The Restaurant(19)

She was in the middle of an interview with a star candidate when another call beeped through, and Billy’s number flashed. She ignored it, figuring she could call him back when she was done as she thought it was rude to answer another call in the middle of an interview. But when he called again five minutes later, she apologized to her candidate and clicked over.

“What’s up? Is something wrong?”

“No, I just wanted to see what you were doing? You didn’t answer the first time I called.” Billy was all charm, and she wanted to kill him.

“That’s because I’m working. I’m on the line with a great candidate and only answered now because I figured if you called twice like that it had to be important, an emergency even.”

“What, talking to me isn’t important?” he teased.

“I have to go. I’ll call you later.” She clicked back to her candidate, apologized again and finished the interview. A minute later her phone rang again, the main number from her office.

“Jill, it’s Jenna. Just wanted to give you a heads up that Roger Anderson just called in looking for you. I told him you were in a meeting and would call him right back. He said your candidate no-showed for his interview.”

“Thanks. I’ll find out what happened and call him right back.”

After a half hour of tracking down the missing candidate who somehow got the interview day mixed up, and rescheduling with the client, Jill finally had a chance to call Billy back.

“I thought you were ignoring me.”

“No, just putting out fires, as usual. What’s going on?”

“It’s weird without you here. The energy level is down.”

Jill chuckled. “Are you trying to say you miss me?”

“We all miss you.”

“That’s sweet, but I’m right here. I’m still working. This morning was just a glitch, and it was my first time dialing in. Once I’m regularly part of the meetings even from a distance, it will be better.”

“I suppose. It has to be, right?”

“It will be. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Go bill up a storm, would you please?”

“You got it.”

Jill hung up the phone and then, feeling suddenly restless, took a walk up to the pastry counter and gave in to temptation. She settled back at her table and took a bite of the cherry strudel pastry. She couldn’t make a habit of it, but just for today felt she deserved a little treat. She didn’t admit it to Billy, but she was already missing being in the office too. She missed the fast pace and the constant hum of people on the phone. After only a few days, she was missing everything—Billy most of all.





“So how was your day?” Mandy asked brightly. She’d just arrived at Grams’ house and had a bottle of red wine and a casserole dish that smelled amazing.

“Fabulous,” Jill lied. “What is that?” Mandy had called earlier and said she was bringing them dinner and was anxious to hear how things had gone for both Emma and Jill.

“Veggie lasagna. It’s a new recipe. Low-cal, but still tons of flavor. We’ll see, I guess, right?”

“Well, it smells delicious,” Emma said and started getting plates and silverware from the kitchen. They filled their plates and poured the wine, then settled comfortably at Grams’ dining room table.

“So,” Mandy began, “Emma, tell us everything. How was your day? What was it like? Should I be nervous about tomorrow?”

“No, don’t be nervous. Gary is a doll. He’ll walk you through everything,” Emma assured her and told them all about her day, ending with the realization that they may have been visited by a food critic.

“Do you remember his name?” Mandy asked.

“Why, are you up on who the local food critics are?” Jill asked, and Emma chuckled. She’d been wondering the same thing.

“I may recognize the name.” She seemed serious, so Emma tried to recall the name. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

“I don’t remember his first name. Last name may have been Connor.”

“I don’t think he’s a food critic.” Mandy chewed her bottom lip for a moment, then continued.

“He may be a consultant that Cory hired. I just didn’t think he’d start so soon.”

“Start what? Why would Cory hire a consultant to eat a bunch of food at our restaurant?” Jill demanded, her tone a mix of annoyance at Cory’s interference and curiosity to know what he was up to.

Mandy helped herself to another slice of lasagna before settling back into her seat and beginning to fill them in on news that she knew they wouldn’t be happy about. “Well, you know how we brought the financials home to look through? I took the initial look and was concerned enough to ask Cory to review everything and advise us on what we should do.”

“What’s wrong?” Emma asked.

“Well, I was planning to tell you all this over dinner anyway, so here’s the scoop. Mimi’s Place is barely breaking even. For the past seven years, profits and overall revenues have been steadily decreasing from year to year and expenses have gone up. Not a good combination.”

“But nothing seems to have changed,” Jill said. “Every time I’ve been there it’s been busy.”