Page 88 of Culinary Chaos

Twenty-Nine

“Ange!” Hope said loudly as soon as she opened the office door. She didn’t even knock. She couldn’t wait. She didn’t have time to let this not happen. She didn’t even care that there were camera’s everywhere, her panic was evident, and Angelica needed to help her deal with it.

Now.

“Yeah?” Angelica said sharply from her seat at the desk. She had her iPad open, papers everywhere, and a calculator. “Don’t tell me you need more in the budget.”

“No.” Hope paused, her heart racing as she looked Angelica over, the way her hair fell over her shoulder, hiding part of her face. Angelica moved her head sharply, pushing the curl that always seemed to end up over her eye out of her face. All the words and anger and frustration and fear raced right out of Hope, and she was struggling to find them again.

“Hope?” Angelica furrowed her brow in confusion. “What is it?”

“We need to cancel the symposium coming tonight.”

“Not possible,” Angelica responded, going back to her iPad and dismissing Hope.

“No, I don’t think you understand. Weneedto cancel it.”

“We can’t. They’re already here in their meetings.” Angelica glanced up and made eye contact.

Hope sighed heavily, stepping up to the other side of the desk and leaning over it. “Remember when I told you that some people needed to be fired.”

“Yes?” Angelica dragged out the word.

“Well, I fired them. They were making a bigger mess. Henry’s out trying to hire some new staff because what happened when I fired a few key people? The rest of them walked out.”

“No.”

“Yes.” Hope’s chest rose and fell with a surge of energy she didn’t know she had. Her heart raced with the panic that she had scarcely let herself feel before, but now that she was here, in Angelica’s makeshift office, she could be calm. She could breathe these words out and let Angelica catch them. Because she had to, right?

“How many are left?”

Hope bit her lip, shaking her head.

“None?” Angelica asked.

“None,” Hope answered. The guilt ate its way further into her, and she still couldn’t stop it. She’d put them in this situation. If only she’d waited another day to do the terminations, but she hadn’t been able to. They were going to kill someone if they didn’t stop, and all of them were just feeding off each other.

“Hope!” Angelica’s voice was sharp this time.

“What?” Hope blinked, prying her way out of the fear.

“What’s the plan?”

“Plan?” Hope jerked back, standing up straight. “I don’t have a plan, Ange. I don’t even have an idea of what we can do. I shut down the restaurant for tonight. That was an easy choice, but I can’t get anyone in there to work in the next two hours and be trained on what they’re supposed to do. I don’t have a restaurantin Seattle to even pull my own people! There is no backup plan, and I can’t do it by myself.”

Angelica canted her head to the side. “We can’t cancel. They’re already here for the start of the Symposium.”

“Then what the hell do you propose?” Hope shoulder hurt from how tense they were.

“What do you need to get that dinner done?”

“People.”

“How many?” Angelica was already standing up, coming around the side of the desk so that they were standing nose to nose.

“One? Two?” Hope threw her hands up in the air. “It’s only thirty people, thankfully. But the meal that was planned…”

“Change it. If it needs to be simpler, then change it.” Angelica grabbed for Hope’s hand, squeezing. Then she slid her fingers up Hope’s arm to her shoulder, squeezing again. “How many people?”