by Trixie More
New York City
October 2016
Allison Walton’s throat felt tight. She probably shouldn’t write this check. The old guy was so damn pushy, and he knew what she wanted, reeling her in like a fish. All the while, she went along willingly taking the bait: hook, line, sinker. Her jaw clenched. Allison watched Angelo Mastrelo making his way gingerly out through the kitchen door, on his way to get a copy of the contract. A contract that would involve her giving the man a thirty-thousand-dollar check written against her father’s bank account. There would be no way she could hide this from her father. When Angelo had told her there was a way she could own the entire business he was offering, rather than just renting the kitchen and the storefront, she was more than willing to max out her credit card to the tune of eighteen thousand. Dare she give him the additional thirty large as a down payment on the whole business? Did she dare to sign the mortgage agreement? Holding paper, that’s what Angelo had called it. When it was all paid off, she’d own the business and the equipment. Except, the further this went, the less of a deal it seemed. What would she really be buying? Some refrigerators, tables, and gear, but not a business. There were no customers ready and waiting, and the building would still belong to the Mastrelo family. He was willing to hold forty thousand on paper—she’d be giving him forty-eight up front—which meant she was paying eighty-eight thousand. Her stomach was in knots. Was the equipment worth that?
“Hey Angelo,” Allison said. “Before you get the contract, there’s somethin’ I wanna ask you.”
The grizzled head popped around the doorjamb. Lord, she’d had enough of old people to last her the rest of her life.
“Yeah?” the man asked.
“What business am I buying? There’s no business here.”
“You told me you wanted this, lady. You wanna back out now?”
She sighed. “No, I don’t wanna back out. I want you to tell me what business I’m buying.”
“That’s easy. You’re getting the right to sell the business you build.”
“What kind of shit is that?” she asked. “Sell what I build? I can do that just renting.”
“Not without space and the equipment. So now, when you build the business, you can sell it all. That’s why you got a ten-year lease there. So’s you can build the business and still have enough time on the lease to sell it.” Angelo looked at her, and his eyes softened a bit. “Trust me, lady. It’s a good deal.”
And with that, he was gone, and all Allie had to do was write the check and explain to her dad how she went from wanting to rent a company, to owning the idea of a business for eighty-eight thousand. No problem. Should take about five minutes of chatting and she’d be all set. The thought was only partially ludicrous. If her dad happened to be obsessed with some other idea when she told him about the money, the conversation might really go just that smoothly. She left the empty kitchen and followed Angelo back over to Mastrelo’s Bar & Grille. Mastrelo’s was family owned, had a warm interior, with ivory beadboard and a chair rail about halfway up. Above the chair rail, the walls were red brick, except for between their businesses. That partition was fireproof construction, painted soft charcoal. Tiffany style lamps hung above the booths and over the pool tables in the back. On the brick walls were framed pictures of famous customers who had consumed flawless Italian American meals when Mastrelo’s was a full-blown Italian restaurant.
Six months ago, Rose and Angelo had divided their restaurant. Their grandchildren were grown and not likely to take over the business, so they decide to scale back. They kept the liquor license and offered light meals like sandwiches and pub grub. The enormous kitchen that used to serve their renowned cuisine was now on Allison’s side of the wall, along with an office, a counter, and a tiny storefront. Perfect for catering. She gave the bartender a nod, as she followed Angelo into his office.
“You got everything?” he asked.
The leather covered checkbook was soft and warm in her hand when she pulled it from her back pocket. She flicked her plastic credit card onto the wood desk and sat down in the chair on her side. Last chance to change her mind. Her stomach knotted, the old Italian slid the papers over to her. She opened up the checkbook, wrote the very long words Thirty Thousand and no/100, her hand hovered over the signature line. Her teeth clenched. Her father trusted her. Never once had Allison abused that. Shutting her eyes, she tried to guess what her father would say. There was no way to know, but failing to support herself was not an option. The money she was making running Phenomenal Catering for the people who owned it, wasn’t going to cut it, the ride to work took her way uptown every day, and she needed to be closer to her father’s home. Buying Mastrelo’s would put her a half hour closer to her Dad’s. Besides, she was practically running Phenomenal Catering herself. She could do this, and she would be in control. She put pen to paper and signed the check. Then the mortgage. And the credit receipt. By the time she was done, she needed a drink.
“Welcome to the neighborhood,” Angelo said, tucking his papers, and her father’s money, away.
After putting her own papers away and shutting up the shop she’d just bought, Allison bellied up to the bar and ordered a black and tan, which arrived perfectly presented, in record time. The new keys felt awkward in her jeans pocket.
“Awfully English for an Italian place,” she said to the attractive woman behind the bar. Make that drop dead gorgeous.
“Nah, actually the first usage of the phrase was in an American magazine, so …” The bartender made the facial equivalent of a shrug, her full, perfect mouth turning down for a second.
“I’m Allison. Everyone calls me Allie.” Allison extended her hand. “I think I just bought the catering business next door.”
“Sophia,” the woman replied, shaking Allie’s hand. “You think?” Her dark chocolate eyes were laughing.
“Well, it happened pretty fast.” Allison ran her hand over her slightly frizzy brown hair. Sophie’s long hair was full of body and flowed into perfectly rounded waves at her shoulders. The woman made Allison feel like a frump. It didn’t help that Allison was wearing a pair of sturdy boots and out of fashion boot-cut jeans. Sophie moved away to wait on a couple of fanboys at the end of the bar. Allison thought they might fall off their stools; they were leaning over the bar, drawn to Sophia like iron filings to a magnet. A loud cheer went up from the back, men’s deep voices calling out from around the pool table. Somebody must have made a stupendous shot. She took her beer and headed toward the crowd. Watching the men shoot pool was going to be a hell of a lot more fun than watching Sophie.
Three pool tables sat in the back, but it turned out the rowdy group was playing darts. There were high tables and stools along a short wall, and Rose Mastrelo sat at one of them, a mug of coffee and a plate of Italian cookies on the table. She saw Allison and waved her over.
“Hiya, cookie,” she said. She was a short woman with a gray bob. “Congratulations. Angelo tells me you decided to buy the business.” Before she could answer, two of the dart players turned to look at her. The man closest to her had on a white button down and gray slacks. With his neatly clipped brown hair, lightened by the sun, amber eyes and intense stare, she assumed he was a businessman, used to giving orders and getting his own way. Maybe a Wall Street big shot, maybe someone who could use some catering on occasion.
“Cookie, this is my grandson, David,” Rose said, smiling affectionately at the man. “Davey, this young lady just bought the restaurant side of the building.”
His eyebrows rose in surprise, as he gave her the once-over. “Congratulations,” he said.
Allison found her voice. “Thanks, I just signed the papers five minutes ago.” Why couldn’t she think of something snappy to say? “So I can cater your next party starting tomorrow.” Oh Lord, that had to be the lamest thing ever. She wanted to kick herself. From behind David, the second man who had turned, snorted. He returned his attention to the dartboard. David shifted slightly, and Allison got he
r first good look at the other guy. Time stopped cold. The room brightened, and everything was somewhat clearer, from his straight hair, so dark it was almost black, to the weave of his red and black buffalo check shirt. Her heart tripped a couple of beats, and she realized she was holding her breath. The man was utterly magnificent. He was well over six feet tall, with shoulders that could block traffic. His worn Levis clung to all the right places, right down to his beat up, flat-soled boots. At the moment, he was making a dumb-ass face as he sighted the dart but Allison’s body was sending off sparks like an arc welder. For all her hormones cared, he might as well have been handing her a present while he was saving children and kittens. She forced herself to look down at her beer. Dumping the whole thing over her head might be a good idea about now. She didn’t need to pick up a construction worker, or any man. With her new business to launch, there would be more than enough work to keep her busy. She didn’t need to start things up with another guy, make room in her life, only to find out she was somehow too much for him. The worst of it was, she was crazy attracted to men like the one before her now, big, confident, rough around the edges. Guys like that? Never failed to disappoint. Guys like that all seemed to need a woman she didn’t know how to be: a woman who needed to be rescued, to be taken care of. Neither of those was her. If there were men who fell in love with women like her, none of them were in Manhattan, and for sure, none of them were in this bar.
All of that didn’t mean she couldn’t let her eyes cruise over those long legs, appreciate the way his shirt stretched over his biceps. A part of her wanted to march right over to him, grab the dart out of his hand and toss it to the floor, just before she pushed him back against the wall and kissed him like she owned him. What would that be like, going toe to toe with a man like that? She needed a damn fan.
The guy was absolutely delicious. Maybe he could be a customer? The guy was obviously blue collar like herself. A six-foot sub during the Super Bowl was the extent of his catering needs, just like she wasn’t going to be hosting any social events later either. She turned her attention back to David. He was looking at her with a small smirk.
“Seems like you like darts,” he said, and Allison heard Rose chuckle.
“Who wouldn’t?” the older woman said, relieving the tension. Allison climbed up onto the stool across from Rose, who waved the plate of cookies at her.
“Not with the beer,” Allie said. She wondered if the heart-stopper at the dartboard came here often.
“So how does it feel? Owning your own place?” Rose smiled at her. David turned back to the game. No sale there. Yet.
Reality check. Allison felt her stomach clench. “Like I just made the biggest mistake of my life.”
“Moss! What the hell are you doing?”
Derrick Moss frowned at the sound of the general contractor’s voice booming over the speaker on his safety harness. It sounded like the idiot was standing right behind him. Across from where Derrick was squatting he could see his best friend, Ben. They were on the corrugated metal deck that created a temporary floor, fifteen stories up from the noise of Manhattan. Instead of the walls of the building, red steel beams thrust toward the sky. Beyond that, air. It was clear from the way Ben lifted his chin that the guy actually was behind him. Shit.
Derrick unfolded his long legs, rising up to his full height, pulling his shoulders back before he turned. Sure enough, the general contractor, Steve Persall, was standing there in all his hypertensive glory, meaty arms folded across his blue button-down, white hardhat topping off a florid set of jowls and tiny blue eyes.
“I got ten guys waiting to get up here. Set up the damn plywood, get those safety-cones up, and stop dickin’ around.” Steve glanced over at the eight by four sheet of plywood, currently by the side of the square hole in the metal deck. A look of fury crossed the man’s face
“What the hell is that? A toy?” Steve’s eyes bugged. “I got men here waiting to work, and you’re playing with toys? What the fuck, Moss?”
Derrick didn’t bother to glance behind him. He already knew that a thirty-inch tall robot was standing behind him, holding up one end of the plywood. His friend was holding up the other end. Derrick silently cursed Ben for getting them into this. He knew what Steve would think, his father reminded him every chance he got; Derrick gave the impression of a hulking adolescent geek, playing with his toys. There was nothing Derrick could do about what people thought. He placidly maintained eye contact with Steve, refusing to offer an explanation. Behind Derrick, Ben started to move, most likely to cover the hole with the plywood. Reluctantly, Derrick turned his back on Steve. He didn’t want to give in to the guy, but he wasn’t gonna let Ben pull up the plywood by himself.
Ironworkers enjoyed one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. In addition to plummeting from the great heights they worked at, getting smashed by iron beams and screwed up in the rigging, the men also were injured during the insanely tame act of moving the plywood sheets that covered holes in the corrugated metal decking.
He bent down, took the plywood from the bot and lifted it, stepping to the side and covering the opening. They tested the location of the board, making sure that there was plenty of wood on the deck so that the covering wouldn’t tip into the hole when someone walked across it. To his left, the humanoid style bot put a small foot on the wood, mimicking Derrick’s motion. Behind him, Steve let a curse fly.
“Get rid of it!” And then from farther away, “You’re a fucking idiot, Moss.”
Watching the human-like bot wander out onto the wood, Ben sighed.
“The damn thing is kinda cute.” His friend gave a grin. “Sorry, ’Rick.”
It wasn’t clear if Ben was sorry for getting him into this, or sorry that he’d called the bot cute, so Derrick ignored him. Why the hell he’d agreed to let Ben bring it to the job site was beyond him, other than Ben was relentless and Derrick had been curious. The bot was able to lift a sheet of plywood at home. He’d wanted to know if it worked in the wind and vibrations of a real building. So, the mistake belonged to both of them. Sadly, the damn thing hadn’t worked right. They’d had to practically shove the wood at the bot before it had gripped it. Then, the shaking of the deck seemed to stop the bot from moving forward with the wood. He’d risked his job for nothing. He really was an idiot.
Satisfied that the wood was placed correctly, he walked around and picked up the machine, shutting it off and tucking it into the duffel bag he used for his tools, anxious to get it safely put away. “Let’s get these cones up.”
He was foolish in other ways, too, he supposed. When he’d decided to become a union man, he’d walked away from a chance to go to Virginia Tech, had walked away from the artificial intelligence revolution. Didn’t seem to matter though, because he still trolled the Internet at night, reading about advances in mechanical engineering, and artificial intelligence. For him, something was compelling about robots. Derrick avidly tracked the progress of Virginia Tech engineers who were building SAFFiR, a firefighting humanoid robot created with the Navy to combat shipboard fires. Rooting for the humanoids was like cheering for the underdog. Wheeled vehicular robots were climbing stairs and investigating safety issues on drilling platforms with remarkable efficiency while the two-footed bots were still getting their sea legs.
“Yo, Der,” Ben said. “Where’d you go?”
Derrick looked up; Ben was ready to move to the next cone.
Focus, man, Derrick thought. If he let his mind wander on the job, he wouldn’t be a roughneck for very long.
Together they finished setting the cones, and the plastic bars that joined them, around the plywood covered opening. This meant any ironworker walking around up there would have to step over the bars before they came upon the wood. There were four more openings. Derrick and Ben covered three of them and set up the cones, working quickly and silently. The crew was called to the deck through the last opening, and then Ben and Derrick closed it up. Technically, this was the job of the safety cre
w. Knowing that crew would be short-handed today, Ben had volunteered them both to help, thinking he could use the chance to test the robot.
Dumb idea, Derrick thought as he watched the other men tie off and get to work.
All day, snatches of conversation moved past him. He’d spent his adult life staying quiet and observing people closely. The habits of his adulthood paid off in various ways, and today, he was searching out some indication of what the other men thought about the minor altercation. Derrick was sure that some of them had seen the bot before he stuffed it back in his tool bag. As he worked, quietly and competently, he observed the glances, the tense set of shoulders or scowling, bearded faces. They were a group of tough, hard-working men and they didn’t suffer fools on the job. While they loved their bravado and swagger and wouldn’t ever admit fear in the face of the work or the heights, the fact remained, they each wanted to live through the day with all their parts intact, so they could walk into bars or bedrooms, drink, fuck and curse, eat with their families and hold their children. They didn’t put up with any shit.
At lunchtime, Derrick headed down to his truck, pulling a sandwich and a soda out of his cooler. Ben had taken off to get something from a deli around the corner, mostly so he could check out the waitress there, Derrick hoped. He preferred that to his suspicion that Ben would like to pick up Sophia.
A little distance away, dust rose in a plume as an apprentice’s truck pulled in. The apprentice looked so young, Derrick wondered if he was even twenty yet. The kid got out, trying to juggle two gray cardboard trays of coffee and a box of donuts. Derrick closed up the truck and walked over, taking a tray from the kid, noticing as he did so that the guy’s hands were shaking.
“Something wrong?” he asked, ducking his head to get a better look at the kid’s eyes. They were bright with unshed tears. Derrick stepped back and looked around the lot. Anywhere but the guy’s face.
“Man, bad news.”
