Chapter 8
Carmello
Now
I’m already dragging myself out of bed when my alarm goes off at four forty-five in the morning.
My daily routine consists of saying a gratitude prayer, splashing cold water on my face, brushing my teeth, and throwing on sneakers for a five-mile run before anyone else in my neighborhood turns on a light.
With my loud mind and worries for the future, structure has always helped me function, but it’s been especially important since my mom died and my share of work at the restaurant more than doubled.
Which is why I should’ve never let my cousin Zeke convince me to start dating again.
Rachael texts during my run with a video of the band Empty Hour performing on tour: a subtle reminder that we have a date next week.
When my mom found out her cancer came back, I stopped dating.
But after months of grieving, Zeke sounded like he had a point when he said I can’t burn my life away with work and sadness.
Except now that I have to deal with this Olivia catastrophe, I think he was wrong, but I don’t have the heart to tell Rachael that right now the thought of going to the concert is giving me anxiety.
It’s not her fault all of this happened in the middle of us getting to know each other.
I’m tired today, feeling fatigue in my bones.
I walk the last half mile because my shins hurt and I know I need a good night’s sleep soon or my life will go off track.
But last night I had insomnia after seeing Olivia in person.
It took everything in me to stay levelheaded during that conversation, and I’m not sure I can keep cool if I see her again today.
Back at home, I rush to open the fridge and start on my smoothie, but I’m stuck looking at the only thing hanging on it: my mom’s memorial card.
She picked her picture before she died, saying, “Don’t let me look ugly on the photo that is going to define my life after I’m gone.
And you can’t forget to add my favorite quote.
” I stare at her beautiful face now, and I’m happy I let her pick the photo.
It was from the day she closed Celia’s Place early so we could meet up with our family at Easton’s Beach in Newport.
She’d been fresh from telling my little cousins a scary story, her eyes had that sun spark, her mouth was still curled from a laugh.
My gaze flicks to the quote at the bottom of the memorial card, and I remember how I almost gave up on getting it to fit. There wasn’t enough space to sum up how big of a person Celia Rodriguez was and what she left behind, but after it was done, I was happy to see it there.
A day without laughter is a day wasted.
—Charlie Chaplin
An image of Olivia pulling the stool to the other side of the bar and sitting across from me with an irritating smirk crosses my mind. I inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
“What are you up to, Ma?” I ask and open the fridge.
***
It’s chaos in the kitchen. Only 7 a.m. and the full-time staff is surrounding me, throwing out questions quicker than I can answer.
“Are you losing the restaurant? Should we start looking for other jobs?” Bobby asks.
His Deep South accent always sounds like it has a smile in it and somehow that makes his serious question sound less so.
“Or are we just going to have another person here ordering us around?” Steven asks, with a look on his face that says if my answer is yes, he might consider walking out right now.
“I don’t think that would be bad,” says Debra. “More people to talk to around here.”
“You already talk enough for the entire establishment,” mutters Steven.
“I agree with Debra,” Bobby says. “And babyyy is that woman easy on the eyes.”
“You’re a mess, Bob,” says Paula.
But his words make Olivia’s face…and her curves spring up in my mind. She’s not reliable enough to be my partner in business, but clearly knowing that is not enough to stop me from remembering how much I used to know about her body too.
I swallow and say, “I know you’re all anxious, but all I can tell you right now is I’m not losing the restaurant, and you don’t have to look for another job.”
For a second, Debra visibly relaxes, but then the kitchen door swings open, and it sends her out of her skin. “Oh, Veronica. It’s just you rushing in like usual.”
“Who’d you think it was? The boogeyman?” Veronica is snarky and miserable in the morning, though she’ll probably apologize to Debra for it later. She looks at me and a small smile forms. “Worse than the boogeyman?”
“Olivia’s not here yet,” I say. “Which tells me there’s a 50 percent chance she realized there’s an itch she wants to scratch somewhere else more. Unless you know differently, Vero?”
Veronica’s head snaps over to Bobby. “You snitched that I went out with her, Robert?”
Bobby lets out a laugh, using his hands to feign innocence. “Come on now, Veronica. I was just making conversation by the coffee maker.”
“All right everybody,” I say. “Enough bullshitting. Let’s get this day started.”
The door swings open again. And there she is: my own personal horror story.
Olivia has her hair pinned up, she’s wearing an off-the-shoulder white shirt revealing defined clavicles and cream-colored slacks that hug her thick thighs.
She’s got three boxes of pastries from Seven Stars Bakery.
“Yes, let’s get to it,” she says to my team, “and these should help.”
Everyone looks at her, then back to me, faces ranging from amused to apologetic, but either way they’re going to partake in Olivia’s bribery.
After they thank her and grab their pastries, they all scatter off to where they’re currently supposed to be.
Except Steven; for once he seems happy to be sharing a space with me.
He whistles while walking over to his station, not even pretending he doesn’t find this whole thing entertaining.
But I decided as soon as I saw Olivia that she’d get absolutely nothing from me.
I don’t have the energy to spar with her today.
She moves a little closer. “Should we talk? Maybe someplace more private later tonight? You wouldn’t happen to like eating seafood out of a bag, would you?”
I snort and check my watch. The fresh produce delivery should be arriving any moment, but I haven’t had the chance to go to my office for a second of privacy like I do every morning. I release a breath and go to the sink to scrub my hands clean, feeling thrown off by Olivia already.
“Okay, then,” she says, glancing around. “So, where do we start for the day?”
When I don’t answer, she rolls her eyes and turns to Steven. “Need help with prep?”
“Oh nah, woman.” Steven shakes his head. “You’re not going to make my day here any harder than it is by putting me in the middle of whatever mess y’all got going on.”
Olivia doesn’t know about Steven’s dramatic sarcasm.
She shifts to face me with a wide-eyed expression, and I know she’s wondering if the working conditions here are fucked.
But I don’t need to defend myself as a boss to her, so I leave to wait for the delivery out front, hoping she’ll find something to do other than suffocate me.
***
The day goes by in a blur, the way it usually does, and here I am with a mop in hand, staring at the staff schedule for the month on the wall, wondering how to fix it without overworking anyone.
Steven’s always a huge help getting the orders out on time, but without a station chef, we’ve been falling behind.
No customers complained today, but I hate knowing they waited.
It didn’t help that I spent so much time on inventory: ordering new supplies, checking on the food stock levels, and figuring out how to optimize all of it for profit.
This is, by far, my least favorite part of the job.
As organized as I am, just knowing how many things need my attention overwhelms me.
Sometimes I have this voice in my head repeating: one wrong move and everything you have here will fall apart.
When my mom was alive, she handled the bulk of the office work because she enjoyed solving workplace puzzles.
If she were here, she’d be able to figure out the gaps with no problem.
“Signing out,” Bobby says when he walks into the kitchen. He’s usually the last staff member here besides Steven, and I’m always grateful he gives me a rundown on everything I didn’t see. He leans against the counter. “Your ex-girlfriend got a motor on her.”
I wring out the wet mop, glad that it didn’t take much to get the grease off the floor today. I’m ready to close the kitchen, see my son, and get to sleep. “Did she distract Vero on her shift?”
“She does talk a lot,” he says, “but I meant she was cleaning just about everything she could. Started with the bathrooms out front, wiped down chairs at the bar, now she’s got a ladder out and she’s cleaning the air vents on the ceiling.”
It was a busy day, but I wondered why I barely saw her. Now I know.
“Determined girl,” Bobby says. “But she’s also short, so she can’t reach the vents all the way and she made the dust wet. It was barely noticeable before, but now they just look grimy. Know what I’m saying? I would stay to help her, but I’m late to meet my guys for beers and trivia.”
I grind my teeth and glance over at Steven, who just finished washing his hands. He shoots me a look that says if I ask him to do anything else, he’ll bug out.
I’m supposed to go see Teddy and still have to look over tomorrow’s menu again, but I sigh and say, “Thanks for letting me know, Bobby. I’ll handle it.”
***
Olivia is still on the ladder by the time I’m done.
Did she drag that heavy metal thing up the basement stairs herself?
She’s frustrated, a rag in hand, trying to rub out the mess she made, and making it worse.
I try not to stare at her small waist, and I definitely have to rip my eyes from her ass in those slacks.
“Please don’t insult me,” she says when she sees me coming.
I glance up at her and say, “You can stop now. I’ll do it.”
She mumbles something under her breath but hangs the rag on a rung and starts making her way down.
When she reaches the last step, the ladder shakes.
I move to steady it, but she’s already lost her footing, stumbling a little.
And then my hand is on her soft hip, steadying her too.
She takes a sharp breath and I have to catch mine.
The physical contact sends a warm feeling through my center.
We’re close enough for me to see new beauty marks on her neck and smell the jasmine on her skin.
She’s sweating through her shirt, and I think I find her sexier than I did yesterday when the only work she did was getting on my nerves.
I remove my hand and back away. Last I heard, she was married, and besides, I refuse to get caught up by what it feels like to touch her again.
When she turns around, she searches my face. I avert my eyes and climb the ladder. She stands there for a few seconds, watching me. Then says, “I was just trying to help.”
“I know you were,” I say because I’m not an asshole.
From what Bobby told me, she did a lot today that needed to be done, but that doesn’t excuse her being here and pulling me out of my normal routine.
I glance down at the time on my watch, my chest tightening slightly.
I try to make it to say good night to my boy a few times a week and pray over him before sleep.
Because of Olivia, I might have to text his iPad.
“But now I’m going to be too late to see my son before he goes to bed because I have to finish what you started,” I tell her.
She blows out a breath, frown deepening. “I’m truly sorry for that. I didn’t know.”
When I don’t respond, she leaves to wash her hands behind the bar, then throws her bag over her shoulder and heads to the door.
“I promise I’m not trying to make life hard for you, Carmello,” she says.
“I’m proud of everything you have here. I can’t believe how good this place is doing in your mom’s absence.
She’d be so proud too.” The words hit and soften something inside of me.
Even though I was my mom’s partner before she died and it felt like she finally appreciated my input on things, this was still her place.
And it’s been a lot of work adhering to what Celia’s was like before she left it forever.
But my body tenses again when Olivia finishes with: “All I’m saying is, I’m here and I can help if I know what you need help with. When you’re ready to ask, let me know.”
I let her walk out without telling her I don’t plan on asking her for help with anything. There’s no way I’m giving her any reason to think this is really her restaurant or the satisfaction of knowing I need help with it.