“Do have a few minutes for a break?”
Simone glanced over her shoulder at the kitchen.
“Should have… we just had the staff meeting.”
“I heard!” I told her about the girl who’d come out crying.
Simone rolled her eyes. “That’s Linda. She got some flak for almost ruining the fillet last night.
“Almost ruining?”
“Yeah well, if she had left that pot on the burner a second longer, it would have burnt, and that would have meant throwing the lot away and starting over. Losing precious time. We had the president of some big investment bank here last night with some clients. It was a big deal.”
I asked her how it was going, and she gave a big sigh.
“Good, I think. But you never know.”
Then she looked at me. “What about you, why do you look so…. so….” She waved her hand around to indicate that something was going on with me, which I guess, it was.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Is it Will or Zoë?” her voice became sharper.
I had already decided not to talk to her about Will. It was bad enough that Will was her brother, and she was worried about me messing him around. But she was also my best friend and that is what I needed right now. But I wasn’t going to risk our friendship over the relationship.
“It’s not that,” I said quickly. “I’ve been feeling a bit out of sorts.”
Immediately, she seemed warmer, more concerned.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know what to do about my future,” I said. It was sort-of true.
“The job not working out?”
I had told Simone a version of the truth. I had mentioned that the Rustic Rockies job had come back but that they wouldn’t give me a proper contract. She didn’t know that the real reason I’d not taken it, was to stay on with Will.
“Apply for another job,” she said.
“But where? I mean, you know exactly what you want, but I don’t.”
She gave me an odd look. “What makes you think I know what I want?”
“You’ve always known what you wanted! Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve talked about having your own restaurant!”
Simone pulled a face. “Oh, that.”
“What do you mean?”
She was distracted by something being dropped in the kitchen.
“I can’t really talk now,” she said, getting ready to go back in. “We should talk about it some other time,” she said. “But, I mean, it’s not as simple as all that, right? Making our dreams come true?” she snorted. “Please, give me a break.”
This was not what I wanted to hear at all.
I needed someone to tell me everything was going to work out and that I just needed to hang in there.
I walked out of the alley with a heavy heart. I couldn’t help thinking that nothing was working out the way I had thought it would. I liked being with Will and being Zoë’s nanny but that job wouldn’t last forever either. Will was going to meet someone else soon, some brilliant concert pianist unable to have children, or someone similar. I didn’t know what was waiting for me, but it had always been beyond the horizon, away from the city.