Chapter 4
Chapter Four
“ Y ou need something?”
Sophie looked at the new cook she had hired blankly. She had never been so mortified in her whole life, and she’d experienced some standout embarrassing moments.
“No, I was going …” Since she was standing next to the refrigerator, she opened the door. “I wanted to get more creamer,” she invented the excuse quickly.
“I told you business would pick up once everyone saw the diner was open again,” George wheezed out.
“Yes, you did.”
Three customers weren’t going to keep the lights on, but hopefully, as more people in town heard the diner was reopened, business would improve.
She took the box of creamers from the refrigerator and went back through the swinging door. After placing the creamers in the small refrigerator under the coffee station, she picked up the coffee pot to refill her customers’ cups.
“Ready to order?”
The elderly man ordered a breakfast sampler.
Sophie inwardly groaned. She really needed to redo the menus she had found from the previous restaurant. The different foods offered on the breakfast sampler were just more chances for the cook to fail. She had meant to create a new menu last night, but she had been so tired by the time she made it back to her apartment that she decided washing her clothes was more of a priority.
At least the second day of opening the restaurant was going smoother than yesterday.
The opening had been a disaster from beginning to end. George, who she had hired after placing an ad in the town’s newspaper for a cook, was just getting used to going back to work, she told herself. It wasn’t like she had much choice in hiring him, since George had been the only person who applied. When he told her that he used to work at the diner before Marty bought it, she had hired him immediately. That was her first mistake. She should have tested his cooking skills.
The mistake had become apparent when she’d started getting complaints about the food from the few customers she served yesterday. Undercooked bacon, burnt biscuits, and what George had done to the meatloaf to make it taste so bad was a mystery she never wanted to solve.
To make matters worse, she was operating on a string-shoe budget until her mother and stepfather could move to Treepoint to help out.
At least, this morning she hadn’t had any complaints about the food. She now wished she had hired a waitress instead of a cook—she couldn’t do any worse at cooking than George. Once her parents arrived, her mother would take over the kitchen and her stepfather could help with the front of the restaurant. If she could survive financially until they got here in three weeks, and right now, the possibility of the restaurant supporting all three of them looked bleak.
She loved being a waitress. She had basically been raised in a variety of different restaurants. Her mom had told her that when she and Marty were married, she had placed a playpen in the kitchen of their restaurant. After her divorce, she taught her to sit out of way, at a table to play. She had grown up pretending to wait on customers until she was old enough to perform simple tasks to help out. How many years had she dreamed of owning her own restaurant, with her family working alongside her?
She wasn’t going to give up that dream without a fight.
There was a downside to waitressing—she learned more about customers’ lives than she wanted to know. Yesterday, she had overheard one of them telling her friend that she was going to leave her husband. It didn’t seem right she was privy to that information before her husband. Today, listening to a woman being dumped and witnessing her reaction had been hard. Sadly, she had been in her place a time or two.
Sophie could understand why the woman appeared so devasted. The man who was dumping her was so hot she was shocked his ass hadn’t set his chair on fire. It was everything she could do to close her mouth before approaching their table. Men who looked like him should be considered a fire hazard.
He was built like a linebacker, the material of his T-shirt straining to cover his biceps and chest. His girlfriend was no slouch, either, dressed as if she were about to go the gym. The black workout top she wore under her jacket had shown a sleekly toned midriff and pert breasts surpassing of her bra. Sophie had stared at the woman’s generous display in envy. And not for the first time did she consider getting breast implants.
Her girls weren’t totally lacking, but they weren’t va-va vroom, either. Just once she wanted to be va-va vroom. Her friend, Talia, was without trying. Sophie had complained to her on more than one occasion, mainly when they were drunk off their asses. She had to work to be a va; she inspired to be a va- va. To be a va-va vroom, she would have to go to one of those expensive plastic surgeons in California. Talia was a natural va-va vroom, and if she weren’t so nice, Sophie would hate her.
Her envy of her female customer had vanished before she could get three steps away from the couple. The woman had accused him of staring at her as if just looking at her would make him come. Her legs had nearly buckled under her when she’d heard that shattering tidbit because. If his girlfriend had been aware that her body had reacted the same way, the only tip she would have gotten was to run.
Sophie had noticed the woman’s stiletto-shaped bloodred nails. She didn’t want those things anywhere near her face. Having to psych herself to go back to take their order hadn’t been easy, and she couldn’t have done so at a worse moment.
Whatever the relationship the woman had thought she was having with the man wasn’t the same as he wanted. From her expression, the woman had been crushed.
Sophie would bet a hundred bucks the guy waited until he had scored before hitting the end button.
Why did men have to be such rat bastards? The guy seemed comfortable smashing the woman’s heart, too comfortable from her point of view. In her opinion, way too indifferent.
Her mind played back the woman’s heartbreak, and she unintentionally glared down at the customer whose order she was taking.
Other than the woman’s nails, she had seemed nice. Sophie could even see them become friends in the future. They could compare skid marks where their lousy exes had run over them.
Returning her glare, the customer lowered his menu back to the table. “You the new owner?”
“Yes.” Belatedly, she realized she had made the customer the recipient of her frustration for the male species.
“I heard you’re Marty’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
The customer looked at his friend. “That apple didn’t fall from the tree, did it?”
Sophie hadn’t seen her father for the last years of his life but knew she didn’t resemble Marty. She didn’t have to take a wild guess that her customer wasn’t talking about the physical similarities she shared with her father.
Within five minutes of her arriving in town, she had discovered the town’s hatred for him. She couldn’t blame them; Marty’s only redeemable part was his ability to fry a damn good burger.
“I apologize for my rudeness. I had something else on my mind. I didn’t mean to take it out on you,” she apologized.
Both men stared at her in shock.
“Marty would have let the restaurant burn down before he apologized.” The man held out his hand. “Moon.” He then gestured to the man across the table. “This is Train.”
“Sophie. It’s nice to meet you both,” she introduced herself with a lopsided grin. “I heard my father didn’t have the best customer service skills.”
“Nonexistent would be closer to the mark.”
She took their order and retreated from their table.
Placing the ticket in kitchen window, she peeked through the opening to see what George was doing.
“George!” she said loudly. “Wake up.”
The old man jerked. “Fuck. You trying to scare me to death?”
“No. I was trying to keep you from taking a nosedive onto the grill,” she told him sharply.
“I wasn’t sleeping,” he denied.
Sophie wasn’t going to argue over the fact he was. Next time, she would just let him fry himself.
“I put up an order.”
Turning away from the window, she promised herself that, before the end of the day, she was going to run another ad. Customers already didn’t want to eat here because of Sophie’s father’s reputation of being a foul-mouthed, hateful son-of-bitch. The last she needed was to have to deal with the cook’s inept skills. The way she was going, she’d put the restaurant out of business during the same week it opened.
Thinking about the restaurant going bust had her worried. Every dime of her savings had gone into stocking the restaurant, turning the utilities back on, and renting an apartment. She didn’t have a safety margin.
Her parents had already given their notice and were packing to move to Treepoint. If she failed, they would be left high and dry.
Cut it out, Sophie , she scolded herself. You’re going to make it . She needed confidence right now, not doom and gloom.
“Order up!” George yelled out.
Sophie returned to the window to stare at the food George had put there.
God help her, everything was going to hell in a handbasket.