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“Hey, my man!” Marcus said as Dustin came into the kitchens at Kleinman Terrace. “Good to see you! How are you?”
Dustin laughed. “I’ve had one of those days where I can’t seem to do anything right. Want to know why I didn’t just call in sick and go back to bed? Because you’re always so happy to see me.” He bumped Marcus’s shoulder as he walked past— their usual greeting since at least one of them usually had either freshly-washed hands or hands in the middle of food prep.
“It’s ‘cause you’re always such a ray of sunshine,” Marcus said as he cut some fish into fillets. “And come on— we both know it was thoughts of how ‘cool’ you’d feel doing the Wednesday organizing of the walk-in fridge that brought you here.”
“Let’s just say it was a tie.”
Dustin grabbed an apron and then disappeared to the door at the backside of the walk-in. Marcus chuckled and placed the rest of the prepared fish in the metal pan, washed his hands, then covered the pan with plastic wrap and put it on a shelf at the front of the walk-in. Prepping for the dinner rush was the slowest part of the day for Marcus. The part where he had too much time to think.
It had been eleven days since Everett had first planted the idea of Marcus opening his own ice cream shop. Nine days since Larry had called and told him that Joselyn had pulled her name out of consideration and that he was accepting Marcus’s offer. And eight days since the excitement at opening his own shop fled and fear and worry took its place.
As he got out the beef tenderloin to cut it into serving-sized portions, he wondered if, over the past eleven days, Joselyn had experienced just as many second thoughts at pulling her name out of the running for the building as he had at keeping his name in. He knew absolutely nothing about running a business. The brothers who owned Kleinman’s weren’t exactly the kinds of guys that he could go to for advice, either. They weren’t going to be happy when they found out about his plans to open his own shop and quit in two and a half months.
He cut another slice of beef. The whole thing was so overwhelming and he didn’t know where to start. Thoughts kept popping into his head of things that would need to be done before opening a shop, but he had no idea what order they should be done in and what steps were most important to happen first. Or what steps he didn’t even know he was missing. Why did he think he could do this with no experience under his belt?
After finishing prepping the steaks, he washed his hands, then went to the back counter and picked up his cell phone, turning it around in his hands. He had picked it up dozens of times a day over the previous eight days, warring with himself about whether or not he should ask Joselyn for help. He had known her since he was nine and she was seven, so he knew how long she’d had the dream to open her own business. And after giving up her chance at making her dream come true so that he could, he figured the last thing she wanted was a call from him asking for help.
But he didn’t know anyone else he could call. Or anyone more brilliant. Or more beautiful. Or more perfect.
Asking for her help was a bad idea. An incredibly bad idea. He needed to work closely with someone to figure all this stuff out, and he didn’t think his heart could handle it being Joselyn. Maybe there were companies out there who helped people set up businesses. Or freelance people who did that. He had no idea. If there were, he didn’t even know enough to know how to find them. Or how expensive they would be. There were probably a million things about running a business that he didn’t know that he didn’t know yet.
And the clock just kept ticking.
Three months didn’t seem like a very long time to get a brand-new business up and running, especially when no prep work had been done ahead of time. He had already wasted eight days, and he was no closer to knowing what to do. How many more days could he waste just trying to get over his reluctance to ask Joselyn for help?
Text.
That’s what he needed to do. If he texted her to ask for help, then he wouldn’t be putting her on the spot to answer immediately. She could see the text, take as long as she needed to think about her answer, and then let her anger at the audacity of him asking fizzle a bit before she responded. Or she could just let the anger spill out immediately in a text—whichever she wanted. Maybe she would at least be willing to tell him where to look to find a consultant.
Before he could get a chance to talk himself out of asking, he opened his texting app, brought up Joselyn’s name, then typed in,Hi, Jos. Have I told you lately how amazing you are? And how much I appreciate you?
That was exactly how he felt, and he wanted her to know that. But did it sound insincere, like he was just trying to butter her up? He deleted it. He would just have to tell her in person the next time he saw her because then she could see that he was sincere. Maybe just being direct would work best.
Marcus: Hi, Jos. I don’t know how to get a business started. I realize that helping me can’t be at the top of your “things that would be fun” list, but do you think you could maybe point me in the right direction?
His finger hovered over thesendicon for a moment, then he made himself just quickly push it. He was still staring at the screen, wondering if it had been a terrible idea when the little “Delivered” notification below the text changed to “Read.”
He couldn’t stay there, hoping to get a response when it might not come for a while. So he put the phone back on the counter, pulled some food-prep gloves onto his hands, and went into the walk-in fridge to get a few whole chickens. Breaking them down not only made enough noise that he wouldn’t be able to hear the buzz of a text, but it gave him something to aim his nervous energy at.
He stood at the meat counter with the cleaver, the repetitive motions of positioning the chicken, then the big swing and the thunk of the cleaver hitting the cutting board blocking out everything else.
Yet, somehow, he still heard the faint buzz of his phone from the back counter. He froze, telling himself he should just wait until the end of the night to look. Or at least until he was done with prep. Or with this one chicken.
He didn’t manage to do any of that, though. He pulled the gloves off and tossed them in the trash, washed his hands, then went to the back counter and picked up his phone. The messageI’m free at 8stared back at him.
He couldn’t believe it. She was willing to meet in person! He realized that after claiming the building she wanted, he hadn’t expected more from her than a text telling him what to Google. At most, a link to a site that had a list of what to do.
Except he would still be working at eight. She was helping him, though, and he was willing to take that help whenever she wanted to give it. He could just take his break then. Maybe he’d whip her up a great meal and they could eat while they talked. Like a peace offering.
Marcus:I’m at Kleinman’s. Do you mind coming here? I’ll make the drive worth it.
This time he did stick around, staring at his phone.
Joselyn: 8 it is.
Between both texts, she used a total of seven words. With so few, he had no way to guess what she was thinking or how she was feeling about his request. He looked up at the clock. Another three and a half hours and he would find out.
* * *
