
I realized that I wasn’t as nervous about meeting her, as I was nervous about doing the dance and messing up. I didn’t want to embarrass myself or her, and I knew that if I screwed up during the dance, my guys would never let me live it down. Even five days later, I was still getting texts of funny memes and videos of guys dancing and making total fools of themselves. I knew it was in jest, but I couldn’t afford to add to the fire.
I wasn’t sure how they pulled it off, but Alice and Maggie were going to be there to watch from behind the scenes. I hadn’t wanted anyone there, but Alice told me last night that they would be. I wondered if maybe Maggie had used her newspaper credentials to get her a place.
At noon, I headed down to my staging area and checked in. I was brought to a small trailer and asked to wait there. I could hear people walking by outside, talking about camera angles and sound checks, and I thought I would explode out of my skin if I had to wait any