And what would she do once it closed?
She reread the email that she had received last night.
Julieta,
Here is your formal offer, including the list of benefits. I’d also like to offer you a signing bonus of $75,000.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
I will await your answer.
Sincerely,
Ramón
Now he added a seventy-five-thousand-dollar bonus? Ramón gave out money the way Julieta gave out tortilla chips. Maybe Mamá wasn’t too far off when she called him El Banco.
Julieta studied the PDF. There were paid holidays and generous benefits. She would be a fool not to accept this offer.
She lit a candle and sat down to try to figure out what she wanted to do. Many chefs took gigs at chain restaurants. They received great perks and salaries and were eventually able to save up and achieve their dreams.
Julieta was too prideful to work for a chain. The humiliation of being a sellout would be too much for her to bear. But what about the future? If Julieta worked at Taco King for two years, she would be able to do anything she wanted. She would be debt-free. She would be able to take over the mortgage on Mamá’s home or possibly move the two of them into a bigger one. She would be able to save for and start a new restaurant—one even more epic than her current one.
Las Pescas had been her entire dream, but it was a small space. It didn’t have a huge outdoor patio or a private garden. This money would be able to fund a dream of hers that was completely out of reach at the moment. To have the resources to start a restaurant that could possibly be one of the top restaurants in San Diego, if not the state. And she would have the funds to hire an experienced business manager who could monitor the financials. Visions of Michelin stars and Zagat reviews danced in her head. She’d always envied chefs who had come from money and had the ability to run the restaurant of their dreams without having to beg investors to fund their fantasies.
But it wasn’t just the money that tempted her, it was the benefits.
Mamá’s health-care costs were huge, and she had no emergency fund, nor any retirement money put aside. Mamá’s idea of saving was stuffing extra cash every week under her mattress. And Mamá refused to talk about the future. Julieta’s family had spent their entirelife living paycheck to paycheck. All their money was tied up in Las Pescas—which was closing no matter what. It wasn’t stable. It wasn’t sustainable. How could she not take this job?
Mixed emotions consumed her.
She blew out the candle, grabbed a bucket of soapy water, and started scrubbing the floors. Her restaurant would be shut, no matter what. It was over.
But she could build something new.
Someday.
Ramón had said that she would have creative control and be able to source for ingredients. It wouldn’t be Las Pescas, but it would be her restaurant. Well, kind of. Wasn’t that better than closing it down completely? How could it not be?
And if she didn’t do this, what were her options? It was unlikely she would be head chef, or even sous-chef, anywhere. She had no desire to play the politics to get a top job in a high-end restaurant. Been there, done that. She hated that world. And she didn’t want to cross the bridge every day and cook for tourists in Coronado or commute to La Jolla and work at one of the restaurants on Prospect Street.
She wanted to stay in Barrio Logan and walk to work. She wanted to serve her people—however she could.
She had to seriously consider it.
The floor was clean, the bucket was dirty, and her soul was weary. Time to go home.
She put the supplies away, emptied the mucky water, and found Mamá in the kitchen.
“Amá, let’s go.”
Mamá pulled Julieta’s hand. “Julieta, what happened with Ramón?”
“Nada.”
Mamá shook her head. “Julieta, don’t shut me out. Please, just tell me what Ramón said. You’ve been acting like a sullen teenager all day.”
She still hadn’t told Mamá about the offer. Julieta needed time to process it on her own before she listened to Mamá tell her she told her so.
