Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Things were finally starting to turn around. I had thought that we were finally in the clear. Well, not in the black, but on our way to it. I had trusted Stevie to pull us out of the slump, but it was clear to me now that neither of us actually knew what we were doing.
Perhaps this whole time… Theo really had been the reason that I’d been so successful. Perhaps I had been mistaken, thinking that I had such a hand in it. I should’ve stuck to finance and marketing, my old job in Silicon Valley. Or at least gone back to it once Theo left.
But how could I have? I loved the restaurant. It was a labor of love for me. A symbol of myself and of my family. I hadn’t wanted to let it go. I still didn’t. But maybe…
Without Stevie’s menu working, what else could I do? Go back to the old menu that none of the other cooks had understood and had been using to make sub-par food?
I didn’t understand. Stevie’s food was delicious. Or so I thought. Was I really that ignorant? That much of a dumbass? I couldn’t believe myself. I felt like the world’s biggest idiot.
All right. I’d need to… make some kind of plan. I didn’t know what, yet, but something. Stevie was a good cook and I loved her food. She was just young, inexperienced, so this was a misstep. We could rework the menu. Reintroduce some of Theo’s items, the most popular ones. Maybe make a few small adjustments so they weren’t so complicated to make. Keep up with the fresh local ingredients.
We could find a way to adjust and make this work. Not just because we were capable of it but because we had no other option. We were sinking, and we had to swim.
That afternoon, I went into the restaurant as the lunch rush was dying down. We seemed to be busy, which was a good thing. After eating Stevie’s breakfast sandwich I had been tempted to bring up the idea of a Sunday brunch to her, but now with the review, that would have to wait.
I found her in the kitchen, cooking away, yelling orders over her shoulder. She had this way of yelling orders so that she could be heard without sounding like she was angry and shouting at people. It was hard to find that balance and most head chefs just sounded angry all the time. Sometimes because they actually were angry. Other times because they were just trying to be heard over the din of the kitchen and that was how it came out. But Stevie never sounded like that. She was loud, and the cooks around her could obviously hear her seeing as they were responding to her, but she always sounded calm and cheerful.
I could remember how Theo would rush around the kitchen, simultaneously cheerful and micromanaging. At the time, I’d thought that of course he would micromanage. These were his creations, it was good that he cared, that he wanted them to be perfect. His ability to also goof off had been a bonus to me. It meant that he kept the kitchen lighthearted.
Now, however, I could see how Stevie’s way of running things was so much better. Theo made himself a friend to everyone, which meant when he whipped around and was the boss, barking and micromanaging, people got whiplash. His habit of checking everything, getting into literally every cook’s business, wasn’t a sign of passion but a sign of being too controlling. He wasn’t trusting his coworkers to do their jobs, and the cooks probably felt stifled and annoyed at his behavior.
Stevie though, she was always firm, always in position as the boss, but she stayed at her station working hard and leading by example. She wasn’t peering over everyone’s shoulders or getting in their way to adjust their dish. And she wasn’t distracting them or giving them emotional whiplash by goofing off and running around being cheerful. She was being kind and thoughtful but staying firm.
For her young age, and relative inexperience, she had true leadership. Leadership that I hadn’t even realized that Theo was lacking.
On top of all that, she looked like she was having a good time. She looked the way that I’d felt before I’d read the review. She was smiling, bustling around. Happy. I wanted her to always look that way. And I was damn flattered that I’d helped to be the one to make her feel like that—to put that smile on her face.
It was breaking my goddamn heart to have to ruin her mood.
“Stevie?” I called.
“Yeah?” she looked up, grinning. “What’s up, boss?”
Oh, God, she couldn’t ever call me that again, not when we’d been sleeping together. I could so easily see her using that to tease me, saying it in that coy, husky voice of hers as she winked.