Chapter 41
CHAPTER 41
G emma used the walk from Kent to the kitchen door to blink away the tears blurring her sight. She didn’t have time to think about what Kent had just said to her. She had orders to take and customers to help and no one, especially not Kent, was going to see her cry.
It wasn’t what he’d said that hurt her as much as her naivety. Flick had seen the writing on the wall. She had even tried to warn her about it, so why hadn’t Gemma listened? She had been so confident that as long as she was doing a good job, there would be no need for anything to change. But now it had happened. The rug had been pulled out from under her feet, and the knowledge that she hadn’t seen it coming was even worse than Kent pulling the rug. Conceited, arrogant, Kent. God, she could just imagine the way he was laughing to himself in the kitchen as he put pesto on his damn poached eggs.
“Sorry, Gemma dear, did you say I could order normally?”
Gemma’s thoughts snapped back to reality as Mr Jordan spoke. Plastering a smile on her face, she walked over to him.
“Of course you can. You just tell me what you want.”
It was when she headed over to fix him his cappuccino that Gemma saw the paper receipt that had printed out on a little black machine next to the till. The family’s drinks orders.
Gritting her teeth, she picked it up and got to work.
“Are you okay?” Sophie asked when she appeared at ten. “Did something happen? You don’t look great. And why are there all these little bits of paper everywhere?”
Gemma didn’t see any point in beating around the bush. “Did you know about the new tills and ordering QR codes Kent had arranged?”
Sophie frowned. “Is that the thing he wrote about in the email? I only read it last night; I was going to talk to you about it today.”
“Well, it’s already in place,” Gemma said, gesturing to the tables. “The customers are having a nightmare. I’ve managed to print out some of the old menus, but this new till isn’t exactly user-friendly, so you’re just going to have to put everything down manually and take the money, and we’ll try to work it out later.”
“So the QR codes don’t work?”
It wasn’t the first question Gemma had expected, and she found herself needing to swallow before she replied. “Well, yes, for those customers that are happy to use them. But not all of them are, so we need to take their orders normally, too.”
“Okay,” Sophie said, matter-of-factly.
“Okay?”
“Okay. That’s okay. I can do that. Orders through the code if they can. On paper, if they can’t. Sounds fine.”
The way Sophie was being so casual about this new disruption to their way of doing things took Gemma by surprise.
“Is there anything else? You still don’t look great.”
Gemma opened her mouth. There were more things she wanted to say. More things she probably needed to say, but how could she? How could she tell Sophie that she likely had less than two months working at a place she adored? That all her hard work over the years had amounted to nothing. She could feel her throat swelling shut, clogged with tears. It had been a long time since she had cried in the café. So long, she doubted Sophie had ever seen it. And that was how she wanted to keep it.
“Gemma, are you okay? Do you want to sit down?”
Gemma shook her head. “I’m fine. I’m fine. Honestly, I just need a bit of fresh air, that’s all. I’m just going to step outside. You’ll be all right on your own for a minute, won’t you?”