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“No. They are young. Almost like a kid. I feel bad, but she said she’d stay until you were available. I get the feeling she’d sit out in the lobby all day and I don’t want to do that to her.”
“A kid?” she asked.
“A teen maybe. I could be wrong. She looks a little...down and out. But she asked for you by name. She showed me your card. I’m not sure how she got it.”
Hmmm, that was odd. “Okay. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Grace finished up what she was doing and pushed back from her desk in her office off the kitchen.
She had a big window that allowed her to look out to see the action. She ran a tight ship and they knew it, but when she wasn’t in there next to people, she knew things tended to slack some.
She went through the halls and into the lobby, saw the person who had come to get her and followed her head nod. It was horrible she didn’t know her name, but there were so many staff on site and they changed all the time, Grace was lucky she could keep track of those that worked for her directly.
A young woman was sitting by herself in a chair on her phone, her head down. By her attire, though she was clean, she wasn’t someone that had a lot.
Jeans that appeared to be faded more from wear than fashion, older sneakers on her feet and a black fleece jacket over that.
The long brown hair was straight and combed but had no style, just a part in the center and hanging past her shoulders.
“Hi,” she said, walking closer. “I’m Grace Stone and you are looking for me?”
The young woman’s head snapped up and she stood up fast. She liked that move. A respectful one.
“Thank you for seeing me. My name is Tracy Gingham. You might not remember me. I took one of your week-long classes two years ago in Boston one summer.”
Grace didn’t remember everyone that came to those classes, but she did enjoy doing them. Though she did remember Tracy now.
Quiet and shy, but when she cooked you could see her willingness to learn and a hidden talent that had to be nurtured and brought out.
That one week she could give the kids wasn’t enough and she knew that.
“I do remember you now,” she said. “What can I help you with?”
“I was there on a scholarship from one of the local organizations,” Tracy said.
Her mother’s organization. There were always a few sponsored along with those that paid. That was how they were able to run those clinics at little to no cost. Her mother did all the work. Or had staff that ran it.
“Yes,” she said. “I remember.”
“I’m looking for a full-time job. I saw that you have a line cook opening.”
She frowned. “Are you eighteen?”
“I’ll be eighteen in two weeks. Ummm, is there a place we can talk privately?”
“Of course,” she said. “Why don’t we go to my office.”
Normally she wouldn’t give time to someone that was looking for a job and showed up like this. They’d send in their application and she’d weed it out that way.
But there was a desperation in this young girl she couldn’t turn away.
She might have been told more than once she was as tough as her last name, but that was in the kitchen.
She expected perfection.
This...this was something different and she had too much of her mother in her to not find out what was going on and see if there was some way she could help.
“Thank you,” Tracy said, still standing when they entered.
