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“Please sit. If you’re not eighteen, I’m going to assume you’re still in high school?”
Manners and professionalism that you didn’t see with a lot of kids this age. She was impressed.
“Yes,” she said. “But when I turn eighteen in a few weeks, my foster family doesn’t have to keep me. I don’t think they will. I need to get a job. I thought maybe if I had a job and offered to pay rent I could stay until I put enough money away.”
This broke her heart. “Do you live on the island?” she asked.
“No. I took the ferry over. I’m in Plymouth. I was in Boston with another family two years ago when I took your course. Then I returned to my grandmother but went back with another foster family when my grandmother passed. I’ve got a friend that is here on the island. We were in a home together before and have kept in touch. She said that maybe I could live with her family and pay rent. I guess I was hoping for that but don’t know.”
“And you need a job first,” she said. Her head was spinning right now. “Were you planning on finishing school? I need someone to work days and weekends. It’s a full-time job.”
Tracy put her head down. “I want to finish school, but I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want to be on the streets either.”
Tracy was trying to be strong, but her eyes were filling with tears. This was just pulling at Grace and almost making her ill at the same time.
She wouldn’t ask if there was anyone else Tracy could live with. She was positive the answer was no.
“Why me?” she asked. “Why here and not somewhere else?”
“Because this is what I love to do. What I want to do. Where I live now, they like it when I cook because they don’t have to. I just feel...at peace in the kitchen. I don’t know that anyone would hire me for more than washing dishes. If that is what I have to do, I will, but I don’t have the means for culinary school and I thought, if I could learn here, it’d be like learning from you. Learning from the best. And I know it’s hard to find employees on the island too.”
She didn’t think Tracy was feeding her ego, but it felt good to hear.
“There is a procedure for people to get hired here,” she said. “And experience required.”
She had high standards. The only experience that Tracy had seemed to be that one-week course two weeks ago and then cooking at home.
“I know,” Tracy said. “I’d be willing to do anything needed. I didn’t expect to be hired as a line cook.”
There was so much going through her mind and how she could get this to work. In her heart she couldn’t turn this girl away, but the obstacles were enormous.
“When you turn eighteen you have nowhere to go?” she asked. “I can verify this with your case worker?”
Tracy nodded her head. “I can give you her name.” Tracy was pulling her phone out of her pocket. “I’ve got her number too.”
“Why don’t you give me that information,” she said. “I can’t guarantee you anything. If I can find work for you here, there are conditions. One of them is you have to finish high school. You can transfer here to the island. You need a place to stay, a home where you’re taken care of. You might be eighteen in two weeks, but you’re still a kid.”
A kid that seemed to have a rough life and one she didn’t know much about. Which of course she’d rely on Griffin to take care of. He did most of the security checks for the family businesses.
“I’m independent,” Tracy said. “And I’m a hard worker. I just need a chance. I can prove it to you.”
“Let’s go in the kitchen,” she said.
She stood up and went to a far corner of the kitchen where it wasn’t busy. “Do you want me to cook for you?”
“I do,” she said. “You tell me what you like to cook. What types of foods.”
“I like breakfast foods,” she said. “And I cook dinner every night too, but it’s simple things.”
Grace imagined that was the case. But she could always use someone here on the weekends cooking breakfast. Even after school or at night doing just room service-type meals.
That could be a good starting point.
“French toast, pancakes and eggs are ordered the most for room service,” Grace said. “Easy enough things. I’m going to have you make me a few different kinds of eggs. Then we’ll move to pancakes and French toast.”
“Really?” Tracy said. “I can do that. I learned from you two years ago and haven’t stopped.”
She smiled. “Then show me what you’ve got.”
