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“Hey, come check this out.” Juliette, the salad chef, had her nose buried in her phone, while her free hand waved the rest of the former staff over. Judging by the gasps and curses, they were reading the same article Benny had sent her. The same one outlining, in lurid detail, what all their hours of exhaustion had paid for.
“Two McLarens?”
“This lists a ten-bedroom beach house in Puerto Vallarta under chef’s name!”
“Mr. Buchanan had off-shore accounts?”
Molly’s eyes slid toward the men in question who, as each new accusation was uncovered, slunk farther away from the kitchen, until the front door to the restaurant slammed behind them with an audible jolt.
They were gone faster than it took Buchanan to spew his empty promise of a final paycheck.
Juliette turned off her phone but not before extending a choice finger in the direction their former bosses had escaped. “That’s it. I’m out of here. No freaking way am I being associated with any of this. I do catering on the side anyway. I don’t need this type of risky exposure.” She shrugged out of her apron, grabbed her roll-up knife bag, and stormed past Molly.
“Right behind you.” Martin, the appetizer chef, added his apron to the pile and followed in Juliette’s wake.
One by one, the entire staff filed out of Serendipity, which, up until five minutes ago, had been the single greatest stepping stone for all of their careers. They walked through the dining room, furiously hip-checking tables and kicking chair legs, as if the very furniture, which had hosted some of the region’s most famous celebrities and esteemed food critics, had betrayed them as well.
A handful of minutes later, the final pair of footsteps left behind their echo to bang around the abandoned cavern of Molly’s former dreams.
Should she follow everyone out? How long before the police raided the property? Was that something they even did, or had she been watching too many crime shows?
Alone, and with far more questions than answers, she did the only thing her frozen limbs could manage and walked back to the office. She needed to call Benny, tell him more about what he undoubtedly already knew. What he’d rightfully predicted.
Call me when it’s over.
At fifty-two, the man had spent more years in the restaurant business than most restaurants stayed in business. Would he leave her, too? Did any of them have a choice?
Stiff fingers pulled the phone from her pocket. Benny picked up before the first ring even hit her ear.
“It’s over,” she croaked.
“Did you see chef and Buchanan? Did everyone leave?”
“Yes. Effective immediately, everything’s shut down. Buchanan mentioned something about final checks going out in the mail next week, but we both know that’s crap.” A bitter laugh escaped her lips. “We fill orders for freaking thirty-five-dollar entrées night after night on the cheap end, and there’s nothing to show for it, not even a final paycheck.”
Nothing to show for it . . .
Years of her life invested into a career, climbing her way to promotions the head chefs had no choice but to award her, always giving them ten reasons to choose her for every one reason to choose her male counterparts. Always fighting, always taking on more where others did the bare minimum. And then the sous-chef opportunity at Serendipity came along, and it was, quite literally, serendipitous.
It hadn’t just been a promise of a step up the ladder but an investment in her future. Validation for the hard choices made for the sake of her dream she refused to let die. It was one more tool in her arsenal to combat the terribly unlucky star she’d been born under. It was . . .
An investment.
Molly eyed the crumpled court document at her feet, then lunged at the thing as if it were a treasure map she’d only just figured out how to decipher. She smoothed the stiff paper against her thigh and took in the ominous words again, this time through a different lens. “Hey, Benny? If one were to pay the bank the full sum it’s owed, plus compounded interest, do you think that would satisfy the writ and keep the property from going into foreclosure?”
“I guess, in theory, that makes sense,” he mused. “But the worth of the restaurant isn’t just in its property value. In order for the business to be purchased, it would need to be assessed, appraised, insured, reinspected?—”
“I’m not talking about buying the business. I’m talking about keeping the property from going into foreclosure.” Molly’s mind whirled with an unsteady rhythm born of a loose axle as she mentally tallied every spare cent in every bank account to her name, even marking the recent IOU money her best friend, Drea, had just paid her back. Nothing was left out of her frantic analysis, not even the dozen or so savings bonds she’d received for her bat mitzvah eighteen freaking years ago that still hadn’t fully matured. She ticked off all available lines of credit and cash advances like they were items on a grocery list, along with any family members who might be convinced to pony up the money if she spun the investment angle the right way.
Then there was The Account. The private account she’d been squirreling money into ever since she’d first thrown on an apron in a professional kitchen and decided she wanted to feed people. Her vision-board seed money that would one day fund her restaurant. Money she’d been meticulously hoarding and nurturing with quiet low-risk investments. It wasn’t nearly enough on its own, but perhaps altogether . . .
The result of her mathematical mesmerism slowly staggered out of its dizzying rotation until it landed approximately on the final payment the bank was seeking, interest and all, to prevent the property from going to auction.
“Molly . . . Earth to Molly . . . You still there, girl?”
“Yes,” she breathed out, gathering her thoughts to deliver the first clear and sure sentence she’d spoken all day. “And I’m going to buy the building.”
Chapter 2
