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Her mother was running around and checking on everything and she noticed her father off by the bar and decided to join him. There were still forty minutes at this point before the event started. It wasn’t the end of the world that she got here an hour earlier than she planned.
“How come you aren’t calming Mom?”
“She thrives in this atmosphere and you know it,” her father said. “And she appreciates you doing this.”
“I know. It worked out well with being my day off.”
“You do know she purposely planned it this way so you couldn’t say no.”
Grace did know that, which made it impossible for her to come up with some excuse to get out of it.
“She’d get more in attendance on a Friday or Saturday,” she said.
“She would, but it’s not about that,” her father said. “Though your mother said the same amount of tickets were sold again.”
“I’m glad,” she said. That made her feel somewhat better.
“What do you want to drink?”
“Just a seltzer with lemon,” she said. No reason to have a glass of wine as she wanted. She could get that when she was home later.
She got her drink and then found her table and sat with her father. She didn’t want to be paraded around as Melanie Stone’s daughter. She just wanted to be known as Grace Stone. Not someone’s granddaughter or daughter, not even niece.
Just her.
She was pretty sure it’d never happen and wasn’t so sure why she was hung up on it all the time either.
She had a great life and no complaints and had to get over it.
And two hours later, she was the first to speak. That was worse in her eyes.
She got up there and talked for five minutes. That was what her mother told her she had to do.
All she said was she’d had a dream for years and knew in her mind it was what she was meant to do. And if she was going to do it, she wanted to be the best she could. Work the hardest and get to that place.
Chefs were predominantly men. The percentage of women head chefs was even lower. Being good wasn’t good enough. You had to be great. But it was possible with work, determination and a helping hand.
When she was done, she talked about mentoring youths in the summer. Something that was her idea and her mother loved it and made it work. She’d been doing it for years and didn’t brag about it.
That wasn’t her reason for doing it. To her, she just wanted to give back.
She held one clinic in Plymouth and then another in Boston. Both were at family-owned hotels and restaurants. That was how she spent two weeks of her vacation each year. Another week, she’d take for her, and though she had more time, she rarely used it. At least in weekly increments.
“That was beautiful,” her father said.
Grace felt the heat fill her face. “Thanks. I didn’t know what to say.”
“You said what should be said. Everyone here knows your background and you came at the angle that nothing is free and you still worked for it. That’s a powerful message too.”
She never thought of it that way before.
But those words were still in her head when she parked her parents’ car in the parking garage and raced to the charter office, whipping the door open three minutes before eight.
“Slow down,” Lincoln said. “You’re going to break an ankle.”
“I probably will,” she said. “I can’t wait to kick these things off. I miss my work shoes.”
Nice sturdy black sneakers that weren’t lookers, but her feet thanked her.
