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“What makes you say that?” he asked.
“There are bits of your family, of your history scattered, though very tastefully, around this entire restaurant. You want to be reminded of who you are and where you came from. Though the question is, are you doing it because you want to be reminded of your past or is their success and your need to do better than them driving you to succeed?” I asked.
The question had just come out, I hadn’t meant it to, but I was inquisitive and fascinated by people. I wanted to know what drove them, what motivates them, what turns them on, what feeds their desires. The little bit that I knew about JD was in such contrast to what I was seeing in his restaurant and the first impression I got of him. I needed to know more.
The reporter in me knew there was a story here, there were things that he was hiding. This restaurant might be a way for him to redeem himself, to make good on his family name, to put things right, but I wasn’t sure. It felt more than that, I was missing something. I could feel it in my gut and I had to know what it was. What wrongs had he done that he needed to put right? What was he trying to prove to himself, his family, or the world? Was he really trying to turn over a new leaf, was he trying to be a new man, or was it all a facade? I wanted to know all of that and more when it came to JD Bennett.
I couldn’t if I let my mouth run away from me and piss off the man before I even had a chance to interview him. The woman said he was in a bad mood and I might have put him off before I even introduced myself.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Bennett. I shouldn’t have asked,” I said.
He smiled at me. “Why can’t it be both?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why can’t I want to have the history of my family around me as a reminder and a motivator?”
“Is it?”
If he would answer the question then I would ask more. He didn’t seem offended by my questions, more intrigued, interested. It made me hope I hadn’t messed things up as soon as I had walked in the door.
“Here I thought I was the one who would be doing the interviewing. Shall we continue this conversation in my office?” he asked.
He didn’t wait for me to answer but turned and walked away, leaving me no choice but to follow him.
Chapter 3
JD
The day had been a lot longer than I had expected. I had known running a restaurant wasn’t going to be easy. It would take hours of my attention, hard work, and sacrifice. What I hadn’t counted on was it almost taking my sanity, but it did when I tried to hire the host for my restaurant.
I had expected to get some people who were more interested in me than the job. Who wanted to be seen with me and say they had met the man who could and had slept with numerous women, some even at the same time. I had, after all, spent a considerable amount of time and energy when I was in high school and college to build such a reputation.
It was understandable that people would be curious about me. I was hoping some of the curiosity would make them interested in coming to my restaurant. It would get them in the door, and then hopefully they would see what a great place I ran and come back and tell people how wonderful the food was.
I knew it was a gamble to come back to New York City. If I had wanted, I could have stayed in Italy and opened up my place there, or just about any other city in the world. I had wanted to be back home with my family, in the town that I was raised in, a town that I loved. I wanted to prove to everyone who thought I was never going to make a name for myself that they were wrong. Very wrong
The random questions, the requests to have my picture taken, even the occasional proposition I could handle. I had gotten all of those during the interview process, it was easy to dismiss them out of hand, to give them what they wanted, to a point, and then quietly show them the door. There were a few applicants who were good and I would call back, but I needed more than two to run my restaurant. It was why I had kept interviewing even after I had exhausted the ones that Rosie had originally vetted.
I had expected them to be not great but manageable, trainable, and willing to learn. What I hadn’t counted on was seeing so many people who thought they were qualified for a job that they had no skills at. Or even worse, thinking that they should be in management simply because they wanted to be.
By the early afternoon, I was exhausted, annoyed, and ready to throw in the towel. It was only because the position was so important to me that I continued. I had headed out of my office, one that seemed more and more cramped as the day had worn on, to get some air. It was then that I saw her standing there, looking at the picture of my grandparents.
It was one of my favorite pictures of them. They were standing outside their house near Key West. My grandfather had bought the place as a getaway for his wife and family but also because he needed to be able to bring in supplies from Cuba during the embargo. It wasn’t just his father who had been into bootlegging or smuggling goods into the United States when the need arose.
The picture wasn’t much, and to anyone else it would look like another random picture that was put on the wall, but it was more than that to me. It reminded me of where I had come from, that sometimes you had to do whatever you can in order to survive. Sometimes you have to go against what your family might want or what is right to do what you need to do.
I saw all of that and then some in the picture. I never counted on someone, anyone, seeing a fraction of that when they looked at it, but the woman had. Because of that and a few other reasons, she intrigued me. My first thought was that she couldn’t be there for the host job, she looked a little too old for the position and honestly too smart. She looked more like she belonged commanding an office staff, or owning her own company; not hoping to work for me.
She wore a pair of simple black pants and a red top. It was professional, flattering, and that was about it. It showed me that she was a woman who didn’t take any crap from anyone. She was there to do a job, not a photo shoot, or to run my restaurant without any experience. Her black hair was pulled back into a low bun making her ice blue eyes stand out. The way she carried herself showed me that she would be able to handle almost any situation that came into the restaurant. After the interviews that I had done that day, I had a feeling there were going to be some unique one and I would need all the help I could get.
I prided myself on being a good judge of character and the simple fact that she had been able to look at one picture of my family and discern so much about me, made her better than all the other candidates. I just hoped that I continued to be right about her when we talked more.
“Have a seat, Ms.,” I asked as we walked into my office.
“Ricci, Alexandria Ricci,” she said as she took a seat.
“Thanks for coming in. Why don’t we get right down to it and tell me the most interesting situation you ever had to deal with when working in a restaurant.”
