Anna wiped down the last table, flipped the sign to CLOSED, and started her closing routine. Grill off. Register closed out. Counters wiped. The Shack settled into its after-hours quiet—just the tick of the grill cooling and the ocean filling the silence.
The typing from the back office was still going.
She checked the clock. Three-thirty. They’d been closed for half an hour. She walked down the hall and knocked on the open door.
“Michael.”
He looked up. Pen in hand. Legal pad half-covered. “Yes?”
“We’re closed.”
He looked at her. Then at his watch. Then back at her. “It’s three-thirty.”
“We closed at three.”
“You closed at three.”
“Yes.”
“In the afternoon.”
“Yes.”
He set down the pen. She could see something happening behind his expression—not frustration, not judgment. Math. He was doing math. The hours, the revenue, the oceanfront location, the boardwalk outside still busy with people carryingshopping bags and coffee cups from places that were, apparently, still open.
“What time do you open?” he asked.
“Ten.”
“Ten until three.” He said it the way someone repeats a number that doesn’t add up. “Five hours.”
“That’s what we do. It’s what Margo—my grandmother—decided when she opened this place.”
“In what year?”
“Nineteen seventy-four.”
Michael picked up his pen, looked at it, set it back down. “I’ll need to factor the operating window into my analysis.”
“You do that.”
He closed his laptop and began stacking his files with the same precision he did everything — legal pad squared on top, pen in the shirt pocket, briefcase latched. Anna watched him pack up and tried to read his face. She couldn’t. The man had exactly one expression and it covered everything from “good morning” to “your business model is fifty years old.”
“Same time tomorrow?” he said at the door.
“We open at ten.”
“I’ll be here at eight. If that’s acceptable.”
“Suit yourself.”
He walked down the boardwalk — same posture, same pace, briefcase in the same hand. Anna watched him until he turned the corner, then went back to the kitchen.
On the prep counter, tucked behind the bread box, she found the plate. Three items arranged with geometric precision: a square of focaccia — no butter, no cheese — a handful of mixed olives, and a cup of gazpacho. All dairy-free.
A Post-it note in Joey’s handwriting was stuck to the rim:
For the auditor. Don’t worry. I have a plan.
