CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"Here you go, Betty." Julie handed over a grilled tuna-and-egg-salad sandwich. "We'll see you again tomorrow, I hope?"
"Oh, no. I couldn't possibly eat here two days in a row."
Julie smiled to herself. That was what the woman had said the past three days running. She served the next customer, while Frank conducted a conversation with an elderly man over whose baseball team was going to win that season. Without being asked, Julie put together Alvin's order and passed it over to him.
"You're looking good today, Alvin. Does this mean things are going well with Ethel?"
While he filled her in on his elderly wife, Julie grilled up several orders during their long and winding conversation. After Alvin left, Frank said, "You know, you really shouldn't talk to the customers for so long, Julie."
She laughed out loud at that, if only because every time Frank said it, he would immediately spend a good ten minutes talking to the next customer to come along.
"I'll stop when you do."
He spread his hands. "This is my own personal soap opera. I can't stop now." He paused for a second or two. "Julie, could I ask you something?"
That sounded a little ominous. "I guess so."
"What are you doing working in a job like this? I pay you less than minimum wage, you haven't gone home before dark once this week, and you obviously know how to cook well enough that you could get a job somewhere else if you wanted it. Why stay here?"
"I'm happy here." She was surprised to find that, for once, things really were that simple. "Besides, what would you do without me now that you've got a bunch of new customers?"
He acknowledged her comment with a nod before saying, "Even so, I worry."
She smiled at the man she'd really come to enjoy working with. "There's nothing to worry about."
"At the very least, I'm going to give you a raise, because that way I get to feel better about completely exploiting you." He looked a little sheepish. "As soon as I can afford it, anyway."
"Sounds great, Frank."
For all that her boss liked to talk with his customers about their lives, he hadn't asked too many questions about how Julie's was faring. Likely because it had been painfully obvious that she needed space-especially after the debacle with Andrew a few days ago.
Telling her aunt about her new job hadn't been easy, though the hardest part had been plucking up the courage. When Julie had finally done it, Aunt Evie had hugged her and told Julie that she was sure things would work out. Her aunt had popped by the truck the next day and she and Frank had gotten on like two old friends. They had both spent a fair bit of time talking in low tones about Julie's cooking skills and her menu ideas. Finally, in good fun, she'd had to remind them that she could hear them perfectly.
Then right after the lunch rush, five days, three hours and forty-eight minutes after Andrew had walked away from the food truck, and out of her life, Julie's phone rang. It was Sandy, Andrew's assistant.
Julie took the call out behind the truck. "Hello?"
"Hi, Julie. I'm Andrew Kyle's assistant and I'm phoning to ask whether you'd given any thought to appearing in our cook-off on the finale of Edgy Eats?"
"I-" Momentarily flustered, Julie couldn't stop herself from asking, "How is Andrew?"
"Why don't you ask him yourself?" The harsh tone reminded Julie just how protective Andrew's assistant was toward her boss. "Look," the woman said with a sigh that sounded slightly sympathetic, "I get that things have been kind of weird between you two, but I really need to know, do you want to be on the program or not?"
"I'll have to think about it." Julie said goodbye and, putting her phone in the pocket of her apron, got back to work.
An hour later the producer of Edgy Eats called to try to convince her to appear on the show. She gave him the same answer she had given Sandy-she would have to think about it.
Of course, Andrew was the only one who didn't call to talk to her about being on the show again. It hurt, but she told herself it was better that way. This was what she'd asked for, after all. To be left alone. She could hardly complain, could she? Even though most nights Julie still found herself thinking about him. When Aunt Evie had carefully turned off his show on TV, Julie had turned it back on and told her that it was okay.
Apart from her feelings for Andrew, and the fact that she hadn't stopped wanting him for one single second since she'd sent him away from the food truck, amazingly, everything else did feel okay.
Working on the truck meant there wasn't much pressure. Occasionally people would ask how they managed to get the food there tasting so good, and Frank would always reply that it was just good, simple food to feed hungry people.
More and more, Julie was starting to see that he was right. There wasn't any pressure on her to be staggeringly different and precise. Nor were there any real "rules." People were only too happy to try the things she put together, even when they were just that little bit different. Without any pressure, and with her new boss happy to let her cook how she liked, she could simply relax and cook good food.
After all the years of trying to fit herself into one kitchen after another, she was amazed to realize she could finally be herself.
"Hey, Frank," a muscular young guy who worked on a local construction site asked, "what's in this hot dog?"
"Why?" Frank asked. "Is there a problem?"
"No, no problem. It's good. Really good. Reminds me of the way my grandmother used to make sausages from scratch when I was a kid."
"It's Julie's special recipe," Frank said with enough obvious pride to make Julie smile.
She had many more recipes for food like that stored away in her brain. Like the tomato sauce she'd thrown together for the meatball sandwiches today. With a few extra spices she had turned plain old tomato sauce into something special.
But even though Julie had found herself smiling on the way to work today for the first time in a long while, she knew there were things bubbling on her back burner that she needed to deal with.
Soon.
She took a deep breath and wiped her hands off on her apron.
Not soon, but right now.
* * *
After Frank graciously agreed to give Julie an hour off, she quickly pulled some food together and headed for The Rose Chalet. Rose, Phoebe and RJ were all in the main dining hall, discussing where to put a gazebo. At least, Rose was discussing it. Phoebe was tactfully trying to point out there might be a better spot for it. RJ seemed to be ignoring the pair of them and wanted to fit it in the one place where it wouldn't fall down.
Julie briefly smiled at the way they all worked together.
"Hi, everyone."
"Julie! What are you doing here?" Phoebe hugged her as she said it.
To Julie's surprise, so did Rose. "Hi, Julie. Is everything going okay with you?"
A few days ago Julie wouldn't have been able to nod. Today, despite her nerves, she was smiling as she hefted the hamper she'd packed up at the truck. "I brought food. I know you're all too busy here to remember to eat lunch half the time." When Rose eyed the basket slightly suspiciously, Julie laughed. "Don't worry, this isn't some ploy to get my old job back. I have a job, and I'm really enjoying it. This is... It just felt right to come and say hello."
And it really did feel right, especially when they opened up the hamper and started to eat. RJ devoured a couple of chicken sandwiches before starting work on a hot dog. Phoebe made her way through a full plate of blue cheese French fries before she even looked around to see if anyone else wanted some. Even Rose tried a meatball.
"This is good," she said, then looked at the other two as they finished up their meals. "Just remember that that gazebo has to be set up today. Julie, why don't you come through to my office and we can talk?"
The only memories she had of Rose's office were of getting fired, but right then, that didn't matter as much anymore. She took one of the client chairs and, to her surprise, Rose took the other rather than sitting behind her desk.
"I'm glad you're okay," Rose said. "When I let you go, I could see how upset you were."
"It was rough, but I understand why you had to do it. Really."
"With the upcoming wedding, and everything that had happened, I didn't really have much of a choice," Rose explained. "I probably overreacted a bit, but when I heard that you had spent the night with Andrew, I couldn't see what else to do."
Julie nodded. "As I said, I get it. I didn't come by to blame you for that."
"I'm still not quite sure why you did come by," Rose admitted. "Don't get me wrong, it's nice that you brought us lunch and it's good to see you again, but why are you here?"
"I came by to apologize. Not to get my job back, but because I like you and respect you and hope we can be friends. I know I messed things up with the O'Neil wedding-all those problems with the squid and raw meat-and all the complications with Andrew and his brother's wedding..."
"I've worked with the same crew here for so long that I haven't had to train someone new for a while now. You've helped me a lot by making me realize that I need to pay much better attention to my new employees in the future to help them succeed. Was there something we could have done to make things easier for you?"
Julie shook her head. "I think most of it was inevitable. I'd been kidding myself about a lot of things ever since my restaurant fell apart. Even before that. I'd convinced myself that Andrew's harsh two-star review was the only reason my restaurant failed. But it wasn't. I messed up. I let the pressure of trying to run a place like that squash me into the person I thought I needed to be to run it successfully."
And then, instead of taking responsibility for her own life, she'd blamed all her problems on Andrew.
But now that she'd accepted that those things were her fault-and that changing the bad decisions she'd made in the past wasn't out of her hands-she'd finally begun to feel the seeds of true confidence sprout and blossom inside her.
"Once I got to The Rose Chalet," she continued explaining to Rose, "I piled on even more pressure, trying to be perfect, trying to be the cook I thought you wanted."
"Why do I get the feeling that I should be the one apologizing?" Rose asked.
"No," Julie said, "that's not what I mean. Yes, there were times when you were so busy with things that there wasn't really anyone to go to for help but, honestly, I don't think I would have asked for help anyway. I was always trying to be perfect, just like Aunt Evie had been. The trouble is perfection... well, it just isn't me."
"How is Evie?"
Julie smiled. "She's good. Better than that, these days. In fact, when I left work just now, she was plotting behind my back with my new boss to get me to take better care of myself."
"You didn't say before. What are you doing now?"
On the way over here, Julie hadn't been sure whether she would answer that question after imagining how this conversation might go. After all, it would probably seem to Rose like such a step down from her old job. Now, though, Julie knew it didn't make a difference. After all, what Rose thought didn't matter.
"I'm working on a food truck," Julie said. "General cooking. Simple stuff really. I'm happy."
She expected a look of pity, or at least sympathy from Rose. Instead her ex-boss smiled.
"Sometimes that's the most important thing." Rose looked wistful for a moment. "Happiness."
"Only sometimes?"
Instead of answering Julie's question, Rose deftly transitioned into an update regarding the Kyle wedding. Evidently, Andrew and Rose were still discussing how to deal with the food, since Rose didn't think that she'd be able to get another cook in quickly enough. She hoped Andrew would be able to persuade one of his friends from the culinary world to take it on, though obviously, that wasn't ideal. Julie apologized again for making things difficult as she left, then met up with Phoebe on the way out.
"So," the florist demanded, "how did it go? Did you get your old job back?"
Julie laughed. "That wasn't what I came for, Phoebe. It really wasn't."
"That's too bad. I miss having you around here." She raised an eyebrow. "I probably shouldn't ask, but what about you and Andrew? I take it he's history after getting you into trouble?"
"The situation with Andrew is..." Julie paused. "Complicated."
Once Phoebe assured her they would definitely be going for a girls' night soon, Julie left. She stood in the parking lot of The Rose Chalet and took a long breath.
She had needed to settle things with Rose, to let her know how she felt. To let her know why things had happened. There had been a closure that Julie hadn't even known she was seeking. She stood with the sun on her face for several seconds, knowing she had to stop stalling.
Julie had dealt with things at The Rose Chalet, but there was still something much bigger to deal with.
Could she do it?
Even that morning, Julie might have said no, but now, things felt different. And as she fished out her cell phone from a pocket, she suddenly felt as if there was nothing too big for her to face.
Which was a good thing, considering she wasn't at all sure her plan would work.
She might have left this too late. Her chance might already be gone. And even if it wasn't, it was not going to be easy...and it would take a lot of courage.
Along with tremendous belief in herself.
Julie smiled as she thought of Andrew saying, "You've got good instincts, Julie. If you follow them, I predict you'll do really, really well."
Looking down at the screen on her cell phone, Julie scrolled through numbers until she found the one for Andrew's producer.
"Hi," she said. "This is Julie Delgado. Is your offer still open?"