“Yes, okay. Monday. And I will definitely consider this. I’ll give ita lotof thought. I just need to think it over for a bit.”
“Good, good.” Joey stood, so Lindsay grabbed her handbag and followed him back to the front door. “I hope you do come work for this restaurant. I think we could build something great together.”
“Yeah… Thank you. Sincerely. I’ve never had an opportunity like this before.”
“I hope to hear from you by Monday!”
***
Brad walked out of the café after his shift for the day and saw Lindsay walk out of Pepper and shake hands with some blond guy. Curious, Brad crossed the street and caught Lindsay as she turned to walk away from the building.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m just leaving the café for the day. Walk with me?”
“Yeah, okay.”
After they walked a few steps, Brad asked, “So why were you at Pepper?”
“I was interviewing Joey Maguire for theForumabout what he plans to do next with the restaurant.”
“Ah, okay. And what does he plan to do?”
“He’s not totally sure yet. I’m not sure I got much that will be useful for an article.”
Brad laughed. “Is he dreamy? I only saw the side of his face.”
“I mean…sure. He’s a good-looking guy.” Lindsay shot Brad a sidelong glance. “Okay, if I’m honest, he’sverygood-looking.”
“I was just curious. I talked to my sister last night, and when I mentioned the restaurant had closed, she said she wasobsessedwith Little Joey Maguire. Had a huge poster of him on her bedroom wall, which I hadn’t remembered. She wanted to know how the food was, so I sent her your review. So Joey still owns this space?”
Lindsay laughed. “Yup. You can take your sister to whatever he opens next.”
“Hopefully it’ll be a lot better than Pepper when she visits.”
They walked a block in relative silence. Lindsay seemed to be thinking hard about something.
“Are you mentally writing your article?” Brad asked.
“What? Oh, no. Just thinking.”
“About?”
Lindsay hesitated, but she said, “You know how we were talking about what we’d do with the Pepper space if we ran a restaurant together? Obviously we can’t afford that, but I was just thinking, what if Joey were still financing it and let us do whatever we wanted with the space? Hypothetically.”
Brad figured this idea had come from speaking to Joey just now, so he decided to play along. “I don’t think much would change from what we’ve already talked about. I’d try to talk him into a family restaurant kinda place with a few upscale dishes and a killer dessert menu.” Brad shrugged. “We’ve already discussed this at length. The only difference is that you’d have a guy financing it instead of us as owners. Which means we probably wouldn’t have complete creative control.”
“Yeah, Joey said he had a few dishes he’d want to keep on any menu.”
“Out of curiosity, did he specify?”
“Mac and cheese, some of the southern stuff. I am actually not certain he knows, exactly, but he’s a southern boy and wants southern food on the menu of his restaurant. I can see him being the kind of owner whosaysyou have complete creative control but still meddles. He said something about fried okra.”
“Oh, yuck.”
“He swears his granny’s recipe is tasty and not slimy. To me, that sounds like a challenge I’d want to take on.” Lindsay laughed. “They should do an okra round onMystery Meal.”
They walked another few feet in silence, and then Brad said, “You keep bringing up this restaurant hypothetically. How serious are you about it?”
