“I am not going to divorce Kia or tell some lies about how wedid this for money. I love her.”
The truth came out so fast, Sullivan almost kept going, but she froze. It felt like someone else had told her, but it was someone with absolute knowledge, someone who said something and made it true in the saying. It almost felt like her grandfather reaching down from whatever mysterious existence followed this one, and said,You’re in love with Kia. He’d have followed that with,I’m happy for you.
The man must have taken her pained expression for guilt.
“You can’t even keep up the lie in your own restaurant. How are you going to do when our lawyers cross-examine you in court?” The man sneered.
“I love her,” Sullivan said again.
“Fine. You love her. But I want you to take my card and think this through. You can stay married to a woman you’ve known for a few weeks—”
“I’ve known her since—”
He waved Sullivan off.
“Whenever and think you love.” He saidlovewith more scorn than Nina had on her most jaded day. “And if you do that, we destroy your house, and we build a Mega Plex as close to your eco-friendly restaurant as we possibly can.”
A vision flashed in Sullivan’s mind: Mirepoix empty. The last fixtures sold at deep discount. Sullivan locking the door for the last time.
Sullivan would never drive through the Oakwood Heights neighborhood again. It would break her heart. She’d literally crash her car, not on purpose, but because grief would blind her like burning steam from a baozi cooked with too much liquid.
“Lots of cars. Lots of exhaust. Maybe some halogen lamps. How do you think that’s going to play with your outdoor seating?”He turned over his business card like a dealer revealing the card that lost everyone at the table a round of blackjack. “You can basically keep everything the way it is. Your customers will barely notice. You’ll see trees out your windows. You can have Kia Jackson and we basically raze your house and destroy your business. Or no Kia and you keep everything you have almost exactly the way it is now. Is she worth it?”
Sullivan rose again, slamming her chair into the table, not caring who noticed.
“Yes, she’s worth it.”
“Who was that?” Opal asked when Sullivan burst back into the kitchen.
“It was Mega Eats. I can’t think about it right now. Let’s just finish the night.”
“Tell me. This is my life too, Sullivan.” Opal brandished a spatula in a decidedly unprofessional manner, drops of ragout spattering the floor.
How could Sullivan forget that Opal was in it with her, for good and bad? If Mirepoix closed, Opal would be out of a job. Sullivan might open in a new location, but that meant weeks without work for Opal. Could Sullivan afford to keep paying her? Before Mega Eats, the answer would have been of course. What if she ended up with fifty thousand in attorney fees? She’d looked it up. That wasn’t an unreasonable sum. Fighting with a giant corporation wasn’t cheap.
“I’m sorry.”
“Hey, you two,” Blake called out. “I meanChefs. We need three trout, one with sauce on the side.”
“The guy said if I don’t throw Kia under the bus, they’ll destroy my house. He said half my house is technically in the Bois. If they buy the Bois, they buy… everything.”
“He’s just trying to freak you out.”
Sullivan shook her head. A vague memory of her grandfather told her no.
“I think he’s right,” she gasped. “I remember my grandfather saying something about redrawing property lines. He said it was just a formality to make things easier for me when he passed. And then he passed before he could do it.” She choked back a sob. “I can’t think about this right now. Let’s just get through dinner.”
“Let’syouget out of here and call Nina.”
“I—”
“Blake and I’ve got this, right, Blake? We’ll just tell people we’re sold out of the specials. Keep everything simple and we’re good.”
Sullivan stumbled out the back door and headed through the Bois toward her fragile, impermanent home. It wasn’t until she reached the empty spot where Old Girl had hunkered since Kia moved in that the really bad thought hit her. Kia had left in a rush and refused to let Sullivan go with her. Why wouldn’t Kia want company besides Deja? Wouldn’t someone newly infatuated with their fake-wife-possibly-starting-to-be-real-girlfriend want to spend all the time they could together? Sullivan wanted to spend every minute with Kia. It killed her to go to work, to be away from Kia’s laugher. She wanted to bury her face in the chocolate-coconut smell of Kia’s hair and then bury her face other places.
Had Kia left because Mega Eats had gotten to her too?
Sullivan called Nina the moment she walked in her house. She hadn’t even taken off her chef’s coat, and she never wore it out of the restaurant. She sat on the edge of the couch and stared at the Janice Domingos.
