Tom. No one ever called me Tom. Always Thomas or Tommy. And yes, I know Tommy sounds like I’m a little kid and Thomas sounds like I’m an old man, but Tom just sounds unfinished.
Behind Natalie, Ava rounded the corner, saw us trapped there and promptly about-faced in the other direction. I tried not to smile.
‘And I’m sure he already told you the most important rule I have?’ she asked.
Oh, shit.Had I told him? I raced through every memory I had of Gabe since last Saturday. Why did so many of those memories have to be of hissmile!
Gabe nodded and opened his mouth. And I knew exactly what he’d say.
At one point on our first day I had pointed over to Luke’s section, which was full when ours only had two tables occupied, and I’d reiterated my own personal rule number one: never piss off the hosts. Luke had broken up with Morgan at the beginning of summer, and ever since, she had been on a revenge mission, seating two or three tables at a time in Luke’s section.
Before Gabe could speak I jumped in. ‘Yep, never say no.’
I turned to him to see if he’d hold up his end of the bluff, and to my surprise, he did. He nodded quickly and smiled at Natalie. ‘That’s the one.’
She didn’t seem entirely convinced. ‘Well, there’s more to it than just “never say no”. If the residents ask for something, you smile and say yes and make it happen. If you’re concerned you can’t make it happen, you come see me andIwill make it happen, orIwill be the one to tell them no.’
This rule worked for big asks, but the little ones always bit you in the ass.
‘Last April,’ Natalie said, and I already knew where the story was going, ‘a resident wanted baked Alaska, but dessert that night was pineapple upside-down cake. So I went to Chef Roni and asked her to whip up some meringue, then cut the pineapple upside-down part of the cake off, throw on some Neapolitan ice cream, put the meringue on top and toast it with a torch!’
She clapped her hands like it was the easiest thing in the world.
The part of the story she always left out was that after a resident at another table saw it,theythen asked for baked Alaska. By the end of the night it was full-tiltGive a Mouse a Cookiemadness. We had over a hundred leftover tops of pineapple upside-down cake, and the dinners were coming out too slow because Dante was off whipping meringue into stiff peaks. And now, when Chef Roni plans the menus for the month, she won’t make pineapple upside-down cakeorbaked Alaska.
My favorite part was when I brought out six of the new baked Alaskas and all the residents scrunched up their faces and said, ‘That’s not baked Alaska.’
‘Never say no.’ Gabe nodded. ‘Got it.’
‘We should go check for our dinners before we take table fifty’s dessert orders,’ I said to Gabe.
Natalie held up a hand. ‘Gabe, why don’t you do that while I have a talk with Tommy.’
Shit, maybe we didn’t get away with it after all.
Gabe moved around me, shooting a quicksorryglance over Natalie’s shoulder. When he was gone, she gave me that polite but devilish grin.
‘Next time, I’d rather hear from Gabe directly when I’m quizzing him on what you’re training.’
‘I’ll be honest, I was worried he forgot. I told him on his first day and it’s been a while since, and no one has really asked for anything not on the menu while I’ve been training him. I’ve noticed that people retain things better when they come up during the shift instead of me explaining it ahead of time.’ That was total bullshit, but it sounded good enough, right?
‘The residents pay a lot of money to live here.’
Great. So this was becoming a ‘teachable moment’.
‘And if we tell them no, they wonderwhythey pay so much money—’
I know that, too.
‘And if they wonder why they’re paying so much money, they may want to find ways to save money in order togetthe things they want. And I don’t want to lose my job. Do you want to lose yours?’
‘No.’ Though I’m not entirely sure that logic tracks.
‘And I’m certain Doris doesn’t want to lose her job, or George his, or Roni hers, for that matter. So we have the most important rule for a reason. This is even more important because it’s one of your tasks. Have you gotten any requests today?’
Was this a trap? Did she send someone in here to try to catch me up already? There were plenty of residents who didn’t like Natalie. I knew they would give me a heads-up if she asked them to do something that seemed like a test or a way to trip me up.
‘Not yet. But if I do I’ll be sure to handle it.’
