“I mean, maybe ten years ago?” I say, feeling the heat of shame creeping up my neck as I say it. “Longer?”
It was definitely longer. I remember walking away and dramatically announcing I was never coming back. I was seventeen years old. That’s just about fifteen years ago. I’d seen my dad since for a birthday here,a Christmas there. We messaged. But it was Mum whom I stuck with when things fell apart. She was the wounded party, leaving when she could take no more of coming second to Dad’s obsession with Nicky’s. I still bristle at the memory of Mum crying at the bottom of the escalators at Angel station as we stood there with our bags, heading to live with my aunt until Mum found another job and we found another home. It was hard to love him after that.
“Holy shit,” says Ginny, eyes wide, face grimacing. After a long period of silence, she perks up. “But also, I mean, what an opportunity. It’s yours?”
“Mine,” I confirm.
“Youwerekind of born for this, Olive.”
I sink into my seat, deflated by Ginny’s misplaced excitement.
People romanticize hospitality. It often shows up in books or movies as a cutesy job for creative, homely types. It looks like freshly baked croissants in mouthwatering piles on a table covered with homemade jam in a pretty shop on a sweet high street with plenty of middle-class foot traffic. It looks like chalkboard menus and handsome staff in stiff linen aprons with leather ties, and bench seating decorated with thyme and rosemary in tiny silver pots. And always, a tired but tenacious owner who is busy—yes—but deliriously fulfilled and with plenty of time to fall in love.
What itactuallylooks like? Carnage. Like the scene of a crime. Bloody, sometimes. Chaos, always. Meeting the booze delivery truck at 6:30 a.m. and calling the rat guy and sneaking him in and out during lunch service. It’s sticky kitchen floors and hungover chefs who are fucking the waitstaff and waitstaff who are stealing from the till. It’s a mild coke habit if you’re under thirty and a mild drinking problem after that.It looks like high blood pressure, heart disease, couch-surfing exhaustion. It’s sixteen-hour days with no one in your life but the people you work with.
Don’t get me wrong. My parents had it good for a long while. Nicky’s was a classic family restaurant, a simple and easy-to-execute Italian menu with a modest but comfortable turnover. A very good turnover for a time, when my dad’s TV cooking show aired. They had a rotation of competent chefs and enough staff who could steer the ship so we could go on an annual family summer holiday to Italy. A week in Sicily, staying with Dad’s friend and mentor Rocco in Catania, and another week somewhere on the north Riviera with his best friend, Roger. We’d see Rapallo. Cinque Terre. Portofino. Sunshine, sunscreen, and of course, plenty of eating.
They also owned the property outright. Dad bought it long before the real estate boom in East London. And the restaurant was never just a workplace. It was our second home. I would sit at table 7 doing my homework while Mum ran the restaurant and Dad made slabs of olive focaccia in the wood-fired pizza oven. At our real home around the corner, I ate utilitarian cornflakes for breakfast, but in the evenings, I sat at the bar at Nicky’s eating truffle linguine with sparkling water in a wine goblet. And my parents? They were happy. Really fucking busy. But happy.Andin love.
Itwaspretty perfect, actually.
Until it wasn’t.
“I’m going to sell it,” I say. “Please don’t hate me, but that building is freehold.”
“Holy shit,” says Ginny.
“Wait. What’s freehold?” Kate asks.
“She owns the actual building as well as the business,” Ginny explains, her eyes wide. “Christ, what’s it’s worth?”
“I’d pay a lot of tax, but still, it’s a life-changing amount of money,” I say, feeling my cheeks redden. I’m reallythat bitchwith an inheritance. The one time being an only child pays out.
“You really don’t want to keep it?” Ginny asks, frowning.
“The estate attorney says it’s practically a teardown. I’d have to mortgage it to renovate. The turnover is terrible, so it would be hand-to-mouth payingthatback. I’d have to move in upstairs to avoid it being taxed as a second home. It’s complicated. Plus, there’s the small but obvious problem that I’ve not worked in a restaurant since I was sixteen years old.” I try to laugh, desperate to keep the conversation upbeat, but the girls are more subdued, nothing but a simplehafrom Kate.
“I think you’d be good at it,” presses Ginny. “You’ve worked infoodfor your whole adult life, Olive. It’s your literal job to know what makes a good restaurant. Plus, you’re very warm, when you can be bothered.” She nudges me in the ribs, and I smile, nudging her back.
“I could sell it and finally help my mum out, and still have enough to buy my own home, Ginny,” I say, trying to get her on board. “That I’d own. Maybe evenoutright.”
“Thatwould be life-changing indeed,” says Kate, nodding.
“The stuff of dreams,” Ginny says, wide-eyed.
“Everything would be the same, but I’d be rent-free. Living in London. Can you imagine?”
“Yeah. You can, like, keep doing the job you hate,” Kate says wryly.
“But rent-free,” I say. I tip my head toward Kate. “Come on.”
“Youdohate your job,” Ginny agrees. “You spent most of the last year complaining about it. Like a shitty boyfriend you wouldn’t dump.” I catch the look of agreement on Kate’s face and realize I’ve been the subject of somebreakoutdiscussions.
“But look at it this way, I’d have a lot of freedom to find something else. Maybe I’ll write a novel or something?” I say wistfully, as the girls bothMm-hmm, nodding in unison. “Which leads me to the catch.”
“The catch?” Kate says, straightening up.
“Oh boy,” says Ginny, reaching for her wine. I pause briefly to take a sip of my whiskey.
