Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Roberto
I stay out of Marketing on purpose.
It isn’t difficult to avoid their corridor.
The admin space gives you a dozen ways to get where you’re going without stepping past the frosted panes.
I know the detours by heart now: lift to three, cross to operations, take the long hall that passes the back of the banquet kitchens and the loading dock doors with their dented kick plates, then climb one flight and you’re on the level where Caterina presides over the project like a conductor. Easy. Deliberate.
Stupid.
It doesn’t keep Olivia out of my head.
I try the usual remedies. I front-load the day with motion and habit: work out until my muscles burn in a way that feels good, the razor I run down my jaw with a mind that I don’t let wander, espresso that jolts me awake.
I answer emails before the sun makes a path across the bay. I start my car and follow the same path each day, to the courthouse, to my office, to the casino.
The routine helps. A little.
But not enough.
Today, I’m heading to the casino for a brief meeting with Caterina. Twenty minutes total, maybe thirty. That’s the promise I make myself. I just hope I can keep it.
I park in the same row as always in the garage. The hallway smells like fresh paint. A contractor with a coil of cable nods. I nod back.
I could go straight to the elevator that will take me to Caterina’s floor. It would be the best choice. The easiest. But I’ve been wanting to see the restaurant since they brought the tables in a few days ago. It’ll just take a minute.
The corridor narrows toward the restaurant. The air shifts, and a breeze flows past me. Someone has a fan running to make a painted wall dry a little faster. I’m a step away from where the door is when I hear her.
A laugh.
It is brief, unguarded, and it sucker punches me in the gut before I can guard myself against it. It stops my breath for a moment, and the warmth works its way through me.
I don’t like that I notice it. I like even less that I can recognize it so quickly from our brief time together.
I stop before rounding the doorway. If anyone saw me, they’d say I paused to read the piece of paper taped to a wall. A fire exit diagram. But that’s not the truth. I stand because I’m stupid for a heartbeat.
Her voice flows out the door to me.
“—no, if we squeeze a seventeenth in there, we’ll turn the aisle into a traffic stop,” she says. “Fourteen for the first week. I want the servers to learn the room at speed, not in a panic.”
A second voice answers, lower, agreeable, unhurried. Gina.
“Fourteen it is,” she says. “You want the lounge menu cards at the high-tops on Thursday or Friday?”
“Friday,” she answers. “Thursday is for the people we want to welcome like family. I was discussing with Bianca a possible fixed menu for Thursday. Different choices, of course, but the point is the family style. The food will be elegant and delicious, but it’ll feel comfortable.
Like Sunday dinner, you know? They won’t need a menu to feel welcome. ”
It’s a good answer. It fits the plan she sold in the room where I sat and pretended it was the only thing that held my attention. It makes me want to say yes to something I shouldn’t be saying yes to at all.
The voices continue discussing plans for the opening weekend.
She laughs again, a little ribbon of sound that threads through me. It is not loud, not coy, not performed. It is exactly what it is.
I consider rounding the corner. It would take one step.
I could come into view like I meant to. I could be casual and professional, one of the owners who wants an update.
I could ask a question—“How many covers Friday?”—and I could watch her face when she answers easily because she already knows everything off the top of her head.
My feet don’t listen.
I turn on my heel so quickly my shoes don’t make a sound. A skill I’ve spent years honing. I do it knowing exactly what the decision is and disliking myself for making it. I have zero patience for cowards.
But that’s what I am right now.
But I know the difference between discipline and cowardice, and I am not in the habit of confusing the two. I force my body into motion. Step. Another step.
“—leave the card copy as we have it,” she says behind me, voice floating down the corridor. “If we’re confident, they will be.”
“Copy,” the other voice says, amused.
I keep walking. I don’t speed up. I don’t slow down. I pass the framed safety memo about cut-resistant gloves and the blue tape X on a pane of glass that needs to come off before it becomes a permanent ghost. I track the details because that’s what my brain knows how to do.
Anger warms the back of my neck. Not at her. At myself. The fact of noticing. The fact of recognizing. The fact that a part of me wants to find a reason to go back.
I curse myself without moving my mouth. The words are familiar; they’re well-worn from other days when I got in my own way.
I keep my back straight, shoulders steady, pace neither fast nor slow.
I count six steps, then eight, then ten, and with each one I tell myself that the annoyance is preferable to the other thing.
Annoyance sharpens. The other thing does the opposite.
I reach the elevator. My finger presses the call button. I watch my reflection in the brushed steel next to the doors: tie at the line of my collarbone, jaw I shaved this morning. The man in the metal looks like someone who doesn’t get ambushed by a laugh. Put together. Professional.
The doors part. I step in. My jaw tightens as the car climbs, then releases because I tell it to, then tightens again because my body is still arguing with me.
By the time the doors open to the administrative floor, the warmth that spread inside me at a simple laugh has chilled into something more useful: irritation. I can work with irritation. It sharpens, it doesn’t soften.
I step out into the hall that leads to Caterina’s office.
Her door is half-closed when I get there. I knock once with my knuckle and push through.
She’s at the desk, pen in hand, two monitors lit.
The construction clatter we used to live with is down to an occasional thud in the distance.
The glass on her desktop has lost the shipping label but keeps the tiny air bubbles that tell me the plastic is still on it.
Folders fan to her left so that they only look casual.
They aren’t. Caterina doesn’t do casual systems.
“Morning,” she says without looking up, then glances and corrects herself. “Tío. Good. Close the door?”
I let it click shut behind me. She sets the pen across the top of a legal pad and leans back. Her suit is navy, her dark eyes sharp, shoulders tight, hair tucked behind one ear. It’s how she looks when she’s about to hand me something I can fix.
“What happened?” I ask because we don’t waste each other’s time.
She exhales through her nose in a way that would come off as frustration on anyone else. On her, it’s power management.
“Two things. First, good: the restaurant looks like a restaurant. FOH is ninety percent. Back of house is running tests this afternoon. They could cook for twelve tonight if they had to.”
“And the second thing,” I say.
“Bianca’s back early.” The words are even, but she watches my face like she always does when she delivers a simple sentence that is about to stop being simple.
“Early as in a few days, or early as in we should revise the calendar?”
“A week,” she says.
I sit, not because I need to, but because she’ll download faster if I look settled. The chair gives a quiet sigh and takes my weight. “And?”
“And because she was officially on leave, the last round of filings went in with a proxy signature.”
I see the problem already, but I let her lay it out for me.
Caterina flips the top page on her legal pad so I can see the bullet she’s circled twice.
“Because Bianca was out on leave, we filed the last tranche of restaurant paperwork with a proxy signature. The New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control flagged it. They won’t authorize the license with a proxy now that Bianca’s back. ”
“Who’s the case manager?” I ask.
“Same woman we’ve had since December,” she says. “I have her number. I didn’t call. I wanted to hand it to you before I did more damage to it.”
“Good,” I say. “You did the right thing.”
She gives me a narrow look I know well. She takes the compliment but stores it with interest. “It’s not a disaster,” she says, half to me and half to herself. “We’ve got the municipal approval, we’ve got the background clear, we’ve got the fees. The state is just being the state.”
“They’re doing their job,” I say, because it never hurts to remind her. “And we’ll do ours.”
I hold out my hand, and she passes the folder. “I’ll get Bianca’s affidavit drafted, have Legal prep the member resolution, and we’ll re-ink the officer pages. I’ll courier the package to ABC in Trenton and call the reviewer from the lobby so they know it’s on the way up the elevator.”
“Thank you.”
“Text Bianca to expect a notary this afternoon,” I add. “Home or here. Whatever she wants. We’ll keep it painless.”
Caterina’s shoulders loosen by a notch. “Done.”
“Anything else on ABC?” I ask.
“Just a reminder about distributor notices,” she says. “They want the confirmation letters from our three primaries on file before they flip the switch. Gina’s already lined those up; we held them pending the endorsement. She’s ready to release as soon as you say go.”
“Loop me on that thread. I’ll make sure the confirmation letters arrive the same day as the cure, so ABC has no excuse to stall.”
Her mouth tilts. “Efficient.”
“It’s almost like I do this for a living,” I say dryly, and set the stack on my knee. “All right. You said two things. What’s the second?”
“What do you think of Olivia?”
My face stays carefully neutral. Inside, something tightens like I’ve been caught looking through a window I wasn’t supposed to be looking through.
“You had your doubts about hiring her,” she continues. “So, two weeks in. What do you think?”
I fight the urge to outwardly react. “She presented well,” I say evenly. “She prepared. She handled pushback without getting short-tempered or flustered.”
Caterina nods, satisfied to keep moving. “And on the job?”
“Disciplined,” I say. “Calendar is logical and organized. Her locals-first frame does what we need it to do. She’s tight on comp language, doesn’t roll over when pushed.”
Caterina’s pen ticks once on the pad. “Any specific misses?”
“Pace is the only red flag. First big week can fluster even the most organized people. She’s already carrying vendor asks, media notes, and credential mapping.”
“What do you suggest?” she asks. I know she’s thought of this and is just asking for my opinion.
I set the ABC folder on the glass, square a corner.
“Let’s not let her get buried,” I say. “Have requests go through her until a certain point, then the overflow can go through someone else. Make sure she’s not spending too much time on one aspect, especially on opening night.
She’s not just the Marketing Coordinator.
She’ll be one of the faces of the casino.
We need her smiling and confident, not harried. ”
Caterina nods and keeps writing. “So we cut the noise and help her focus.”
“Exactly. Give her a helper,” I say. “Someone who can pick up proofs, grab samples, handle calls. The little stuff that eats up the day.”
“I can pull Mia from PR for afternoons,” she says. “She’s fast.”
“Good. Limit the big meetings,” I add. “No more than two a day. Everything else can be quick check-ins at her door. If people want a slide deck, they get bullet points first. Pretty can come later.”
Caterina’s mouth lifts. “Bossy.”
“Experienced,” I say. “Also, give her final say on invite wording and the door plan. One voice. If everyone edits, the message turns to mush.”
“She has it,” Caterina says. “I’ll put it in writing so no one tries to go around her.”
Then she looks up. “I’m glad you revised your doubts. I really wanted this to work.”
“I wanted proof,” I say. “She’s giving it.”
Caterina’s pen stops. She meets my eyes, a small, real smile. “Good.”
Silence for a beat. It’s the easy kind. Work sorted. Roles clear.
And I’ve got to get moving.
I stand and take the folder. “I’ll move on this now.”
She nods once. “Text me when Bianca signs. I’ll keep the afternoon clear in case you need anything.”
“I won’t,” I say, but I know she’ll be ready anyway.
I reach for the handle. She adds, “And Tío? Thanks.”
I tip the folder in a little salute. “That’s what I’m here for, nipote.”
Her mouth twitches.
I open the door. Cool hallway air slips in. I step out, the click of the latch neat behind me. The weight of the folder is right in my hand. This is a real problem with real solutions I can work toward.
Work I can finish, a problem I can put to bed.
I head down the corridor, thoughts lined up in order: affidavit, board paper, courier, Trenton. Keep it simple, keep it moving. I don’t look toward Marketing.
Elevator button. Light. Doors part.
I get in.