“Jesus, Sam, we dated for years.That’s all you have to say to me?”
“What do you want, Piper?I’m not the one who’s been stalling.If you’d signed the papers before I’d left like I had asked you to—”
“I told you, I needed the lawyers to look over it, make sure both of us got what we wanted.”
Whatwewanted?“What you wanted, you mean.”
“Sam, we’ve been through this.I—”
“No.I don’t want to hear it.Thank you for finally sending the papers.I’ll get them back to you as soon as possible.In the meantime, don’t call me.”
“Sam.”
I hung up.
My day didn’t improve from there.
“You want to add what to a drink?”Confused, I placed my glasses beside the now cold coffee on my desk.The cup was still full.It was the second cup I’d forgotten about today.
“Saffron,” Tiffany repeated, her hip popped to the side.
“Saffron.”
“Yes.”
“You want to add saffron to a drink.”
“Yes.”
“You want to add that to a drink.On my menu.In my bar.”
“Yes!Jesus.”
“No.”
“It was the Jesus, wasn’t it?”
I put my glasses back on, eager to end this conversation.“It wasn’t.”
“Come on, Sam.It could be really good.Think of it as an experiment.”
“I’m not letting you experiment on my customers.”
She stared me down, challenging.
“It won’t work,” I repeated to make it clear.
“You don’t know that.”
“It’s saffron.I can quite positively say it will not work in a cocktail.”
A guttural groan.“Where’s your creative spirit?”
“The answer is no.”
Later,when I hoped Tiffany had calmed, I steeled myself for what I knew would be an uphill battle.
“The menu needs to change.Research shows that bars in this area do better when they attract a younger target demographic.And—” I caught Tiffany rolling her eyes.“Yes, Tiffany?”
