by Kara Parker
Melina begins to break but gathers herself with a sniff. “Yeah. He was a great guy. I’m really going to miss him.”
“I know. I am too. Joseph surprised me. I had no idea he could speak like that.”
“I did. I have heard him speak before. Not in the same setting, but he is a natural-born leader. When he talks, people listen.”
“Still, what he said was touching.”
“Yes. He and Tim were very close.”
“I can see that. Joseph told me about the arrangement he has with the Goose.”
Melina nods. “He’s no bother, but it can be hard to function in today’s world the way he likes to live.”
“That doesn’t strike you as odd?”
“Odd, as in different? Certainly. But you should ask him sometime why he lives the way he does. You may find yourself thinking about things you never even considered before.”
“You sound like you admire him.”
“I do. As I said, you should talk to him. Listen to what he has to say. I think you may find it very enlightening.”
“How are you holding up?” Rose asks, changing the subject.
“Okay, I guess. I don’t think I would have been able to cope with the Goose and this at the same time.”
“I understand. But you’re sure you want to sell?”
“Yes. I don’t really want to but I don’t have much choice. The Goose has been very good to us, but I can’t manage the Goose and raise the kids too. It is just too much. Maybe I will go back and work for Dad. Take Tim’s life insurance and finish my accounting degree. Find something with more stable hours.”
“You could always hire a manager for the Goose.”
“Maybe. You want the job?” Melina asks with a slight smile.
Rose snickers. “No thank you! I have enough problems with my own place. I couldn’t handle two.”
“I can’t thank you enough for helping me out.”
“Hey... What are friends for?”
Melina’s face crinkles as she struggles to not cry. “You have been such a good friend Rose,” she gasps.
Rose grits her teeth, struggling to stay strong, knowing if she begins to cry Melina will break. “And you, Melina. You have been my best friend ever.”
Melina throws her arms around Rose and weeps softly into her shoulder, holding her tight. Rose embraces her friend and, despite her own tears of sorrow and grief, tries to give her the strength to endure.
CHAPTER FIVE
“When was the last time someone took you out to eat?” Joseph asks as he sticks his head into Rose’s office the next day.
“It’s been a while. But I eat out nearly every meal, if you think about it. What I want is someone to cook for me. Why?”
“I came to get my mail and see if I had any messages. I saw you sitting there and I wondered if you would like to go have some dinner.”
“I can’t leave. The dinner rush is coming up.”
“You can’t or you won’t? Tim used to open and work until lunch. Someone else normally closed. They don’t need you around all the time, you know. The staff is going to think you don’t trust them if you are here eighteen hours a day, every day.”
“It’s not that. It’s just I need to learn what is going on.”
“Rose…” Joseph says in exasperation. “You worked here for how many years? And you have owned your own restaurant for how long? I think you know how to manage a restaurant. Let Dick close tonight.”
“I don’t know, Joseph. It’s nice of you to ask, but…”
Joseph steps out of the office, cutting her off, and then returns a moment later with Dick in tow. “She doesn’t trust you to close,” Joseph says matter-of-factly. “I asked her out to dinner but she says can’t go because she feels like she can’t leave.”
Dick smirks. “I know you’re the boss, but you can’t work all day, every day. First off it will kill you. Secondly, it undermines everyone else’s confidence. I think you should go.”
“But…”
Dick, a man almost old enough to be her father, makes shooing motions with his hands. “Rose… Go. I know it isn’t nice to say this, but you look like hell. You haven’t been getting more than four hours’ sleep these last three nights. You have Arnie scheduled to open in the morning. Let him. Come in after you have had a good night’s sleep.” Dick pauses, then grins. “If you keep this up, you’re going to start scaring the customers.”
“He put you up to this didn’t he?” Rose asks Dick with a smile.
“Well… maybe a little. But that doesn’t make it any less true. Seriously, Rose, your dad didn’t work these crazy hours, and neither did Tim. Why should you? You’re going to make me think you don’t trust us.”
Rose scrubs at her face. “Okay. Fine,” she says in mock disgust. “I can’t have the staff thinking I don’t trust them.”
“Good girl,” Dick says with a fatherly grin. “I didn’t want to have to call your boss.”
She grins. “And who would that be?”
“Your dad.”
“You still talk to Dad?”
“Nearly every week. I think we’re going to retire there with them in a few years. It’s why I didn’t want to buy the Goose. Owning a business… that’s a young man’s game. I’m too old to get started. I figure between him and me, we can drive both of our wives completely crazy.”
Rose smiles at Dick. He is as much a part of the Goose as Gail, Tonya, and Jack. As much a part of it as Tim was. “Okay. You convinced me. Thanks Dick.”
“My pleasure. Now go. Have a good time. Have someone cook for you for a change.”
“Where are we going?” Rose asks Joseph as she gathers her things.
“First I am taking you home to change. Then we are going to Adele’s in Carson City.”
“Seems like I’ve heard of the place, but I’ve not been there. It’s supposed to be good.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” he says as they walk out. He opens the passenger door to her car, shutting it behind her, before getting behind the wheel. “Nice car.”
“I like it, but it’s a lease. All part of looking the part of the successful restaurateur.”
“It suits you. Sexy, but not in a ‘look at me!’ kind of way.”
Rose feels herself blush as she snickers. “Would you stop! I’m not sleeping with you, so you can just cut out the smooth talk.”
Joseph grins and Rose can feel the pull toward him once more.
***
“Joseph!” Melina says in surprise as he steps into her home behind Rose. “I’m glad you could stop by, but what are you doing here?”
“I convinced Rose to leave the Goose to Dick tonight and have dinner with me,” he replies, pulling Melina into a brotherly hug.
“What you said yesterday at the funeral. That was so touching. Thank you so much for that,” she says quietly as she hugs him tight.
“He was like a brother to me, Melina.”
“I know,” she says as she fights against her tears. She releases him and turns her attention to Rose before she starts crying again. “I’m glad you’re taking the night off. I was starting to worry about all the hours you were working.”
“Yeah. Dick convinced me that the place won’t burn down without me.”
“Good for Dick.”
“I’m going to hop in the shower and I will be right back,” Rose says before leaving Melina and Joseph alone.
“Make yourself comfortable Joseph. You know where everything is. I’m going to go make sure Rose has clean towels.”
Melina catches up with Rose as she begins to undress. “Are you and Joseph seeing each other again?” she asks excitedly.
“Melina, you’re such a gossip!”
“I’m not either! But you two were such a hot item at one time.”
Rose smiles. For as long as she has known her, if you wanted to know anything about who was seeing who, you had only to ask Melina. It’s good to see her excited about something again. “No. We are not seei
ng each other. That’s long over and buried.”
“If you say so. But if you change your mind you can’t bring him back here to bang his brains out tonight. The kids will be back.”
“Melina Scholly!” Rose cries in mock outrage. “I can’t believe you just said that!”
“I’m just saying. If you two end up doing the wild thing, you have to go to his place.”
Rose twitters out a laugh as she walks into the bath and starts the shower. “I assure you, there is going to no ‘wild thing’ tonight.”
Melina props on the door as Rose removes her underwear and steps into the shower. Rose has always been so beautiful, and she is even more so now than ever. “Okay. No wild thing tonight. How about tomorrow?”
“Would you stop!” Rose calls from the shower.
“Okay… okay…” Melina acquiesces. “But when you do, you have to tell me all about it!” Melina hears the bang of the soap bar hitting the shower floor. She doesn’t know if it is related to what she just said, but she begins to giggle anyway as she walks away to rejoin Joseph.
CHAPTER SIX
“Rose?” Joseph murmurs quietly.
Rose blinks her eyes open. “What?”
“We’re here.”
“What? Holy shit! Did I fall asleep?”
He smiles. “Almost before we got on the highway.”
She blushes. “Joseph, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“You need the rest. You never did know when to slow down.”
Rose yawns and stretches with a drawn-out groan. “That’s no excuse for being rude.”
“You weren’t rude. I’m glad you still feel comfortable enough around me to fall sleep like that.”
Rose smiles. She does feel comfortable around him. She is long over the anger and the hurt from him leaving her and can remember the good times. “I must be more tired than I thought.”
Joseph gives her a lopsided smile. “Wait until I tell everyone that you slept with me the car.”
“Don’t you dare!”
“Well… I will let you purchase my silence by letting me pay for dinner without an argument.”
Rose grins. “So long as we understand it’s just dinner.”
Joseph’s smile widens. “Just dinner.”
He escorts her into Adele’s and they are immediately seated ahead of several waiting couples. “How did you manage that?” Rose asks.
“Called ahead while you were in the shower.”
“Ah… very thoughtful.”
As they settle in, Rose browses the menu. She always enjoys trying new items, comparing her own offerings to those in other establishments. Her chef creates some wonderful dishes that are well received, but sometimes inspiration comes from the most unlikely of places. She is very taken with the crab-infused potatoes and makes a mental note to ask Robert, her chef, about adding something like them to their own menu.
They sit and talk, lingering over their meal as they reminisce about their good times past. “Why haven’t you settled down?” Roses asks.
“Just haven’t found the right person yet. I wasn’t kidding when I said that the way I live scares a lot of women off. They think they like the idea of living free until they realize that that means.”
“That’s twice you have said that. Living free. What do you mean by that?”
“Just what I said,” Joseph explains. “I live by my own rules. The natural laws of man. I don’t allow some petty bureaucratic drone dictate to me how to live my life. I want to be free to live my life as I see fit, and I extend the same courtesy to others.”
“That all sounds well and good. But I’m free and I still enjoy all the benefits of modern society,” Rose points out.
“Are you really?”
“Of course.”
“Do you allow people to smoke in your restaurant?”
“No. That’s against the law.” Joseph sits and just looks at her. “What?” she asks.
“Why don’t you? Is it because you don’t want to or is it because it’s against the law?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me. If you don’t want me to smoke in your restaurant that’s fine. It’s your business and you can make any rules you wish. I can abide by them or I can go somewhere else. But when the state tells you that you can’t allow your customers to engage in a lawful activity in your business… how free are you, Rose?”
“Okay, I see your point. But… I don’t know. I wouldn’t allow smoking anyway, so I guess it doesn’t bother me.”
“You should think about it sometime. Just look at all the things that the state, or the feds, tell you that you can and cannot do. I know you can’t buy your alcohol except from approved suppliers. Why is that, do you think?”
Rose has never thought about it before. “I don’t know. Why?”
“Because some government official somewhere said so, that’s why. If they would allow competition, I guarantee you that the cost of your liquor would go down. But as it is, the state says you must buy from this list of distributors. Never mind that this guy over here could sell you the same product for thirty percent less, except he has to go through the distributor in order to get his product into your restaurant.”
“Okay. I guess I understand. But we just need to change the laws.”
“How’s that been working out for you? Don’t you think most restaurants would like the same things? Yet it never changes.”
Rose smirks. “So what do you propose? Break the law?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t mean that. I could be fined… or go to jail.”
“Yes. You probably would. But I wouldn’t… because they don’t even know I exist.”
Suddenly the light goes off in Rose’s mind. Now it begins to make sense. “So… you just do what you want and to hell with everyone else? Is that it?”
“No. That’s not it all. But in so much as what I do doesn’t hurt anyone else, yes. If I want to smoke, drink, do drugs, or eat fatty foods, then who am I hurting? Of whose concern is it other than my own?”
“And when you drive drunk and kill someone?”
“Then I should be held responsible for my actions. But until that time, who am I hurting?”
“Well, no one I guess.”
Joseph smile and leans back in his chair, holding up his hands is a “there you go” motion. “Now you see where I’m coming from. Some laws are necessary. Laws to protect us from each other are right and proper… things like theft and murder are, and should be, against the law. But silly laws like the one that was passed in New York where you couldn’t buy a soft drink larger than sixteen ounces… It is that kind of creeping control that I try to avoid.”
“I thought that law was struck down. All of us restaurateurs were watching that very closely.”
“It was. But the fact is, they did pass it and it was only after the courts stepped in that it was struck down.”
“Okay. You may have a point. But still, to just drop out like you have. I don’t know how you can live like that.”
“It’s not as hard as you think. You give up a few conveniences, like having a cell phone, but it is also very liberating. Knowing that you are in charge of your own destiny, that you succeed or fail by your own hand is very rewarding. The Nines are growing… and it is because people are thirsting for freedom.”
“And it is because of this thirst for freedom that you left me?”
“I didn’t leave you Rose. I asked you come with me.”
“I know. But you knew I wouldn’t, didn’t you?”
Joseph smiles softly. “Yes. But I had to ask.”
Rose can feel her own slightly sad smile tug at her lips. “You did ask. But you didn’t seem that upset when I said no.”
“I was, though. But I didn’t want to try to force you to come with me. Then I would be just like those people that I despise. I wanted you with me, and hardly a day has passed that I haven’t thought about you and leaving you behind. But I can�
��t live as pawn in government’s game of chess, Rose. I just can’t.”
“You’ve missed me?” she teases.
“More than you can know,” Joseph answers, and she can tell he isn’t kidding.
