Lauren taped the LINE COOK WANTED sign back up in the front window. It had so much previous tape on it, she was starting to wonder if the sign was bad luck. The soft humming coming from the kitchen made her smile. When she’d told Ramiro about the new cook, he’d shrugged and said they’d find someone better this week. She hoped that was true, for going through the hiring process was painful.
The rain and drizzle from yesterday had given up, and the sky warmed with the approaching sun. The bell above the door chimed, and Luna, their youngest server, strolled in, stuffing the last of a breakfast wrap in her mouth. Lauren noticed the logo on the front of the dark-brown paper.
“Where did you get that?”
Luna tucked the paper in her bag and shrugged. “Down the street somewhere.”
“Grnds?”
Luna slipped her jacket off and hung it on her hook in the back. She pulled her long platinum hair into a top bun and switched into her running shoes. “Can’t remember.” Luna was a terrible liar, not because she was into honesty, but because she usually didn’t care enough to try to be convincing.
“Ramiro, did you hear that? Grnds is selling breakfast wraps. They’ve expanded into actual food.”
Ramiro stopped humming for a second. “They any good?”
Luna shrugged. “It’s all the same thing, isn’t it?” She pulled out a piece of gum and stuck it into her mouth.
“No gum-chewing in the front,” said Lauren as Luna passed by and smiled in her overly-sweet-it-must-be-fake way.
“I don’t want to smell like egg. I’ll get rid of it before anyone sees.”
Lauren rolled her eyes and said in a voice only for Ramiro, “She drives me nuts.”
Luna folded an apron around her waist and stuffed her order pad into the front pocket. She’d worked here for just over a year now, but to Lauren it felt like a million. Luna came in on time, mostly, and did a good job, but something wasn’t quite genuine about her.
“Waffles,” Luna shouted through the order window. “Hold the fruit. And a cluck-and-grunt flop ’em with whiskey down.”
Ramiro set to work pulling the waffle batter out of the fridge and pouring it into the waffle iron. “What are you really worried about? Most cafés have breakfast items.”
“Sure, bagels and those horrible breakfast sandwiches at Starbucks, but nothing actually good.”
Ramiro slapped four pieces of bacon on the griddle and grabbed two pieces of rye toast and placed them in the toaster. “They may take some of our to-go business, but we could get one of those fancy espresso machines so we can pull some of their hipster business our way.”
“Aaron will never go for that.”
“Not to worry, sweetums.” He gave her a side hug, making sure to keep his clean hands free of her uniform. “We’ve been here forty years. We’re a staple in this neighbourhood. People love us.” He waved a spatula at her. “Plus our food is better than Hipster Dan’s over there.”
“Don’t call me sweetums,” she said as she shoved him playfully toward the griddle.
It wasn’t so much that she was worried Grnds would take some of their business; they’d already done that. Greta’s had been steadily losing customers to them since they opened two years ago, but not enough to do any real damage. She was worried about Aaron. He was already paranoid about how much money they were pulling in and was going to go ballistic when he found out about this.
Lauren tightened her apron and headed to the front. The place was picking up for the morning rush. In the next two hours the seats at the front counter had a line—always a good sign. As soon as one customer got up to leave, another would sit down. And the booths were always full. There were only the five of them, and Luna was good at turnover. Lauren had to give her that. She might not like her attitude sometimes, but Luna was a great server.
As breakfast died down and they finally had a moment to breathe, Lauren could almost believe Ramiro. They’d be fine.
* * *
“Sorry. We’re not hiring at the moment.” It was the same thing Hayley had heard from over a dozen places that morning. She gave them her fake smile and walked out. She’d been looking for hostess jobs, since they didn’t involve math skills or anything more than being able to take reservations and deal with seating people. She suspected her blue hair was yet again the culprit. Yet again she nixed the idea of dying it to conform to others’ expectations. She’d come to the city partially because she’d expected people would just accept her as is. This was who she was, and she didn’t feel like she had to change in order to fit in.
She had to broaden her search. Most of the places were hiring line cooks more than servers or hostesses. Maybe she could get hired as a cook somewhere. She’d never worked a grill, but how hard could it be? She was a fast learner. She’d spent her whole life watching her mom and grandma in the kitchen and knew a lot more about cooking and baking than she did about managing someone else’s schedule. And as Kalini said, everyone lied on their resumes. The trick to keeping the job was backing up those lies with competence, which Hayley knew she had. She could wing it for a week while she picked up the specifics of the job—no problem.
She stopped in at Grnds to grab a table to fix her resume. By the time she was done with this process she’d probably have five different ones, depending on what she was looking for. The place was cramped, and the only spot was at one of the window stools. Didn’t people work in this city? Maybe not. Maybe everyone was like her, in constant search mode. It still didn’t explain how they paid for things.
She decided to save money by getting a plain coffee and the cheapest thing on the food menu, a piece of day-old banana bread. This would be her breakfast and lunch, so she took small bites to ration it.
Once she’d added a few items of relevant work experience to her resume, she saved it to her USB drive and headed over to the Sanderson library to print off ten copies.
Hayley wanted to find a place in walking distance of her new digs so she didn’t have to take transit anywhere. It would save her six bucks a day, and keeping her spending down right now was everything. The place she’d found to stay wasn’t great. In fact, it was downright horrible.
The Palace Arms, a short-stay hotel, rented rooms by the hour. The neon hourly rate sign had drawn her attention in the first place, although the building itself was hard to miss. The brick was painted a light pink, and it had turrets, like a castle. At one point in history it had probably been upscale, but unfortunately for Hayley, that was probably a century or two before she was born.
Her room smelled like mildew and stale beer. The paint was stained with nicotine, and the window didn’t have curtains, which meant the streetlight outside illuminated the room all night, but it was dry and cheap, two things Hayley desperately needed at that moment. She kept telling herself that as soon as she found a job, she could start saving up to find some place better, although at this point, almost anything was better.
With her fresh resumes still warm from the printer, Hayley headed into the autumn afternoon.
* * *
Lucy stuck her head into the kitchen. “Aaron’s here.”
“Rats.” Lauren flicked her finger into the bathroom sink. Blood flecks splattered the white porcelain. “Why does he always show up during a rush?” She wrapped some toilet paper around the cut on her finger, and it quickly turned red. “Stupid one-ply.” She grabbed the roll and wrapped it several times around her finger. When it looked like a giant moth cocoon, she popped open the first-aid kit and searched for a Band-Aid. They desperately needed a resupply. The only Band-Aids she could find were Star Wars. No doubt Theo had been the last to make a supply run. She discarded the mass of one-ply into the trash and wrapped the scowling face of Chewbacca around her index finger.
Aaron was sitting at a stool at the end of the bar, taking up valuable real estate. He was dressed in a dark-grey suit that cost more than Lauren’s entire wardrobe, dumping sugar into a coffee. A silver tie was thrown over one shoulder to keep it from dipping into his mug.
Lauren had known Aaron since he was in his late teens, and besides the clothes, not much had changed. He’d always had an air about him that he was better than others. What made it worse was that he tried to fit in, make it appear like he belonged in a diner wearing a two-thousand-dollar suit.
When he spotted Lauren he turned toward her, creating a screech so loud the entire diner stopped for a second.
Lauren pointed at the stool. “You’ve been promising me for months you’d have that fixed. I had a kid in here yesterday who sat there for an hour twisting back and forth. At least five people left because of it.”
“Why didn’t you ask him to stop?”
“Since you’re here, can I get you breakfast?”
He poured a few tablespoons of milk into his coffee. “I already ate.” He pointed to the sign in the window as he took a sip of his coffee. “I thought you’d already replaced Pete.”
“The last guy didn’t work out.”
“What happened to your finger?”
Lauren looked down at the Chewbacca Band-Aid. “That stupid register keeps jamming. We need a new one.”
“How come the last guy didn’t work out? What was wrong with him?”
And that’s how it went with Aaron. He asked rapid-fire questions, rarely waiting for an answer or even expecting one. Lauren felt it was his way of proving he knew what was going on here, even though he stopped by only once a month, if that.
“I’m handling the hiring. I’ve got a bunch of interviews lined up today.” She always made a point of seeming on top of things where Aaron was concerned, even lying if she had to. Otherwise he’d step in and make a mess of things. For the most part Aaron could forget he owned a diner. If you’d met him at a dinner party, you’d never know that his mother had left him this tiny place tucked beneath Trinity Bellwoods. But it was the times he did remember that worried Lauren. It meant he’d try to take charge and micromanage, and if there was one thing that Lauren avoided at all costs, it was Aaron micromanaging her diner.
The last time he’d stepped in to take charge, they’d ended up with two dozen boxes of frozen, chocolate-flavoured bratwurst. They were still in the freezer, currently holding up part of the shelf.
“Okay, but if you don’t find someone by today, I have a guy who’d be perfect for the job. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Lauren gave a tight-lipped smile. “Don’t worry, Aaron. I’ve got it handled.”
Aaron stood, pulling his tie from his shoulder and smoothing it against his light-grey shirt. “Well, it can’t hurt to have a backup plan, can it?” He stooped to pick up his briefcase. “Oh, I stopped by to let you know I have a man coming in to inspect the place this week. His name is Civan Keyzer.” Aaron turned and left, leaving Lauren stunned and speechless.
Lucy sidled up to Lauren with a pot of coffee in her hand. “Did he just say he was sending an inspector?”
Lauren nodded, still too shocked to form actual words.
“You know the only time someone hires an inspector is when they’re getting ready to sell.” Lucy clucked her tongue as she refilled a cup. She moved slowly down the line, refilling as she went.
Lauren took a deep breath, pulled back her shoulders, and delved back into the chaos, hoping the noise and bustle of work would keep her mind off what Lucy had just said. It was ambitious, even if it didn’t work.
Even if Aaron was planning to sell, it was unlikely the building would be torn down to make condos, like so many other places in the city. The entire block was attached, so everyone would have to sell, and that would never happen. But whoever bought the place would probably gut it. This neighbourhood didn’t want tiny little diners like this anymore. It was filling up with places like Grnds, or boutiques selling clothing made from paper, or vape stores. Aaron kept this place because it ran itself. At least to him it probably felt that way. As a lawyer he didn’t need the money. But what if he had decided to sell? He’d make a fortune. The building alone had to be worth a couple of million or ten.