“Are you up at the office?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “It’s only three. I can head up there and close out the day.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I have to head up there anyway. I’ll stick around for a bit.”
“Are you sure? I know you’re bound to be tired,” Carter said.
“I’m fine. Go home. Be with your wife and kid,” I said. “I’ve got this.”
I hung up and headed to the office, where I dropped off everyone except Dwayne and Wendy, who stuck with me for a bit. Dwayne was a terrific on-site manager, and I was very slowly training him on some things I could use to promote him, and Wendy went right into tackling some of the work we left from the morning. I was able to dip into one of the bathrooms and grab a quick rinse before changing clothes and coming back out.
When six in the evening rolled around, I was feeling like a couple of trucks had run me over and finally closed up shop. Wendy had been long gone at five, and Dwayne helped me lock up and offered to drive me home. He only lived a short bit from me, but I declined, instead being content with him following me.
I made it home okay, blasting heavy metal on the radio to keep me up, and when I pulled into the driveway, Dwayne honked his horn and waved out of his window.
I got inside and was immediately thankful that I had showered at the office. I had zero left in my legs, and I barely made it into the kitchen to make myself a peanut butter sandwich. I wasn’t all that hungry, but I also didn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night craving protein either. I shoved the sandwich into my mouth and washed it down with a large glass of milk before staggering toward the living room, yanking off most of my clothes as I went.
The idea was to sit on the couch, finish my food, and try to stay up until nine or so, so I could have a normal sleeping pattern. I failed miserably. As soon as my ass was on the couch, I started tipping over. I was able to get the plate with the third of a sandwich that was left onto the coffee table before my head hit the pillow in the corner of the couch.
My dreams were disjointed and hazy, and when I woke up, the only thing I could recall was short, spiky black hair and colorful tattoos.
6
HELEN
Dina’s Diner was absolutely named after my mom, but it was most certainly Dad’s baby. Maybe even more so than Carrie or me. Unfortunately, Dad’s sense of style pretty much stopped evolving around the time of the Reagan administration, leaving the diner looking a bit dated.
Not dated in a cool way like the eighties-themed restaurant I worked at in Chicago where everything was neon, and the menu items were named after Madonna or David Bowie. It was more like the wood-paneling and cheap plastic kind of eighties dated, and if I was going to get this place looking like something more recent than the heyday of Hulk Hogan and Cyndi Lauper, it was going to take some work.
I spent a good amount of mental energy on how I was going to update how it looked in there without losing its small-town charm. It was going to take a lot of sweet talking of both long-time customers and Dad himself to prove I wasn’t going to do worse to the place than Carrie had. Then again, I wasn’t sure anyone could do worse than she had.
So, while trying not to turn Dad’s baby into a fully chic, trendy, Chicago clone, I was obsessing over most of the details. Enough that I found myself in the backroom, having lost an hour scrolling through a restaurant supply store’s collection of plate designs. I needed to step away and gain some perspective or else I was going to end up changing everything too fast, and probably into something not even I would be happy with.
Thus, Tuesday was written in big bold letters on the calendar in the back that I was taking off. Mom was going to come in during the afternoon and help during the busy lunch period, but she was explicitly only supposed to be refilling coffee and chatting with customers. Everything else was going to be on the rest of the staff to keep things rolling, including the new cook I hired named Finn.
Bringing Finn on was one of the most effective things I had done. Adding to the kitchen crew had bolstered them, so orders were coming out on time and looking good. Especially the new stuff like Nona’s Lasagna on Sunday. Finn was coming in as the new official head cook, which everyone took in stride, since up to that point no one in the back had ever been to culinary school.