Chapter Three
Gordon
The bell chimed over the glass door when I pushed through it, and the sound echoed louder in my head than it had this morning. There was a finality to it that made me physically ill.
Half my dad’s shop was filled with the senior class shoving their faces full of today’s special. Chatting, high-fiving, laughing, celebrating the newfound freedom from graduation. They had no cares in the world, only bright, sparkling futures to ride off toward.
At least when I thought about going to Stanford, I knew the shop would be all right. That it would always be here when I got back. My dad would be fine because he’d be doing what he loved. What he and my mother had started back when she was alive. Before the cancer took her.
Now?
Now this could be one of the last times I ever saw the place operational. One of the last times that I did the rounds, checking the functionality of the equipment, sliding on an apron to help Dad push out orders, fixing that damn cash register that continued to break no matter how many times I repaired it.
I moved through the tables until I found myself in the kitchen, watching my father hustle in front of the stove, whistling while he did. The smells of fresh produce and fried food mixed together in a chaotic way that somehow worked together. The familiar smells, sounds, and setting filled my lungs with desperately needed air.
Hank had robbed my father of his life’s dream. His passion, and yet, here he was, humming a tune as he cranked out orders, the same gleam of satisfaction in his eyes as he worked. As if this was any other day. He wasn’t off making grand embarrassing speeches to get back at Hank or phoning in the day and closing up the shop early. No, he was here, doing what he did best.
God, I’m such an asshat.
I rubbed my palms over my face, a cold sweat breaking out on my neck. The rage-red clouds that had filled my head cleared, and dread snaked through my veins.
Zoey.
I’d humiliated her on purpose. Selfishly. Yes, she’d lied to me. But I blamed her for whatever I had lacked in order to be denied the scholarship. I blamed her because I needed someone, something to take on the shittiness of this epically shitty day.
Ass. Hat.
“Pass me that red onion, will you, son?” Dad asked, pointing to a basket filled with them. I scooped one out and tossed it to him. He caught it, instantly dicing it up and throwing it into a sauté pan. “These kids are ravenous today!” he said over the hissing in the pan. “Graduation will do that to you, I suppose.” He smiled, spinning the spatula in his hand. “Tell me,” Dad said, keeping his eyes trained on the food. “Did you get it?”
My gut twisted, the smells in the kitchen suddenly not so comforting. I rubbed the back of my neck, the words frozen in my throat.
He spared me a glance. “Gordon?”
I shook my head. “It was close, Dad,” I said, the words Mrs. Rollins spoke only now registering in my head. “My counselor said it isn’t the end. And I have the internship pending, too.”
His shoulders sank for a moment, the pride and brightness in his eyes cracking. Damn. I didn’t want to put this on him. Not now. “Does the internship offer scholarships, too?” he asked, returning to the food.
“Sometimes,” I said, nodding. “It depends on how they feel about your potential when the summer is over.”
“Well,” he said, sliding the grilled red onion on top of an upside-down butter-toasted bun. “They’d be crazy not to pick you. And they’ll know after a week of watching you work that there is no one better, and no one who deserves more to go to the college of his dreams. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.”
I mustered up a half smile and patted him on the back. “Thanks, Dad.”
Stacy—our one and only waitress—popped into the kitchen to pick up the orders Dad had just assembled. He smiled at her, and she took the baskets of food with a swing in her step.
She didn’t know yet, and somehow, I hated that Dad would have to go through the process of telling her. She’d worked for us for over two years now, and I might be biased, but Dad was the best boss on the planet. She’d be devastated she’d have to find another job. Maybe Mr. Handler would hire her as a barista in his new coffee shop.
“Come here a second, son,” he said after the kitchen door had swung closed. He wiped his hands on his stained apron, walking toward the back of the kitchen. He reached up and grabbed an envelope from the top shelf where he kept his coveted cookbooks—Mastering the Art of French Cooking, White Heat, and Joy of Cooking. Sometimes Dad would get in a funk with his own menu and flip through the pages of his favorite titles in order to reignite the passion. Of course, Hank had always kept him under strict rules, placing him in a box, since he’d controlled most of the money. I always wondered what it’d be like when Dad could buy out of the partnership, and finally switch up his menus as often as he wanted.
Another crash of heat rolled the acid in my stomach. Dad deserved better than this.
“It isn’t much,” Dad said, fingering the envelope before he handed it to me. “But we saved as much as we could.”
I scrunched my eyebrows at him before tearing into the paper. I pulled out the check that laid inside and choked when I saw the numbers. “Five-thousand dollars?”
Dad chewed on his lip for a second before shrugging, something like real physical pain flashing across his features. “I’m sorry it isn’t more, kid. I know that won’t make a dent at Stanford, but maybe if you pair it with something Mrs. Rollins finds for you…I don’t know.” He sighed. “Maybe it’ll get you a couple of semesters’ worth of books?”
I stood there speechless, my jaw opening and closing over and over before I finally wrapped my arms around him. “How did you… I mean… Dad.” All the words I wanted to say clogged in my throat, choking my airways and pinching the back of my eyes with tears I wouldn’t dare let drop.
Dad smacked my back a few times before he let me go. “Your mother,” he said, pointing to the check. “She made me stick that away after the first year we made a profit with this place.” He glanced around the kitchen, his eyes glazing like he was going back in time. “I argued with her over it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Said you weren’t even old enough for us to be thinking about college yet, but she won. She always won.” He sighed. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to start saving for you…it was just a rough year. It’d been a rough five years. We’d sunk everything we had into this restaurant, and we were barely scraping by. I remember a few months when we couldn’t even afford diapers.” He glanced downward, shaking his head. “We had to experiment with cloth diapers, and let me tell you, son, that was not fun.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice a whisper. I’d heard the stories before, knew the struggles my parents went through to take their dream into their own hands, but it was different hearing them while holding a check.
“Don’t be.” He clamped his hand on my shoulder, pointing to the money. “That should be more. If the hospital bills hadn’t taken most of what we had…and then Hank…” His eyes turned to slits before he smoothed out his face. “I feel like I’m letting you down.”
“Oh, Dad. No.” I shook my head. “That is not possible. I wish I was half the man you are.” I stared at my shoes.
This restaurant was like a second home, and in some ways, it had been the glue that held Dad and me together after my mom passed. I wanted to make both her and him proud—that had always been a goal of mine…to be someone like my father. Someone who worked his ass off to get what he wanted. To be able to wake up every single day and do what he loved.
I slipped the check into the envelope and handed it back to Dad. “I can’t take this, Dad.”
“It’s yours. You have to take it.”
“No.” I raked my fingers through my hair and took a few steps away from him, my chest threatening to crack from all the emotions battling each other beneath the surface. “You could take that check and continue paying Stacy for a month, plus the electric and gas bill. And when our stock runs out, we can open for just lunch or dinner, and run a special with ingredients we buy from the market on Sundays.” The idea of keeping this place running—on our own terms—even for just a month had my heart filling with hope. “I’ll help you. We can do it.” Another idea formed in the back of my mind—a crazy, totally against the odds idea, but I had little left to lose.
My dad’s eyes glistened, and I swallowed hard. “I can’t ask that of you,” he said, his shoulders dropping.
“You didn’t. And you don’t have to.”
“This money is yours,” he said.
“Fine,” I said. “I get to choose how to use it, then.”
His brow furrowed.
“And,” I continued before he could counter me. “I would rather use it for this. Buy us time, Dad. I may have an idea.”
“What?” he asked.
“I’ll talk to Mr. Handler. Come up with a business proposal, show him this place can be profitable without a silent partner who is nothing but a leech.”
Dad flinched. “Son,” he chided.
“What?” I took a breath to calm my tone. “Don’t you want to slug the guy? I mean, Dad. What Hank did? He deserves all of your wrath.”
Dad gripped my shoulder. “You can’t give in to that line of thinking.” He shook his head. “Do I want Hank to pay for what he’s done? Absolutely. But dishing out personal revenge is a road that only leads to pain for both people. It’s never worth it.”
I gaped at him, almost in awe of his control. His calm attitude when looking at our chaotic situation. He wasn’t off slaying Hank on his social media pages, or making horrible speeches…he was taking the high road.
Damn, I’m such an ass.
Dad smiled, squeezing my shoulder. “Now, about your idea. No one knows the numbers better than you,” he said. “If anyone can convince Handler not to flip this place, it’d be you.”
“Thanks. I’m not saying it’ll work, but it is worth a shot.”
“Still, you should be taking this money and figuring out how to use it for your future.” Dad continued to battle with himself.
“As much as I appreciate what you and Mom did for me…all you’ve done for me…I can’t use this for college. We don’t even know if I’ll go without a scholarship.” The truth of those words pinched my nerves.
“You’ll go. I know you will.”
I shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Thanks, Dad. Now,” I said. “Will you use that like I asked?” I pointed to the check.
He pressed his lips together, the conflict clear in his eyes.
“Say yes,” I said.
He shook his head. “I don’t know what I did to deserve a kid like you, son, but I’m so glad you’re mine.”
I coughed, forcing the sting out of my throat. “Dad,” I groaned.
“I’m proud of you.” He hugged me again before pushing me back to look me in the eye. “And you’re right,” he said. “You aren’t half the man I am.”
I nodded.
He clutched my shoulders with a fierce grip. “You’re me and a hundred-times more.”
I wanted to argue with him, but decided to live in this moment a little longer.
He wouldn’t have been proud of me earlier today. Not if he’d heard my speech. Thank God he didn’t.
I had time to make this right. If I could do nothing else, at least I could apologize to Zoey, maybe explain why I’d snapped even though it wasn’t a good excuse. Maybe even ask her why she’d felt the need to lie to me about the whole situation.
I pulled out my cell, my thumb hovering over her phone number. I’d had it since the one time freshman year when we’d been forced to work together on an advanced chem project. We’d completed ours in half the time the rest of the class had, and if I hadn’t hated her so much for stealing my spot as school manager of the newly opened store, I would’ve loved to work with her again. Funny, the person I couldn’t stand because we were always pitted against each other was the one person I worked the best with. If only the scholarship and internship had been a team effort.
I chuckled to myself at the absurdity and Googled the offices of Handler Organix instead.
After fifteen minutes of arguing with a secretary, dropping my name, my father’s, and then finally Zoey’s, I was transferred to Mr. Handler’s office phone.
“Mr. Meyers,” he said once he picked up, and I inwardly cringed. Did Zoey call him right away? I knew he wasn’t at the ceremony because I hadn’t seen either of her parents in the crowd. Plus, they hardly ever showed up to any function of Zoey’s in the past. If she told him about my speech, I could kiss this brilliant idea goodbye. Another wave of guilt crashed over me.
“Hello, Mr. Handler.”
“What can I do for you?” The casualness to his tone implied Zoey hadn’t made my stunt known yet. Maybe I still had a shot.
“My father tells me you’re looking to buy our restaurant.”
“Are you a co-owner now?” he asked.
I thought about the five thousand that I’d “technically” invested no more than ten minutes ago. “Not on paper.” And to him, that was all that mattered. Still, I hoped I could at least get a face-to-face. “Regardless,” I said before he could stop me, “I wanted to ask you for a meeting.”
“Really?” he asked, the silence afterward thick. “What for?”
“I’d like to show you a business proposal that will prove our unhindered operations will outsell the potential coffee shop you’d like to flip it to.”
The sound of a luxury suit scraped against leather on the other end of the line, and I could easily picture him puffing out his chest. I kept my jaw locked to prevent myself from blabbering on. The last thing I wanted was to sound desperate—didn’t matter if I was, he didn’t need to know it.
“What makes you think you have more of a grasp on profit margins than your father?”
Damn. Good question. “My father knows this business inside and out. He’s the talent and the heart and soul behind it. But I’m a soon-to-be economics major”—if I somehow manage to find a way to pay for Stanford, thanks to your daughter—“and I’ve worked in the shop since I was ten years old. I know it, and its potential sans an awful partner.”
The dead air between us wrapped around my neck like a noose. After losing the scholarship, and the near loss of the store, I was dying to hold on to something solid—even if it was only a meeting.
“Give me a chance to prove it to you,” I said. “I’ll take any fifteen minutes you have available. If you come to the shop, I’ll even make you a meal. Paper and product proof.”
“The only opening I have is tomorrow morning. Seven a.m.”
I fist bumped the air. “Yes!” I took a deep breath. “That would work perfectly.”
“You sure?” he asked. “I won’t tolerate you being a minute late.”
“I’ll be there, sir.”
“I’m a waffle man,” he said, chuckling. “And I like my bacon black. I’d say have an espresso ready, too, but you don’t work at a coffee shop, now, do you?”
I forced out a laugh. “Thanks for the opportunity, sir. I look forward to meeting with you.”
He grunted and I took that as my cue to hang up. I didn’t want to give him a chance to change his mind, not when this was the last shot I had.
After slipping my cell into my pocket, I resisted the urge to run and tell Dad about the meeting. I didn’t want to get his hopes up if Mr. Handler looked at the numbers and still bought us out merely to flip the place. Better to wait until I had real news, but the shitty day already felt lighter with the prospect of saving this restaurant.
Now, along with preparing the numbers, there would only be one thing left to do.
Apologize to Zoey.
She deserved a face-to-face apology no matter how much the idea of admitting my stupidity made me want to puke.
Thanks to her Snapchat I knew where she’d be tonight.
Lennon’s party.
Every senior would be there.
I told Mr. Handler I wouldn’t be late tomorrow. And I wouldn’t be late. But I had to make things right.
I just had to hope she’d give me a chance to explain. Maybe do some explaining herself. And if she didn’t, well, at least I’d know I tried.
“Will you take this order out to table twelve?” Dad asked, completely back in chef mode as I walked into the kitchen.
I nodded and slid my hand under the tray weighted down with six baskets of food. I headed out of the kitchen, expertly navigating between the tables as Stacy cleaned the few empty ones. I could walk these paths with my eyes closed.
A hole opened up in my gut as I handed the group their food. This wasn’t just the day I’d lost a scholarship. It wasn’t just a day I’d made an ass out of myself in front of the entire senior class. It wasn’t just the day my father told me he’d been betrayed by his business partner. And it wasn’t just the day I graduated.
This was the last day I’d ever get to serve food in my father’s restaurant without thinking about the expiration date. I may have bought us a month and a meeting, but the days to come would be nothing like they were before. Days where I studied during the slow times of the day, sitting on the wooden bench seat by the window, reading, doing homework. Days where we never got a second to breathe because of how busy we were. Days where my dad and I had a few laughs as we closed the shop, munching on something special he whipped up after flipping the open sign to closed.
Before today, I never knew how much I valued days like those. I never realized how deeply I loved this place like it was a part of me rather than just a place I worked until the stability of it was threatened. Axed. Gone.
Maybe I hadn’t needed the scholarship. Maybe my dreams of Stanford would’ve fizzled and I would’ve found my happiness right here alongside Dad.
I took the tray back to the kitchen, submitting my mind to the joys of cooking with my father, and ignored the clock. I was more than ready for a drink, and Lennon’s party couldn’t come soon enough.