“I’m not planning to hang around. I imagine Amber—that woman—will be on her way out soon, and I don’t want to be here when she does.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Faint frown lines creased between heavy black eyebrows. Probably afraid she was going to bad-mouth his place.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I won’t complain to your boss.”
“My boss?” Puzzlement clouded his expression for an instant, before amusement curved his lips.
She pulled her gaze from his mouth. “Yeah, your boss. It was my fault, the wreckage in there. I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.”
“With my boss.” Again that hint of laughter. A slash folded into his cheek instead of a rounded dimple.
Yeah. It’s not your fault my date decided to be a pig.”
His humour disappeared. “There is nothing I can do to help?”
She’d cast the die. Now she would have to head to work, pretend all was well, and keep out of Dane’s way. “I can handle it. Thanks for the offer, though. Good night.”
Her boots clomped hollowly as she strode off. At the corner, she looked back. He was still watching her. She flipped him a friendly wave, and turned right. The Skytrain station was a few blocks away. She could catch a ride home there.
CHAPTER TWO
The last customers were ushered out the door. The kitchen staff left after cleaning their space. Paul and Daniel prepped the dining room for the next evening, with crisp linens and freshly rolled utensils and virgin candles.
Except for the table closest to the kitchen.
Paul slumped, slack-limbed, in a chair at that table. A long-necked bottle of beer swung between his fingers. “God, it’s good to get off my feet.”
Daniel dropped into a seat across from him. “You said it, man.”
In his parent’s restaurant, no matter how busy it was, the table closest to the kitchen was reserved for family. It was where he’d done his first jobs for the business, filling sugar bowls and folding napkins. It was where he had his after-school snack, and where he did his homework. Often as not, Daniel would have been grumbling across the table while he did his own, because he was family, too.
Daniel smoothed a hand over his hair. He wore his serving uniform of black pants, white apron, and white dress shirt, but had loosened the collar and rolled back the sleeves. “You handled that brouhaha all right.”
Paul shrugged. “It was just spilled wine.”
“I wasn’t surprised she made a ruckus. I caught a bit of the conversation. Sounded like the jerk was making an unwelcome suggestion, involving both the women, if you know what I mean.”
Paul choked, beer fizzing up his nose. “You’re kidding me.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“No wondered she scarpered.” A detailed visual of the wicked fairy popped into his mind. Snapping blue eyes peering from behind fuchsia-tipped bangs. Clunky boots on the end of slender legs. “Although...”
“Although what?”
Something about the way she handled herself had tweaked Paul’s interest. He couldn’t fault the guy for wanting to get to know her better. His mistake had been wanting to add another woman to the experience. “Nothing.”
“I noticed you went after her.”
“I offered to call her a cab, but she refused.” He grinned. “She apologized and hoped I wouldn’t get in trouble with my boss.”
Daniel snorted. “You tell her you are the boss?”
“Nah. Last I saw of her she was turning the corner onto Robson.”
Daniel wiped the damp bottom of the bottle on his apron before placing it on the bare table. After this nightly tradition, he would set the table to match the others. There was no family table in Paulo’s when customers were there. “Oh, hey, I forgot. There was a phone call for you when you were outside.”
A hint of embarrassment coloured his voice. Paul knew how much pride Daniel took in his work. He’d be upset he hadn’t passed on the message right away. “No big deal. Who was it?”
“NationWide TV. They’re doing a series on up and coming restaurants, and they want to feature Paulo’s.”
Paul’s bottle hit the tabletop with a thunk and he jackknifed up in his seat. “They do?”
“Yeah. They want to bring in a crew, follow you around for an evening, go behind the scenes. You know.”
“Oh, my God, this is great. Talk about exposure. Television news!” He’d have to have a terrific special that night. Was it time to present his Bacalhau a Almeida? What if no one came? What if too many people came and he had to turn them away? That might be worse. Sweat moistened his palms.
“You’ve gone pale,” Daniel said.
“Holy shit.” Paul stared at him. “This could be it. Exactly what Paulo’s needs.” The final push toward joining the big boys. “I’ll call them tomorrow, first thing.” He raised his bottle in salute. The clink of glass resounded in the quiet room.
The familiar rattle of silverware and clatter of conversation flowed over Jemma as she swung behind the counter at Spoonful. She reached into the pass-through from the kitchen for her next order.
“Jemma, can I see you for a moment?”
She twisted to look over her shoulder and saw Mr. Smythe standing at the end of the counter. The muscles between her shoulder blades tensed.
“Sure, Mr. Smythe. Let me bring this out first.” He nodded. She loaded her tray and carried it with the ease of long practice through the crowded room.
Spoonful was a few cozy steps up from a café, but a number of steps down from Paulo’s. Not that she’d had a chance to eat at Paulo’s. But it had smelled great.
She delivered the meals: baron of beef with fries and extra gravy for her, a green salad, dressing on the side, for him—and didn’t their body types speak volumes to those choices—placed the empty tray in the kitchen and strode, chin out, shoulders straight, down the narrow hall toward the office.
Jemma had returned to work the day after her disastrous date with Dane primed for battle. If he dared to try to get her fired, she was ready to lay it out for his parents. She knew it would hurt them, but she was no martyr. She wasn’t going down because she wouldn’t, well, ‘go down.’
But nothing happened. Unless she counted his new, unnerving habit of spending time up front, not in the kitchen. Instead of staying sequestered in the back where she could avoid him, Dane announced shortly after their date he planned to learn the public side of the business. His parents were thrilled. Too bad it gave him more opportunity to watch Jemma as she worked. His cold, silent surveillance made her spine itch.
A casual comment from Mrs. Smythe revealed he was no longer seeing Amber. “I never did like her,” she whispered to Jemma. “Now he is not with her...” She left the statement hanging, winking slyly, but Jemma played dumb. No way in hell was she ever going on another date with Dane.
A few more days passed, and she started to relax. Until now.
At the door she paused and drew a deep breath. It was no use panicking. They could be calling her to the office for a good reason. Maybe they were going to give her a raise. She stepped inside.
Dane lounged against the wall, arms crossed, a cruel smile on his face.
Or not.
Mr. Smythe sat behind the untidy desk, balding head shining in the glare of the fluorescents, fingers tapping nervously on the calendar pad. Mrs. Smythe, her usually smiling face creased with a worried frown, stood behind his right shoulder.
“Jemma.” Mr. Smythe coughed and cleared his throat. “I don’t know quite how to begin.” He flicked a glance at his son. “We’ve learned something disturbing. We feel we must ask you about it directly.”
Son of a bitch, here it came. She waited, legs braced.
“Dane has told us...” He sent his son another troubled look, harrumphed in his throat again. “Maybe it would be better if he told you himself.”
Jemma had been doing her best to pretend Dane wasn’t in the room. Now she met his malicious glare head on. “Go ah
ead,” she goaded. “Tell me what”—the word lie hovered on her tongue—“what you told your parents.”
“It was my duty to tell them.” The glint of anger in his eyes belied his pious words. “I couldn’t let you keep stealing, once I was certain it was you. We can’t have a thief working in our restaurant.”
“Stealing?” she scoffed. “What did I steal? Silverware?”
Mr. Smythe horked to clear his throat a third time, grating on her already chafed nerves. “There have been some...discrepancies with your cash outs lately.” Mrs. Smythe had yet to speak, but her sorrowful expression deepened, and she wouldn’t meet Jemma’s eyes.
The mention of cash made her wary. “What kind of discrepancies? Are you saying I’m pocketing money?”
“I’ve been going through receipts carefully, learning the system.” Dane pushed off the wall and loomed over her. “Your reckoning at the end of each shift is out, when matched to the kitchen records.”
She fumbled to find her footing, thoughts tangling as she adjusted to the ambush. Dane wouldn’t make an accusation so easily proved unless he’d finagled with the paperwork. Her mind raced, trying to discover a way out, falling back on simple denial. “I didn’t do it.” She’d worked for Mr. and Mrs. Smythe for years. They knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t steal. “It wasn’t me.”
“We can’t avoid the evidence.” Mr. Smythe fiddled with a stack of papers on the desk in front of him.
The chill in her gut spread, ached in her bones. She kept her voice cold to match it. “Evidence?”
“Dane went through everything. It’s all right here.” Mr. Smythe handed over the sheaf of pages. Jemma flipped through them in horror. She felt no vindication in knowing she’d been right. Copies of her end-of-shift cash out records were stapled to the matching kitchen records. A quick glance at each was enough to show her what Dane had done.
His voice oozed spurious sincerity. “I hated to do this. But I have to protect my family’s business, our reputation.”
She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the papers. It had been so easy. Dane had simply deleted certain orders, making it look as if she’d pocketed the money, kept the unreported cash.
She met his smirking face. He’d set her up beautifully. He hadn’t attacked her. Instead, he’d reluctantly presented his parents with evidence, in the guise of defending their livelihood.
She turned to Mr. and Mrs. Smythe. “You believe this? That I did this? After all the years I’ve worked for you?” Mr. Smythe’s eyes were unhappy. His wife finally met Jemma’s gaze, a look of entreaty on her face. Neither spoke.
And there was her answer. Well, screw them.
Screw them all.
“I’ll clear my locker and be out of your precious restaurant as quick as I can.” She stormed down the hall in a fury of bitter humiliation. On her way through the kitchen she grabbed a plastic garbage bag and continued to the metal cubbyhole by the back door where she stored her personal items.
The light tapping of heels sounded behind her. She continued shoving her belongings into the bag.
“I’m sorry.” Mrs. Smythe’s words surprised Jemma enough she paused in her packing. “When Dane brought this to us, I didn’t want to believe. But I have to. I have to. Do you understand?” Sadness softened her face, sagging the corners of her mouth, dulling her eyes. “He’s my son. My only child.” Mrs. Smythe knew Dane was lying. Fat lot of good that did Jemma.
She nodded shortly. “And I’m just an employee.” Mrs. Smythe touched Jemma’s arm tentatively.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“Not as much as I am,” Jemma said.
No one in the restaurant noticed when she slipped out, busy as they were dealing with the supper rush. Too wired to go home, she marched up and down streets, oblivious to the irate honking of drivers when she dashed between parked cars and the disgruntled mutterings of pedestrians as she bowled past.
When the worst of her anger burned away, she caught a bus home. In the lobby, she struggled to be civil to Mr. Chan when he held the elevator for her. He lived on the floor below and gave her grandmother tomatoes from the luxuriant plants he grew each summer on his tiny balcony.
Jemma strode down the quiet hallway to her apartment and twisted the doorknob. Unlocked. Again. Dammit.
“You have to remember to lock the door, Gramma.”
Silence. Miriam wouldn’t be expecting her this early, but where was she?
“Gramma?” She poked her head into the kitchen. No one. In the living room, the television, which should have been tuned to Wheel of Fortune, inciting her mild-mannered grandmother to a frenzy of letter calling, was blank and black.
She tossed the garbage bag in the corner and toed off her boots. Treading down the hallway in her sock feet, she opened the door to her grandmother’s room.
Miriam stood by her bed, hair neatly done in her favoured permanent style, a quilted pink bed jacket buttoned to her throat, long flannel nightgown sweeping her feet. She smiled at Jemma. “Hello, sweetheart. How was work?”
“What are you doing?” Jemma stepped forward to lay her wrist on Miriam’s forehead. “Aren’t you feeling well?”
Miriam laughed. “I’m fine. Getting ready for bed is all.”
“Gramma, it’s not even seven-thirty.”
Miriam’s eyebrows drew together. “Oh, no, dear, it’s much later than that.”
Jemma showed her the display on her phone. “Seven twenty-four. Look at your alarm clock.”
She thought a touch of fear flashed in Miriam’s eyes, but it was replaced quickly with sparkling humour. “Of course I’m not going to bed. I just wanted to lounge in my pajamas for the evening.” She shuffled into her slippers. “Let’s have a cup of tea.”
Jemma never drank tea, but she fixed Miriam a mug and popped the top of a Coke for herself. They settled into their places in the living room, Miriam in her worn but well-loved recliner, Jemma at one end of the couch.
“Now, isn’t this lovely.” Miriam sipped her tea. “Usually I’m already snoring before you get home.” She giggled, but an instant later confusion chased itself across her features. “If it’s just gone seven-thirty, what are you doing home?”
Jemma plastered a reassuring smile onto her face. “I have news.”
“What?” Miriam clattered the teacup shakily into its saucer, eyes apprehensive.
“I won’t be working at the restaurant anymore.”
Not working at Spoonful? I thought you liked it there. Why would you quit?”
Jemma allowed herself an eensy sense of relief. It was best if Miriam believed she’d left of her own accord. She couldn’t see herself explaining ménage à trois to her dainty, lady-like grandmother.
“I do. I did. But it was time to move on.”
Miriam lowered the cup and saucer to the table set close to the arm of her chair. Liquid sloshed over the rim. “Why now? What about the rent? It comes due in a week.” Her voice pitched high in anxiety. “What about my medications? How will we pay for my medications?”
Fierce hatred swelled. The blow Dane had struck against Jemma was bad enough. But to cause her grandmother grief—
She willed her molars to unclench. “Don’t worry, Gramma. Everything will be fine.”
“Can you get Employment Insurance? That will help, won’t it?”
“I’ll go by tomorrow and see what I can do.” She didn’t bother explaining she wouldn’t qualify for EI— not if she’d quit, and certainly not since she’d been fired. “It will be okay. Haven’t I always looked after you?”
“It’s not right.” Miriam’s lips thinned. “It’s not right you have to take care of your grandmother.”
Jemma clasped Miriam’s hand. “I love you, Gramma. I want to take care of you.”
“You wanted to go to university. You should have been able to go, to have a life like other young people.” Her voice quavered.
Jemma squeezed her fingers, careful of the frail bones, desperate to give
assurance. “I like my life, Gramma. Spoonful was just a job. I’ll get another.”
“I’m a burden to you.” A tear trickled down the crepe of Miriam’s cheek.
Jemma repeated a number of ugly words silently to herself. “Don’t you worry. I’ll have a new, better paying job in a couple of days. Wait and see.”
She managed to soothe Miriam, and after a couple of hours watching her grandmother’s favourite reality shows they went to bed.
But not to sleep. At least, not Jemma.
Miriam’s mention of university had stirred deeply buried memories. She lay on her back, arms crossed under her head, and stared at the ceiling.
Longer ago than she cared to remember, she had held the germ of a dream, cupped a fragile fantasy, in her heart. She had confessed it to no one. Her grandmother was content as a housewife, proud of her small home, her daughter and granddaughter. Her grandfather worked as a labourer, good with his hands, hardworking, loyal and steady.
They would never have understood her desire to attend theatre and film school, would have been baffled and confused by her belief she could make a living doing something so intangible. Her mother would have understood, would have encouraged her to live her dream, but it had been so tenuous she was afraid to burst it by putting it into words. So she’d kept silent.
As the end of high school drew closer, she surreptitiously searched for programs. New York or Los Angeles might as well have been Jupiter, but there were plenty of options in Vancouver.
Two days before graduation, her grandfather died.
No one expected a heart attack to kill Henry Hedge as he headed to work, metal lunch kit in hand, as he had for the last forty-seven years. Miriam’s grief was inconsolable. Jemma’s mother, Alice, walked through the days following her father’s death with a blank face, barely acknowledging the presence of the thoughtful friends bringing condolences and casseroles. Jemma abandoned her plans to attend her graduation ceremony and celebrations, and found herself making the many decisions necessary after a death without any help from the older women.
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