“You have less than ten minutes,” the guy says, sticking his head in the kitchen. I want to tell him to kiss my ass, but I don’t. I nod and smile and go back to working on my roux. Ever since I got to the restaurant it’s been a complete disaster, so I’m not holding out hope that this is going to work.

First I arrived and setup. I learned then that the kitchen was still going today and I’d essentially be running the kitchen and overseeing the orders as well as cooking. It’s not so much as trying out for the job, as giving them one day of free labor to see if they like me. I’m pretty sure that kind of crap is illegal and it doesn’t fill me with warm fuzzy feelings about working here. I suck it up though.

I’m out to prove myself—not only here, but in my industry, so I shake it off. Then the owner keeps walking around, watching every move I make. I mean, that’s his right but it’s starting to get on my nerves. It wasn’t so bad until he had the audacity to comment on my hair.

“I hope you cook better than you choose your hairstyles,” he murmurs.

His words cut, because I’m still mentally trying to recover from everything to do with my hair, but I suck that up too. I’m frazzled, but everything seems to be going really well and by that I mean in ten minutes I’ve completed an entire shift and I’ve not had one issue and no real complaints. By this time, I’m feeling like the job is mine. I’ll admit that I’m starting to wonder why I want to work for these guys, but all the same, I’m feeling accomplished.

“Chef Harrington,” one of the waiter’s holler.

“Yes?”

“You have a call.”

I frown. Very few people know I’m here. Black and his family and my father. That’s it and none of them would call unless it was absolutely necessary.

“We don’t allow personal calls during working hours,” the owner says, his stern face looking down at me with disdain. I’ve felt like he’s judged me all day and this doesn’t help.

“No one would bother me here unless it was an absolute emergency,” I tell him, but I can tell that he doesn’t believe me.

I dry my hands on a dish towel, after instructing one of the line cooks to continue stirring the roux. I hustle over to the phone, my eyes on the clock overhead and I’m pretty sure I’m about three steps away from panic—not only about my cooking, but I’m afraid something has happened to Black or to my father.

“Hello?” I hold the receiver and wait for an answer. I hear nothing. “Hello? Is anyone there?” I ask, but again no one is there. It’s just a second later that I hear a recording.

“If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try your call again…”

I frown, but hang up. I rush back over to my station, but there are two waiters already heading out the door with orders.

“Wait! I didn’t get to check the plate,” I cry, but it’s too late, they’ve already entered the dining area.

Crap.

“I gave orders that nothing leaves the kitchen without my approval,” I mutter.

“You were tending to personal business on company time. My patrons can’t wait for you to get off the phone. I gave the order,” the guy says, coming up from behind me.

I jump, because I wasn’t expecting him to be there.

“Did you check the plates?”

“That’s not my job. That’s yours,” he dismisses, and my mouth goes tight as I bite my tongue and don’t tell the guy what I think of him.

I try to put the plates out of my head and instead, go back to dishing up the last plate of the day. I’m feeling even more confident until the unexpected happens.

“This was returned,” a waitress says, bringing back one of the plates that I didn’t get to oversee.

“A hair!” the owner gasps. Just the sound of his voice makes me wince.

“There can’t be, or at least if there is, it didn’t come from the kitchen,” I defend.

“I don’t think you can be so sure.”

“But I can. The entire staff has the proper netting in place and their hair pulled completely away. I made sure of that,” I argue.

“Be that as it may, there’s a hair in the food, obviously,” he replies.

“Well it didn’t come from the kitchen. If there’s a hair it came from the waitress or perhaps the customer themselves!” I argue stubbornly, crossing my hands at my chest.

The waitress shoots me a dirty look, which I could understand, I’ve pretty much thrown her under the bus.

“Open the tray and let us look,” the owner says haughtily.

“I can assure you it’s not mine,” the waitress says, lifting the top.

“How can you be so sure?” I ask.

“Because it’s not… hot pink,” she responds once the lid is clear. I look down at the food and sure enough there’s pink hair beside the steak. Worse, there’s more than one. There’s like four.

I close my eyes. When I look back up at the owner, I know it’s over.

The worst part is, I’m not upset at losing the job. I’m more upset because I know that the hair didn’t fall off my head. I go straight to the double doors that lead to the dining room. I fully expect to see Linda there.

“Where are you going?” the owner asks, the waitress right beside him. I stop long enough to turn to them.

“Show me the customer. I want to offer an apology,” I lie. If it is Linda, I don’t want to apologize, not at all. I want to strangle her, jump up and down on her and possibly cut off her hair even shorter than mine—and that’s just the start. Mostly I just plain want to kill her.

“She left. She was highly upset,” the waitress says.

Crap.

“I just bet she was,” I mutter.

“You need to clean your filth out of my kitchen,” the owner says and it takes everything in me not to slap him.

In the end I don’t, but I’m fuming. All the way home I wish I could go back and make him eat that damn chef hat on his head.