I grab my cell phone to check my messages while I wait for Mags. I only have one, and it’s the one I’m hoping for.
Mom: Benito, it’s your mother.
I chuckle to myself. My parents know how texting works, yet they can’t manage to stop themselves from identifying who they are in voice mails, emails, and texts. I read on.
Mom: Your father is home, but he won’t say anything. He’s acting funny. Let’s talk when you can. Love you, son. Thank you for letting me lean on you today. You’re my heart, Benny. My sweet littlest boy and such a good, good man. Love, Ma
It’s a lot to read, and I can hardly process the parts of it. Ma loves all four of us. Franco, Grace, Vito, and then me. But she’salways had a special bond with me. Her last baby. Her youngest son.
It’s nothing I don’t know deep in my soul, but seeing it written out like that, in an awkwardly formal text that’s so like Ma, brings a burn of worry and love for my family to my eyes.
I’m blinking fast when my door flies open, and Mags stands in the doorway, arms crossed.
I hold up my hands in surrender. “Come in and shut the door a sec?”
She motions toward the kitchen. “Benny, we’re fucking swamped—”
“I know. This’ll only take a sec.” I nod at the flowers. “I’m sorry I let you down today. Some shit came up, but I want you to know I appreciate you. And I really respect what you do to keep this place—and me—in line.”
She squints at the flowers, her face immediately softening. “Wait. This shit’s for me? You got me flowers?”
I swallow hard, feeling just the tiniest bit shitty that I didn’t actually buy these for Mags. I try telling myself that it’s what I had intended to do, that my heart was in the right place, but Mags is already pulling off the clear plastic wrap and sticking her face deep in the blossoms.
“Oh my God,” she whispers, drawing in huge breaths from the roses, gardenias, and greens. “These smell amazing. I didn’t expect this from you. Fuck, Benito.”
She reaches down to pull the empty plastic fork from the center of the bouquet. The flowers are planted in a really pretty white dish, and there must be some kind of foam thing at the bottom, because the plastic fork takes a little work to get out. She tosses that in the trash bin beside my desk and uses both hands to peel back the plastic wrap that protects the whole bouquet.
“I seriously was pissed,” she says as she unwraps the flowers. “You know how important that grant is to this place, and you knew how much that meeting meant to me…”
She trails off and I nod, slipping my phone back into the pocket of my jeans. “You can leave those in here until we close,” I say, getting up from my desk. “I just wanted you to know I’m sorry I let you down and I appreciate you.”
I head past Mags, making my way toward the closed door to get back to the kitchen, when I hear Mags suck in a breath.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
I turn on my heel and stare. “What?” I ask. “What’s the matter?”
Mags is holding a tiny white envelope and a standard florist card between her fingers. Right then and there, my stomach plummets into my toes.
“These flowers were for me, Benito?” She gestures accusingly with the little white card.“Not as good as the ravioli, but… Thinking of you. B.” She reads the message I’d intended for Willow in a mocking voice. “Nice, Benito. Fucking classy. I’m sorry if this comes off as disrespect, because no matter what, it’s your name out front. This is your place and all that shit. But this?” She drops the flowers on my desk so hard, I’m shocked the planter dish doesn’t shatter. “You really can be a major dick sometimes.”
She throws the white card on the floor and storms past me. Then she marches out of my office and slams the door in my face.
Shame floods my cheeks, and I head back to my desk to drop into my chair. The dinner rush is not going to wind down anytime soon, but something tells me I’ll be managing the kitchen on my own the rest of the night.
And despite my best intentions, like everything else in my life lately, I can’t help but feel I’m getting exactly what I deserve.
I haven’t said muchother than what was required since I came back to the kitchen. After the last customer clears out, I send the kitchen staff home. I want to be alone in my kitchen, and I can’t stand the silent questioning, the accusing looks. I can’t stand having all the ways I suck at everything being rubbed in my face by the people I’m supposed to lead.
My employees. My kitchen. My team.
After the bussers have the floor done and prepped, a couple of the servers pop in to say goodnight, looking like they want to try to figure out what happened between Mags and me tonight by reading it off the kitchen walls or something.
But I stay silent, angry at myself. Angry at Nico for not delivering the flowers before Willow checked out. Angry at my dad for making my mom worry. I’m just fucking angry, and I’m taking my feelings out on a dirty stockpot and a scouring sponge when one of my mom’s best friends, Sassy, fake knocks on the kitchen door.
“Hey there, boss.” She cocks a painted-on brow at me and unties her apron. She yawns and checks the time. “It’s awfully late to find you here rage-cleaning. You want to talk about it?”
The look I give her must answer for me because Sassy crosses her thick arms over her generous chest. “Well, all right, then,” she says, sounding put out. “You want to sulk about whatever shit you pulled on Mags tonight, that’s your business.”
