“What can I do for you, Chef?” Jonah asked.
“Make me proud. Prove me right. Show me what you’ve got.”
Dude, really? On a Saturday?“How can I do that?” he asked instead.
Broussard touched his moustache, smoothing it over his lip, something Jonah noticed he never did when wearing whites because he was too fastidious to touch his face.
“I just got off the phone with Isobel Vega.”
Jonah’s pulse spiked. Was the internship gone? Did someone beat him out before he had a chance to show Chef Vega what he had?
“One of her line cooks called in sick. Saturday night, her biggest service. She’s shorthanded and furious.”
“Okay…” Jonah wasn’t sure where this was going, but at least he hadn’t lost the opportunity.
“She wants your kitchen test today. Come in at two, cook your signature dish, and if she likes what she sees, the internship is yours. Along with service tonight, which just became your start date. Assuming you wow her with your skills.”
The words ricocheted like a starting gun. Cook today, service tonight, start date…bang.
“Yes,” Jonah said as excitement rolled up his spine. “Absolutely yes.”
“Good. Two o’clock. Bring your knives and don’t be?—”
Broussard’s gaze drifted to the corner of the kitchen and his whole being stilled. He stared at Atlas in his bouncer, happily oblivious, the stuffed elephant now getting both ears gnawed simultaneously.
Broussard’s expression shifted into weary recognition that an unwanted twist had just been thrown into his mix.
“Look, Chef, I?—”
“Figure it out, Lawson. You have three hours.”
With that, he left, and the kitchen door swung shut behind him. Jonah stood at his station with a saucepan of shrimp stock and a body boiling with…panic.
Three hours.Three hours?That’s all he had to find someone for Atlas, pack his knives, get to Driftwood, and cook the mostimportant meal of his life and start an internship that could be a game-changer.
He pulled out his phone and stared at it, thinking about his speed-dial support system.
Dad was…gone. Jonah had been too wrapped up to get into the weeds with his father, but he suddenly went to Atlanta yesterday, mumbling about some client problem and as of this morning, he still wasn’t back.
He tried Kate. The call went straight to voicemail, which meant her phone was dead or she was avoiding the world. That was likely, given the tension he’d sensed between her and Dad the past few days…which probably explained why Dad bugged out to Atlanta.
Whatever, he had his own problems. Like the one that just threw an elephant on the floor and laughed like it was the funniest thing he ever did.
Walking over to Atlas, Jonah picked up the stuffed animal and tucked it in the side of the car seat, taking a moment to kiss his little problem while he frantically called his sister next.
Meredith was at Lakeside. On a weekend? Couldn’t Miss Perfect take a day off? No, she was buried and in the middle of something “majorly important.” She suggested Crista, who turned out to be at their bungalow waiting for a furniture delivery and Nolie had a juicy cough, which would not be good for Atlas.
Maggie and Jo Ellen had gone to a craft fair in Crawfordville, wherever the heck that was. His grandmother did offer to pick him up a handmade potholder, as a consolation prize.
He’d asked hopefully if they’d be home soon and he couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard Jo Ellen say something about “ladies’ night” at…did she say Gator Jacks? And something about a brick?
No time to decipher what the grannies were up to.
Aunt Vivien’s phone went straight to voicemail, and Tessa and Dusty had Olive, who had the sniffles and their hands were full.
Jonah stood in the kitchen holding his phone with no names left to call. He felt the walls close in with the familiar, suffocating weight of being a single parent who’d run out of options.
He looked at Atlas. Atlas looked back with those blue eyes that were so much like Carly’s and offered a gummy, oblivious smile that said he had no idea what was happening but trusted his dad. And his elephant.
