Chapter 5
“Uh…Miss Fitzgerald?”
“What?” Natalie snapped, looking up from the desk in the restaurant’s back office to see a terrified-looking member of the waitstaff in the doorway. “Sorry, I meant to say, what is it?” She smiled widely and hoped the poor kid took it in stride.
“Um, well, it’s just that we’re closing up to break before the dinner service and…”
She stared at the kid, who was probably more like twenty-three than an actual kid, but since last year, she had felt much older than before. “Sorry, I don’t follow?” she prodded.
“I mean, it’s four thirty, and the process map shows that you or a manager have to sign off on the log.”
“Oh, right, of course, sorry,” Natalie said, catching up immediately. “I’ll be right there.”
How had she gotten so behind schedule? She never had to be fetched by the staff.
She already knew the answer, of course. The problem was that the conversation with Gran had pushed out breakfast. The crotchety old bird dragged coffee and breakfast out almost twice as long as usual.
When faced with the decision to work all day smelling like she had run seven miles in the morning or being thirty minutes late, she chose the less aromatically offensive route.
This meant she was still running behind schedule even though she jumped into the day-to-day tasks and skipped her research session. She would have to finish the paperwork that night instead of going to dinner at the house.
She didn’t want to miss it—Maddy and Jack were coming over with Di and Robbie, who had just returned from yet another adventure overseas—but the thought of leaving the task unfinished made her palms itch.
It seemed like the whole waitstaff crowded around the hostess stand, but as she got closer, she saw that it was the swing staff—who had already worked the half-afternoon shift and would work the first half of dinner to ensure a smooth transition.
“What’s going on?” she asked as she approached.
“Nothing,” the hostess said. “They’re just nosy.”
“About…?”
Linda looked a little nervous, but they had become friendly in the six months she had worked there, so Natalie hoped she’d feel comfortable talking to her.
“Well, it’s just you’re usually here at—quite literally—four twenty-seven,” she explained, gesturing to the wall clock stating that it was nearly twenty minutes to five. “They were being nosy—“
“Worried!” one of the waiters interjected. “Miss Fitzgerald is never late, so I was worried.”
“Nosy,” Linda reiterated.
“It can be both,” the waiter said sheepishly.
Laughing or taking sides would not be professional, so she smiled and aimed for a friendly compromise. “Well, I’m going to believe it was concern for your benevolent and generous boss. Sorry for delaying you all; I’ll be five minutes—why don’t you all grab a house snack or soft drink from the bar?”
“Nice,” the waiter said. “Thanks!”
Everyone except Linda made a beeline for the bar, where the bartender, who had overheard, started setting up glasses.
“You can go, too,” she said to Linda.
“No, it’s all right,” she said. “I have no shame about being nosy. Are you all good? You legitimately made me a significant amount of money in wagers with new staff who didn’t believe me about four twenty-seven. Do I need to get myself a different side hustle?”
Natalie fixed her with a playful glare. “Should you be hustling the new staff?”
Her hostess shrugged. “Better me than one of the line cooks. Besides, it makes them think I’m psychic. And maybe I am a little because I can sense something is wrong…”
“It’s nothing,” Natalie said. “I just got behind today and couldn’t find the pace to get back on track.”
“But you’re always on track,” Linda said, laughing.
“It’s great. I always know exactly where to find you.
If it’s between eight thirty and eleven, you’ll be giving a tour, or in the office; lunchtime, you’ll be in the crow’s nest. After lunch, you’re back in the office, and four thirty-seven, you’ll be walking up to my stand to sign the logs. ”
It was meant to be a light-hearted compliment, but something in the words made Natalie’s smile falter. “I’m that predictable?”
“Not predictable, just…reliable,” Linda said, her smile fading.
“Hmm, okay,” Natalie replied before signing off on the log. “This all looks good. Considering you know my schedule to the minute, where am I supposed to be now?” Whatever the staff thought of her, she didn’t want Linda to feel bad about her comments, so she smiled broadly at the seating hostess.
“Well, normally, you’d have spoken to the kitchen by now and be back in your office.”
Although the tone was slightly less bright, Natalie was satisfied that she had been friendly enough to smooth things over. “Thanks, coach,” she said, bumping Linda’s shoulder with her own and finally getting that smile back on the woman’s face.
“You’re welcome,” Linda said.
Natalie barely heard what the chef said to her, but it all sounded vaguely familiar from the glance she had given the specials earlier in the day.
It was a smaller seating area, as it was a mid-week, reservation-only night, so there was only about half of what she normally had to worry about.
Which was a blessing because she was worrying about everything Linda had just said.
Four twenty-seven.
Not “around four thirty” or “when the afternoon shift ends,” but precisely four twenty-seven.
Sure, her phone alarm was set to go off at four twenty-five, and it only took her a minute or so to tidy up her paperwork and head out, so it made sense. But seriously? In the six months Linda had worked there, she had never been late.
That was concerning. Maybe more concerning was this anxious, almost nauseous feeling in her stomach when she thought about all the things she had skipped or skimmed over that day.
Was this what Gran was talking about? Was this what made her not ready to take over the estate? Her heart seemed to beat faster and faster, and as the nauseous feeling in her stomach grew, her palms began to itch—maybe she wasn’t cut out to run this place.
She was almost in tears when she made it back to the office. She couldn’t even stick to a basic schedule—how was she supposed to run a business this size for the rest of her life? She shut the door tightly behind her, turned the lock, and sank to the floor.
“This is ridiculous,” she muttered, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Calm down.”
Taking a long and slow breath, she counted to eight before holding it for a few seconds and letting it out. She thought this had just been a bad day; everything had been thrown off by Jordan and his stupid flowers—and Gran’s foolish speech.
A voice in her mind pointed out that even if it had been a bad day, she probably shouldn’t be this upset about it, considering nothing had been negatively impacted by her running late.
She was so worked up over nothing, so much so that she didn’t think she could even talk to anyone about it. They’d think she was nuts, right?
Definitely not Gran after today. Izzy and Lou would be less than sympathetic. Maddy was probably her best bet, but she was wrapped up in planning her latest event. And she no longer had a boyfriend to moan to.
As if on autopilot, she pulled her phone from her pocket and opened her social media feeds, flicking through her friends’ lives.
She stopped when a post from Neil appeared.
She hadn’t wanted to search for him by name; that would’ve been pathetic, but if he popped up in her feed, there was no harm in…
She tapped his name and started scrolling slowly through his posts. He was a serious researcher, full-time and fully funded by some big corporation, yet there he was, out to dinner with friends. Going hiking. Volunteering at a blood drive.
Her phone buzzed with a series of texts, nearly making her drop it. She scrambled to check that she hadn’t accidentally liked something on Neil’s page—she was several months deep by now. With a sigh of relief, she switched apps.
From Izzy: Long distance movie night?
From Louise: Sure. So long as it’s not that awful horror thing you wanted to watch last time.
From Izzy: Space Camp Revenge of The Frozen is a classic.
She couldn’t help but smile as she read her friends’ back-and-forth, but again, there was a looming sense of dread telling her that if she took the night off to watch a film, all her efforts would be for nothing.
She really was in a rut, wasn’t she?
From Izzy: I was thinking that cute, straight-to-streaming rom-com with the hot blond guy in it?
From Natalie: Oh, that one? I know exactly which one you mean—there are so few hot blond men in films like that.
She bit her lip while waiting for the joke to land or flop, finally breathing out as laugh reactions popped up on the message.
From Izzy: Ha. Ha. Ha. Funny. It’s the one where he’s famous, and the main character accidentally gets a job as his assistant, and she’s all like, ‘should I shoot my shot, but oh no—he’s my boss, and super famous, and so hot’ and then like…they get a dog or something?
It sounded awful if she were honest, but she had to admit she could sympathize. She wouldn’t get a job in Neil’s department or anything like that, but asking him out or talking to him?
No one stuck in a rut would do that, and she needed not to be stuck there.