Page 48 of The Quiet Tenant

It’s not until the second service that Cora speaks up about the drinks, after spotting three of them lined up on the bar.

“It was my idea,” she says.

“What?”

“The recipe. I came up with it. Told Nick about it at lunch.”

She’s not even mad, just stuck somewhere between shock and acceptance. He stole her idea. Like a cartoon villain, like a sitcom bully. He just stole it. And I didn’t have a single clue.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell her.

“It’s fine.” It’s not fine, but I’m her boss, so she’ll pretend it is. She’s gone before I can apologize again.

People like to think business is the opposite of personal. Anyone who has ever cared about their work, even just a little bit, will tell you that’s bullshit. It’s the most personal thing, what we do here. And when I make mistakes, people suffer. It doesn’t matter that it’s business. At the end of the day, everything metabolizes as sadness.

—

THANKSGIVING SWALLOWS USlike a nuclear mushroom cloud, and then it ends early. It’s a family holiday. No one wants to be out after eleven. The restaurant quiets down. For a few minutes, we hover, unsure how to exist in the aftermath of chaos. We sigh. We massage our necks, blow our noses, tilt back bottles of water. Like after a hurricane, the cleanup begins.

“Anybody want to take these home?”

Sophie is holding up a cardboard box filled with bags of cookies—half chocolate truffle, half lavender shortbread. We’ve been dishing them out all night with the checks. There are about ten left.

No one says anything. We’re not shy about freebies, but we’ve all had enough of the restaurant for one night. No one wants to bring reminders of the evening back into their home.

Sophie surveys the room.

“Come on, people. I’m not letting these go to waste, and I’m not eating them, either.”

Her gaze lands on me.

“Boss?”

You don’t say no to Sophie.

“Yeah, sure.”

I take the box and thank her. When we’re done cleaning up, I tell Eric and Yuwanda to go ahead.

“Where the hell are you going?” Yuwanda wants to know. “It’s almost midnight.”

I make up an errand, something I need to grab from the drugstore. Yuwanda gives me a skeptical glare. I wait for her to keep probing—to point out that the drugstore closes at ten, and that it sure isn’t going to be open on Thanksgiving night—but she’s too tired for that. She knows, from the period right after my parents died, that sometimes I need to be alone and it doesn’t help to question it.

“Just drive safe.”

Inside the Civic, I take out my phone. After the night in the pantry, Aidan and I didn’t text for twenty-four hours, like we were too stunned to talk. Then, right when I was about to go to bed, he wrote: “Thinking about you :)”

“Oh, yeah?” I texted back. “Yes,” he said. I replied “Same :)” and we’ve been back on our regular texting schedule since. He returned to the restaurant, too, on Tuesday. I spent it in an electric daze, glancing at the door even though I knew it wasn’t time yet. When he finally stepped in, my stomach hollowed. His gaze met mine. He smiled. I smiled back. For a few seconds, it was just the two of us. Two happy idiots, sharing the most delicious secret in the world.

We didn’t renew our exploits in the pantry. But there were knowing looks, a quick stroke on my wrist when he grabbed the check, a squeeze around my waist when no one was watching. And right before closing time, a miracle: he waited until the dining room was empty, then told me to close my eyes and hold out my hand. When I did, he deposited something cool into my palm and pressed my fist shut. “Go ahead,” he said. “Open your eyes. Take a look.”

I unfurled my fingers to reveal a small silver necklace. The infinity sign dangling from a thin chain, a pink quartz encased at the back of the pendant. “Oh my God,” I whispered. “Where did you get this?”

He didn’t say. Told me to turn around.

“Hopefully this one isn’t too much to wear to work.”

I told him it was perfect. He gathered my hair in a bunch and gently pulled it to the side. I stayed still as he secured the clasp, shivered when his knuckles brushed the nape of my neck.

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