“Ick.” Parrish pushed her menu away, squirting her hands from the tiny bottle of hand sanitizer she kept in her purse. “Since whendoes a fine dining restaurant hand customers a plastic menu? These aren’t exactly Waffle House prices, right?”
Traci was watching the server, who looked to be around Parrish’s age: petite, with white-blond hair chopped chin-length, and a tattoo of some sort peeking out from the short sleeve of her uniform blouse. “Looks like they’re shorthanded too. No valet parking. No hostess.” She nodded toward the steam table prominently displayed in the middle of the room. “And a lunch buffet. Not a healthy sign.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Parrish said. “Thanks but no thanks to the wilted iceberg lettuce and freeze-dried bacon bits and your gross gravy- covered chicken. I’ll just have a nineteen-dollar club sandwich. They can’t screw that up. Right?”
Traci laughed. “Nobody would ever know you were raised in the business.”
The server reappeared. “You ladies want the buffet? We have baked cod today. And fried shrimp!”
Parrish shuddered. “Just a club sandwich. And iced tea.”
“I’ll have the same,” Traci added. “No mayo on my bread.”
“Fries or coleslaw?”
“Fries,” the women said in unison.
They watched the girl hurry away. “How long has this place been open?” Parrish asked.
“Not even a year. You wouldn’t believe all the free publicity they got when they opened. The Atlanta paper sent reporters down.Southern Livingdid a piece because they hired some fancy chef away from a restaurant in Buckhead.” She looked around the dining room.
“See that wallpaper, and those window treatments? That’s Scalamandré, the paper and the fabric, done in a custom colorway too, which makes it even more ungodly expensive. I priced that same fabric out when we redid the garden room at the hotel years ago, and when I gave Hoke the quote he almost had a myocardial infarction.”
Parrish laughed. “Yeah, Uncle Hoke was not one to throw money around, that’s for sure.”
“All the same, that year, for my birthday, he had a pillow made out of that same fabric, sort of as a joke, but I loved it. Loved that he remembered, loved that he made the gesture,” Traci said.
Parrish needed to change the subject before her aunt got all misty-eyed the way she still did, even though Hoke had been gone for four years now.
“That poor girl,” Parrish murmured, nodding in the direction of their server as she hustled back toward the kitchen. “I think she’s the only one working this dining room today. I hope they at least let her keep all her tips.”
Their server brought their orders a few minutes later. Traci lifted the top slice of bread on her sandwich and sighed. “I knew it. Absolutely plastered with mayonnaise.” She set the bread aside and attacked the sandwich with knife and fork.
Parrish held up a pale, limp French fry. “Straight out of the freezer bag. I guess they must have waved it in the direction of the deep fryer before they plated up this mess.”
“Never mind,” Traci said, sipping her tea. “I’ve got something important I need to discuss with you.” She took a deep breath.
Parrish felt her stomach do a flip-flop. She grabbed for her aunt’s hand. “Traci? What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
“No, no, oh honey, no. I’m fine.”
Parrish was still skeptical. “You sure? You know you can tell me. I mean, you’ve been looking kind of pale lately, and distracted. Dark circles under your eyes…”
“I swear it. I’m healthy as a horse. Could use a little more sleep, a little more sunshine, and a lot less worry, but that’s not it at all.”
“Wow. You had me scared for a minute there. So then, what’s this super-secret emergency lunch about?”
“Mehdi’s quit. And Sam’s going with her.”
“Oh no.” Mehdi was the head chef at the Verandah, the Saint’s signature restaurant, and her impeccable cooking had earned the restaurant its first Mobil five-star rating, making it one of only two such restaurants in the state. And Sam, Mehdi’s husband, was the hotel’s guest relations manager. He was smart and warm, and likehis wife, seemed to have made himself indispensable in the half dozen years since he’d come to work at the Saint.
“The timing couldn’t be worse,” Traci said. “We were already seriously shorthanded going into spring, but now, unless I can find some more staff, specifically a chef and someone to run the guest relations desk, I honestly don’t know if we can open.”
“Where’s Mehdi going?”
“Some resort in Hilton Head hired them both away. Charlie said they offered stupid money. Look, I hate to ask, but I’m out of options. I really, really need you back at the Saint this summer.”
Parrish was already shaking her head. “No way. You know I’m doing this program in Europe this summer. I’m already registered for my classes. I’m leaving Thursday. You’re always shorthanded at the Saint. Every year, and somehow you manage. Sorry, but you’re just gonna have to find someone else.”
