Nicole
Whenever I'm feeling this way, I like to sit down at the small table for two in the corner of the restaurant that gets the most sunlight. I close my eyes and let the warm rays caress my skin. Today is one of those days; and lucky for me I get to share a few minutes with Kate before the lunch rush hour. She’s the best friend, and employee, I could ask for. But even she's testing my nerves today.
I take a deep breath and gaze out the window into the busy street; his words ringing in my ears. I’ve replayed them so many times, overlapping them with my own thoughts that they morphed into something else. An uncontrollable ravenous monster that is eating all my time and concentration.
I chuckle and then frown. I can’t remember what he said word for word anymore, just the gist of it. Real food. He said he’ll show me what real fucking food is. That bastard.
“You okay, boss lady?” Kate asks full of concern.
I must have a sour look on my face, because she only calls me that when she is trying to brighten my mood.
“It’s just…” I mumble, struggling to find words. “How do I put this plainly, Kate—”
“Careful now, Mrs. West is here for tea and scones with her daughter in law.”
I’m glad she interrupted me; it saved me the embarrassment of having to apologize for the long string of foul words that was parading through my head. “He’s an asshole,” I whisper. “A total asshole.”
“A rich one,” she says with a nod over her, ‘Coffee, because crack is not allowed at work,’ coffee mug.
“Sure, whatever, but I don’t have to—”
“Wait!” Kate blurts out while slamming her mug down to the table, clearly harder than she had expected as her eyes widened. “Nicole, you’re not…”
“Not what?” I say over the rattling of silverware.
Gasping, she says, “Tell me I’m wrong?”
I want to play it off, but it's like she can read my mind. Just another reason why we work so well together.
“You’re going to pull one of your, ‘I’m too busy working’ tricks,” Kate says while rudely pointing at me. “You’re gonna close yourself down and hide in that tiny office of yours all day and night.”
I was beginning to question who I was most annoyed with in the moment: Kate or Palmer. “No, I’m not.”
“Yeah you will. You’ll treat last night like it never happened. You’ll pretend the most famous chef in the world didn’t just move in on your territory and issue you a challenge. Damn, girl, people got shot for things like that in the wild west. You gonna let him claim jump you? Cause I’m not going to allow that to happen.”
I laugh. “You’re not, huh?”
“Nope.”
I sit there and watch a plan formulate behind her eyes. My head is swimming. His words. My words. Kate’s words. It's all a jumbled mess. Should I just tell her to stop and go back to work, or should I pull rank and tell her it's over—to drop it? Maybe she's right. I'm not sure, and something holds my words inside my throat, so I let her keep talking.
“You like checklists, Nicole, well, let’s make one.”
Tilting my head, and narrowing my eyes, I give her a cross look. “Okay…”
“Palmer is gorgeous. I mean-yeah-hot.” Kate turns apple-red in the face as she says so. Is it the steam from her coffee? No, she's been sipping that for the past thirty minutes. “Before he came to town, I would have said you were the best-looking restaurant owner around.”
“Great. Fine. Sure, he’s good looking.” I shrug. “Yeah, hot, I guess. Why does that matter?”
Kate is mirroring my look, a habit of hers when she thinks I'm saying something off. Normally I see this during business related decisions, but her meaning in this moment is not lost on me.
“He’s a super-famous celebrity and that alone equals a ton of attention. Just think about the burst of social media awareness you’d be getting. I bet a hundred or more tweets.”
“And how would I glean from his celebrity, Kate? How?”
“Any fucking way possible.”
I nod at the nearest customers, causing Kate to grimace as she continues.
“All it would take is a couple of dates—”
“Dates?”
“Yeah, public ones. Get people interested in you two, then redirect all the attention back here to the restaurant, Nicole. You know, we could use the business.”
“I want people to come to my restaurant because the food is good, not because…”
Leaning forward, Kate begins to whisper. “Because you’re sleeping with the hottest guy in town?”
“No!” I raise my voice, nearly spitting in her face.
She shakes her head while crossing her arms and leaning back; I can tell she is frustrated with me. She wants to see me find a good man. All she wants is for me to be as happy as she is. But Palmer—yeah—he’s an asshole.
“Fine… Because you and another restaurant owner are battling it out for best of the best.” Yawning, she sarcastically says, “So scandalous…”
I think a moment. I already knew Percy was on my side. “You think the critics would compare us?”
“Haven’t they already?”
Kate is making a good point. But how can I compete with Palmer’s money and celebrity? I begin to wonder. The food. I realize. My food is way better. He might have more Instagram followers, but I’m the better chef.
“You’re right, Kate.” A calmness washes over me. “I’ll go to his restaurant tonight. He can spend all his time and money trying to impress me, because in the end I know what really matters.”
Kate smiles. “And what’s that?”
“The backbone of any good restaurant.” I say retuning her smile. “Heart.”
Now I can’t wait to see Palmer fail.