Page 16 of Filthy Chef

Oh no. I knew this was too good to be true.

“First to know what?”

“Richard is gone.”

What does this mean? “Did he get fired?”

She shakes her head. “No. Girl, Rushmore sold the hotel restaurant to Young & Riggins. They took ownership this morning.”

I shake my head in disbelief. I have yet to learn who Young & Riggins is, but it sounds like a good name for a yacht rock band. I don’t mention that I don’t know who they are, but the second name sounds familiar. I might have heard of a Michelin-starred chef in Dallas by that name, but there are so many. Being just a girl from a small town in Iowa, I’ve only been to Dallas a few times.

“That can’t be right, I just interviewed with Richard yesterday. He called and offered me the job last night!”

Unless I was having a fever dream. But no, I remember clearly that I interrupted my shower to answer the phone.

Lola shrugs. “That may be, but the scuttlebutt is, it all happened overnight. It was really sketchy if you ask me.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and squints off in the distance as if trying to sleuth something out.

“I wonder what happened,” I say. “I wonder if I still even have a job.”

“We’re all wondering the same thing,” Lola says.

Just then, a tall, dark-haired man with glasses in his early 40s enters the locker room. He looks more like a pencil pusher than a restaurant guy.

“Hello, ladies,” he says. We’re having a staff meeting in the dining room to make introductions. Please join us.”

Managerially, he claps his hands once and does the finger-guns move before disappearing down the hall.

I turn to Lola, who rolls her eyes. “Here we go.”

I follow her down the hall, past the executive chef office, and into the dining room.

Everything looks exactly as it did yesterday, and it’s wild to think everything is about to be uprooted. Line cooks, servers, bussers, dishwashers, and bartenders mill around the room. It takes my breath away that an entire army is about to have their lives changed. Everyone is talking in nervous, hushed tones, making me jumpy. Lola and I sit next to each other at the bar, and I’m temporarily entertained by the bartenders’ banter.

“I heard it was a hostile takeover,” says the one with a mustache.

“That’s idiotic. Hostile takeovers involve stockholders and boards of directors and shit,” says the taller one.

“Hey dummy, Rushmore Holdings owns this hotel. That’s a global corporation. It’s on the New York Stock Exchange,” says Mustache Man.

“It is?”

“Yeah.”

The tall one gets a faraway look. “Did Young & Riggins buy the whole-ass hotel though? Or just the restaurant?”

Mustache man shrugs. “Man, I don’t fucking know the ins and outs of every deal. What do I look like, Mark Cuban?”

The tall one gestures around his neck. “A little bit. The chins.”

“Shut your face hole,” Mustache Man says, whipping a wet bar towel at the tall one.

Lola’s side-eyes me, and we both burst out laughing. I needed that.

“I’m Jack,” says the tall one, reaching across the bar when he notices Lola and me laughing. “I see you’ve met this troublemaker.”

“Journey.”

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