Chương 3
She looked at him.
He shrugged. “I’m trying something new. Honesty.”
“You told me you made eight hundred dollars at the holiday party.”
“I made four hundred and twelve. The eight hundred was before Marco explained the administrative fee.”
“You never said.”
“You never said your tips got cut after Maria’s first visit.”
Sophie folded a cocktail napkin into smaller and smaller squares. “I was embarrassed.”
“So was I.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m thirty-two years old and had to ask my sister for grocery money after serving people who spent four hundred dollars on lunch.”
He set down the cup. “Embarrassment is useful to people like Marco. Makes us keep each other uninformed.”
The kitchen doors opened.
Chef Renzo came out still wearing his apron. He was a broad man in his late fifties whose silence was usually taken for anger and whose anger arrived in complete sentences.
“Who ordered the closure?” he asked.
Antonio approached from the office hallway. Marco was no longer with him.
“I did.”
Renzo looked him over. “You own the dining room?”
“I own the company.”
“That was not my question.”
Antonio’s mouth nearly formed a smile. “I closed service.”
“You closed it with twenty-seven plates in motion.”
“I asked you to finish what was fired.”
“You do not ask a kitchen to stop like a car at a red light. Sauces are made. Fish is portioned. Bread is proofing. Tomorrow’s veal is already out of the freezer.”
“Then tell me what you need.”
Renzo removed a pencil from behind his ear. “First, unlock the door. People are not prisoners.”
One of the security men looked toward Antonio.
Antonio nodded. The lock turned.
“Second,” Renzo continued, “pay the dish crew before they leave. Some are cash pickup because the payroll cards were delayed.”
Antonio’s eyes moved toward the office. “Delayed by whom?”
Renzo gave him a flat look. “You have purchased a restaurant. Congratulations. Now you may discover it.”
The last diner left at seven thirty-two, carrying a free bottle of Barolo that Priya had given him by mistake. No one asked him to return it.
The staff gathered in the dining room after the curtains were drawn. Without guests, Bellarosa looked smaller. Candlelight no longer softened the cracks in the banquette leather. The marble floor had a yellow stain near the bar that Sophie had stopped seeing years ago.
Antonio stood beside Maria’s table. The ownership agreement remained there under the small lamp, its signature visible through a clear cover sheet. Maria sat behind it with her pill organizer in her lap, observing the staff as though she had come for a meeting rather than dinner.
Sophie stayed near the service station.
Antonio introduced himself, though everyone knew who he was now. He said Bellarosa would close for at least one day while payroll records, security access, vendor accounts, food inventory, and employment files were reviewed. Full scheduled wages would be paid during the closure. Staff should not remove documents or company equipment. Anyone with concerns could speak privately to an outside employment attorney the following morning.
A dishwasher raised his hand. “Is the attorney for us or for you?”
Antonio paused. “For the company.”
“Then not for us.”
“No,” Antonio said. “Not exactly.”
The answer created murmurs.
Sophie looked at him more carefully.
He could have lied. A smoother man would have said the attorney was there to help everyone. Antonio’s refusal to say it did not make him trustworthy, but it made him less immediately untrustworthy.
Priya crossed her arms. “Are we still employed?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“I haven’t reviewed the operation.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the only honest one I have tonight.”
Luis leaned toward Sophie. “He has one setting.”
“What?”
“Funeral director.”
She almost laughed and hated herself for it.
Renzo asked whether suppliers would be paid. The bartender asked about health insurance. A busser asked whether employees without direct deposit would still receive checks. Someone in the kitchen asked in Spanish whether Marco would return. Two people spoke at once about missing overtime.
Antonio listened without interrupting. He made notes on a narrow pad, though Sophie suspected someone else would eventually do the actual fixing.
Then he looked at her.
“Ms. Bennett, I need a statement about what happened today.”
Every face turned again.
Sophie felt the bent badge against her shirt.
“No.”
Antonio’s pen stopped.
“No tonight,” she said. “You bought a restaurant this afternoon, your lawyer represents you, and half the dining room recorded me getting fired. I’m going home.”
“That’s reasonable,” Maria said.
Antonio glanced at his mother.
She lifted one shoulder. “You say you like direct people.”
“I do.”
“You like direct people who agree with you.”
A small sound passed through the staff. Not quite laughter. Something safer.
Antonio closed the notebook. “Tomorrow, then.”
“I didn’t say tomorrow.”
“You’re entitled to bring your own attorney.”
“With what money?”
His expression changed, and Sophie instantly regretted giving him that information.
She pulled the pin from her badge and put it in her trouser pocket.
“I’ll contact you,” she said.
Outside, Brooklyn had gone on without them.
Cars moved through the intersection. A delivery cyclist shouted at a taxi. Someone across the street was trying to carry a rolled rug through a doorway too narrow for it. The ordinary noise made the restaurant’s silence feel unreal.
Sophie walked toward Atlantic Avenue because she did not want to be seen waiting for the bus in front of Bellarosa.
Her phone vibrated before she reached the corner.
The first message came from her roommate, Nora.
IS THIS YOU?
Below it was a link to a video titled BILLIONAIRE BUYS RESTAURANT TO SAVE WAITRESS FROM EVIL BOSS.
The clip had already been viewed forty-eight thousand times.
May you like
Sophie stopped under the awning of a closed flower shop.
The video began with Marco’s hand at her vest. It captured the tray rattle, Antonio’s contract striking the table, and the full declaration about her tips and future. It ended before Sophie reminded Maria to take her pill. In the final frame, Antonio stood between her and Marco while she appeared small, stunned, and almost grateful.
