Milo’s voice came back on. “I’m so proud of you, Nesto. Someone with your heart and talent couldn’t stay unnoticed for long.” Fuck, Milo was always the one who made me cry.
“Thanks, guys, you know OuNYe is not just mine. It’s ours.”
“Of course, we know, man,” Juanpa said, his tone serious. “We’ll see you soon.”
We signed off and after a second I got my shit together and realized I was late. I would have to call Jude later.
What a morning.
This day had gone so fucking awesome so far. Things were looking up with the truck, and I was feeling good about Jude, too. I didn’t think anything could bring me down.
That was until I got out of the car and saw Yin running toward me, a look of complete panic on his face.
chapter fourteen
nesto
“Mr. Nesto! Did they call you?” Yin shouted as he ran into traffic trying to get to my car.
“Yin, watch out,” I yelled as I dropped the crate full of cups and napkins I was pulling out of the passenger seat and jogged to meet him at the corner. He looked completely freaked out. When I got to him, I saw he was holding his phone out to me like he wanted to show me something.
“The lady said we couldn’t open the truck until she saw the inside. That someone made a complaint about our food, and she needs to do an inspection.” His face was splotchy like he’d been crying and his voice wobbled on the last word.
“What complaint? Yin, I haven’t talked to anyone about an inspection. Can you start from the beginning? Who came? Was it the blonde lady who stopped by asking where we got our food?”
If Misty had come here to stir shit up again, I was the one who would file a complaint for harassment, but Yin shook his head.
“No this was a different lady. She said she was from the Sanitation Department.” Yin sounded more distressed with every word. As I listened I tried to figure out what was going on. I saw Ari crossing the street, his face in a grimace. Yin looked up at him and gave him a shaky smile, then looked back at me. “The other lady, she was here earlier, but she didn’t say anything tous. She just stayed for a minute and left. The inspector came like five minutes later.”
At the mention of Misty, Ari’s already serious face became thunderous.
“I’m still not sure I follow, guys. This person was going to call me? She said we couldn’t open until when? We have lunch in a couple of hours and the festival all weekend.” I started pacing in front of my car. This was not good. Mr. Sheridan was coming to try the food at the festival. What would I say when he showed up? “Oops, we got shut down because someone got sick from the food.”
Ari and Yin looked at me like they weren’t sure if I was going to yell at them, so I tried to chill out before I scared them. “Guys, I’m not mad at you, but we need to figure out how to reach this lady. Did she leave a number?”
Ari nodded and pulled out a card from his pocket. “She said you should call her.”
“Okay,” I said, taking the number from him and gestured toward the truck. “You guys just go back, take the drinks with you, too, and put them in the fridge. Hopefully this woman can come do the inspection this morning and we can move on with our day.”
This whole thing was very suspect. An inspector had looked over the truck like a week ago and everything had been perfect. So what could this even be about?
“Fuck.” I slammed my hand on the hood of the car, making Yin jump back and Ari flinch.
“Sorry, guys. I’m a bit frustrated right now.” I deflated when I saw their reaction. I did not need to scare the shit out of my employees on top of everything else. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. I’ll be there in a minute.”
When they started toward the truck I got back in my car to make the call. After two rings a woman picked up. “Muriel speaking.”
“Hi, Ms. Muriel, my name is Ernesto Vasquez from OuNYe. My employees said you came by our truck this morning.”
“Yes, Mr. Vasquez. I’m an inspector with the Department of Sanitation; we have received a complaint claiming the poor sanitary conditions of the truck made one of your customers ill. We would like to come and inspect the truck as soon as possible. Until we do so, we ask you don’t serve any more food.”
Well, this was a fucking nightmare.
“A complaint? I don’t understand.” I was not having a lot of luck keeping my tone neutral. “I’ve never failed an inspection. I just had one a week ago and didn’t have a single issue. I take every precaution with the food I serve.” I was gripping the phone so hard it squeaked in my hand.
This could not be happening right now.
“I understand, sir, but we have to respond to complaints. Unfortunately, it’s pretty late in the day, so I may not get to you before Monday.” My phone almost slipped out my hand when she said that. She was shutting me down. I was going to lose three days of business and possibly an investor over this.
