by Matt Wallace
Their third consecutive Allensworth was entirely unruffled by and understanding of the reception. He explained that the coup staged by his predecessor’s predecessor had failed, thanks in large part to Sin du Jour. If Allensworth had forgone his petty vengeance on the catering company in favor of solidifying his new regime, what was left of the Sceadu might not have had time to regroup. As things stood, that move by Allensworth compromised all the ground he’d gained with his murderous power play on Consoné and Allensworth’s replacement.
Not to mention Darren killing Allensworth and the rest of the staff devastating his private army saved the Sceadu a lot of trouble.
While there were still a great number of issues to sort out, the newest Allensworth offered to renew Sin du Jour’s contract, but only if Lena agreed to take over for Bronko as executive chef and run it for him.
It was the first time she’d legitimately been given a choice about working at Sin du Jour, and Lena found it was now no choice at all.
She accepted.
Allensworth III and his people cleaned up the aftermath of the battle. Lena negotiated reparations for the gnomes who had come to their aid, and amnesty for Cassandra and all of the solitaires, who would no longer be hunted. Lena found she couldn’t hate Cassandra, just as she couldn’t truly forgive Ritter for what he’d done in his past.
* * *
They haven’t yet held a memorial service for Bronko, Dorsky, Ryland, White Horse, and Ritter.
They will, but even with Sin du Jour restored and repaired, it still feels too soon.
“It all looks really good, Jett,” Nikki confirms. “It feels . . . new. Clean. But still us. You know?”
Lena nods, knowing exactly what she means.
There’s a faint scratching at the outside of the locked lobby doors. As they all turn their heads toward it, the scratching becomes louder and more insistent.
“What the hell now?” Lena says with an exasperated sigh.
“Think positive!” Nikki bids her.
“Uh-huh.”
Lena unlatches the doors and pulls them open. When she steps aside, a gobsmacked look on her face, a small, slightly unkempt Maltese trots his way inside the lobby.
“Oh, my God,” Jett gasps.
“It is!” Nikki confirms excitedly. “It’s him! He’s back!”
She immediately drops to her knees and claps her hands. The Maltese sprints over to her and rears back on his tiny hind legs to lick her face. Giggling, Nikki begins stroking and tickling the small dog to his ultimate delight.
“Who’s a good little creator of all things?” she playfully chides the small dog as he rolls over onto his back so Nikki can scratch his belly. “Who’s an adorable most powerful being in the universe? Is that you? Is it?”
“Nik, stop!” Lena chastises her. “It’s . . . He’s not a . . . You know what he is! Knock it off!”
“But he’s so cute!” she protests.
“What’s . . . um . . .” Jett lowers her voice, although why isn’t clear. “What’s He doing here?”
As if in answer to her question, the Maltese rights himself, standing on all four legs and barking at the open door.
They all follow the puppy’s gaze expectantly. A moment later, a large American bulldog saunters into the lobby. He must be upward of a hundred pounds, his coat soft white with islands of rich brown. He’s wearing a spiked collar with a shining tag that’s partially obscured by his heavy, wrinkled jowls.
“Oh, he has a friend!” Nikki proclaims, crawling across the lobby floor without hesitation to pet the bulldog.
“So, who’s this one? Saint Peter?” Lena asks.
“Lena!” Jett hisses. “Don’t be so disrespectful!”
Nikki ignores them both, preoccupied with two handfuls of jowls. “Oh, you’re a good boy, aren’t you? And look at these crinkle chubs! These are free! They come with! Free crinkle chubs are the best!”
The bulldog responds to the languid massaging by gratefully licking Nikki’s face, only eliciting more giggles from the pastry chef.
Her giggling abruptly stops as her fingers seize upon his nametag and she actually looks at it.
“What is it?” Lena asks, watching Nikki’s expression change.
“Lena . . . come here.”
Lena walks over to where Nikki is still cradling the bulldog, kneeling down beside them.
“Look,” Nikki instructs her, turning the collar’s tag so Lena can read its face.
“‘Lucky,’” Lena all but whispers, narrating the single word etched on the tag.
“You don’t think . . .” Nikki can’t even finish the thought.
Lena shakes her head. “No. There’s no way. It’s impossible.”
However, as the bulldog turns his head to regard Lena with a pair of deep, soulful eyes, she finds her lip quivering and tears threatening to well up.
“It can’t . . .” Lena’s voice goes hoarse for a moment, and she loses the words.
She clears her throat. Then: “Chef?”
The bulldog barks, just once.
Jett’s hands fly to her mouth. “It’s Byron!”
Lena sniffs, her eyes wet now. She reaches up and gently strokes the dog’s ears.
“Chef, is it really you?”
Again, the bulldog barks.
Lena’s eyes widen. In the next moment, she’s throwing her arms around the dog’s neck before she can stop herself and hugging him close. Inside her, the finely honed cynic she’s cultivated can no longer be heard. There’s too much of her that not only wants this but also needs it.
The American bulldog that is apparently the reincarnation of Bronko Luck licks her neck.
Lena turns her head, still holding him, and looks at the Maltese, who is watching the scene unfold on his tiny haunches.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
Lena and Nikki continue stroking Lucky’s coat, Jett shuffling over to join them.
“Not a bad way to spend your retirement, I guess, Chef,” Lena says to the dog, who responds with another enthusiastic bark.
After a time, the Maltese trots over and gently scratches at Nikki’s ankle.
“What is it, little guy?” she asks happily, and then it dawns on her. “Oh! I know!”
Nikki stands and quickly jogs from the lobby. Lena and Jett exchanged confused glances, waiting in silence until Nikki returns, still jogging, carrying a frozen cupcake in each hand. Their rich green tops mark them as her trademark spumoni cupcakes composed of cherry-filled chocolate and pistachio frosting.
Nikki places them both on the ground, and the Maltese quickly sets to thawing the cold frosting with his tongue. Lucky also breaks away from Lena to chomp the lump of frosting from the top of the other cupcake.
Lena stands, Nikki joining her and Jett in watching the dogs, both of whom are far more than they seem, enjoy the treats.
Lena looks at Nikki and smiles.
“Wonders,” she says.
That one word brings a look of pure joy to Nikki’s face.
She nods. “I knew you’d come around. Eventually.”
I WILL ALWAYS BE HERE
Lena smells the candles burning from the corridor outside before she even enters Boosha’s apothecary.
There are five of them lining the top of the lectern, white beeswax touched by the softest yellow, like the very beginning of decay. An inch of gentle flame dances around each wick.
“What are the candles for?” Lena asks, the lack of greeting as customary and honored between them as any obligatory greeting could ever be.
“Who,” Boosha corrects her without looking up from the near-fossilized book splayed atop the lectern.
Lena nods. “I figured. That’s very uh . . . Catholic of you. I didn’t think you were religious. At least, not regular-type people religion.”
Boosha regards her over the book and between the wax bars of the candles.
“What is ‘regular people’?”
“There aren’t any, I guess. Sorry.”
>
“Must keep candles burning until witching hour,” Boosha explains, “when souls of fallen leave this place. Is old kobold custom. I have little kobold in me.”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“You will learn. You are boss now. Boss must know these things.”
“Will you ever be done teaching me?”
Boosha nods. “One day. And then I light candle for you.”
Tremors begin to wrack Lena’s composure. The hard tears of grief feel like sudden bricks beneath her eyes. She has to shut her eyelids tight to contain them.
“Is okay to cry for them,” Boosha gently assures her.
Lena shakes her head, sucking air through her nostrils. “It’s not even for them. It’s for me. Every time I think about having to keep doing this without them—”
“Is also okay to cry for you,” Boosha insists. “Does not make you weak or selfish. Makes you regular people.”
The ancient woman offers Lena a grin, and despite everything, Lena finds herself grinning back.
“At least I still have you,” she says.
“Have much more than me,” Boosha points out. “Have everything you need. Have who you need.”
“I know.” Lena wipes her damp eyes with the sleeve of her smock. “But they’re looking to me to lead them now, like Chef, and I’m not him. I’m not even close.”
“Do not need to be Bronko. You must be you. Is only way.”
Lena laughs wryly. “Yeah, right, but is it enough?”
Boosha shrugs, returning her eyes to the runic lines in her book.
“Is what you make it,” she offers.
Lena nods, gazing aimlessly at the array of junk filling the old woman’s cramped quarters. There are shelves crammed with nothing but pots of various shapes, sizes, and materials, many of which probably fed people during the Great Depression, if not the Dark Ages.
It’s oddly comforting, Lena finds, all of this stuff finding its way through such a long and bloody history to surround them now. Much like Boosha, it’s a constant, reminding Lena that even after the traumatic events of the past few days, she’s still here.
“Did you know?” she asks Boosha. “Did you know how it would work out? I mean, really? Did you know?”
“Knew only what I told you,” Boosha assures her. “Knew some things would end while others carry on. Like always.”
“You also said you saw me standing.”
“Yes.”
“Did you mean after . . . Did you see me standing after the fight was over? Or did you mean here, now?”
Boosha looks up at her with an odd expression on her already-odd face.
“What is difference?” she asks, earnestly.
Lena sighs. “I just want to know I’m going to make it, I guess. I want to know we’ll make it.”
“You should go home,” Boosha urges her.
“No. No, I’m going to be in my new office for a while,” Lena says with an edge of bitterness.
Boosha smiles. “Is what I meant.”
Lena tries to smile, but it fades as quickly as it appears. She’s like the wall of a dam, smooth and calm on one side while inconceivable weight endlessly pressures the other, and she can’t seem to control which side she feels from one moment to the next.
“Yeah,” she says. “Anyway.”
Lena turns toward the door, taking one step, lingering.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Will always be here,” Boosha mutters, preoccupied as if Lena has already gone.
This time, Lena’s smile is wider and lasts a few seconds longer.
It’s not so much, Lena thinks when she becomes aware of the vanishing expression, but it’s better than yesterday.
OFFICE HOURS
It still doesn’t feel like her office, and perhaps it never will.
Lena sits behind Bronko’s desk, fingering a tear in the absolutely ancient blotter. Lucky is sprawled on the leather sofa, happily dozing. She looks over at him and wonders how much awareness he really has, questioning whether his canine brain holds or is able to recall all Bronko’s human memories. She imagines it would be a blessing in a way if he can exist free of all that, living out the breed’s relatively short life enveloped in the moment-to-moment joys of being a dog.
Jett told her she should redecorate the office to suit her own tastes, but Lena can’t imagine changing anything. It would be like redecorating a church. Lena moves her gaze over Bronko’s endless clutter and memorabilia, all the football trophies and battered gear. Her eyes linger on his beloved, and now that she considers it, kind of racist sign reading, WE DON’T SERVE WEREWOLVES. ALSO, WE DON’T SERVE WEREWOLVES.
The one addition she has made to the office’s décor is a framed photograph on the desk. It’s a selfie Pacific snapped with his phone at the staff’s last family meal before the battle. It’s the only picture Lena’s aware of that features all of them together (minus, of course, Boosha, which actually feels appropriate in a way). It hurts immensely every time she looks at the photograph, but it’s the kind of pain that burns away to expose a core of warmth and joy. She plans to look at it every day until that latter sting is barely a pinprick.
Nikki, Cindy, and Little Dove enter one at a time through the open door.
“Look at you,” Cindy says. “All official an’ shit.”
Lena manages a fairly convincing smile. Things have been polite but tentative between the two of them since the rooftop, but Lena is holding out hope time will fill that gap with something better.
“Sit down, will you?” she bids them.
Cindy and Little Dove take the chairs on the other side of the desk, while Nikki chooses to drop onto the sofa beside Lucky so she can continue to never get her fill of the bulldog’s crinkle chubs.
“I’m not Bronko,” Lena begins. “I really don’t want to make a speech. Shit has happened. Bad shit. Nothing I say will fix it. But we have to get back to business while we wait for all of that not to suck quite so apocalyptically. Agreed?”
No one disagrees, at least.
“Cindy, I want you to take over Stocking & Receiving. You have seniority.”
Cindy only nods. She seems neither surprised nor particularly moved by the request.
“You can keep Marcus on if you want, and hire whoever you need to replace . . . to fill the holes in the team.”
“The boy’ll do for now,” she says, referring to Marcus.
Lena nods. “Lill, I—”
“Little Dove,” she says. “If that’s cool. ‘Lill’ was me trying to be somebody else. I know who I am now.”
“Good for you,” Lena says, sounding more envious than anything. “I’d really like you to take over for your grandfather, if you feel you’re ready.”
Little Dove smiles. “Thanks, but . . . I’m going to go back to the res. There’s a lot I can do there with what I’ve learned. I think that’s what Pop would’ve wanted. And it’s what I want.”
“I kind of thought you’d say that, actually. I had to try.”
“It means a lot to me that you asked,” Little Dove says. “Seriously. You’ve all been . . . You helped me as much as Pop did, more in a lot of ways. I’ll never forget any of you.”
“Likewise, hon,” Nikki assures her from the couch. “You’ll be the best medicine woman ever.”
Little Dove drops her head, more than a little embarrassed. “Thanks, Nikki. I’ll keep baking. I promise.”
“You better!”
“Nikki?” Lena says.
“Hm?”
“Sous chef” is all Lena says.
Nikki’s eyes widen. She even releases her hold on Lucky.
“What are you talking about? I thought Darren—”
“Darren has been through . . . all the things. He needs time, and he may never be ready. And even if he didn’t need time, it should be you.”
“It’s a good choice,” Cindy says, prompting a surprised but subtly grateful look from Lena.
Nikki
seems genuinely taken aback. “I mean . . . I just bake.”
“You can still bake,” Lena assures you. “You just get to do all the other thankless crap, too. I’ll give you a raise, though. I’m allowed to do that, I’m pretty sure.”
“Well, I . . . yeah, sure, Lena. Whatever you need.”
A smile slowly spreads across her lips as she really processes the request and her answer, and it’s a sentiment Lena is happy to return.
“All right, then,” she says. “That’s all I’ve got right now. I just wanted to sort that out before anything else happens?”
“What else is going to happen?” Cindy asks.
“I have . . . no fucking clue,” Lena answers earnestly. “But at least we all know what our jobs are when it does. We’ll go from there.”
“Sounds good, boss,” Cindy says, rising from her chair.
Little Dove and Nikki follow suit. Saying their goodnights, they begin filing out of the office.
“Cindy, hang back one second,” Lena requests.
Though she looks surprised, even reluctant, Cindy nods, waving to the other two departing women and stepping back inside the office.
Lena waits until Little Dove and Nikki should be out of earshot before she says, “I don’t want to do a whole thing with us—”
“I don’t either,” Cindy confirms.
“I just want to . . . I need you to know something.”
Cindy folds her arms over her chest. “All right, then.”
Lena seems to be at a loss, as if she hadn’t planned out anything for this conversation beyond that point.
“I loved him too,” she finally says.
Cindy nods, unfazed. “I know you did. I know he loved you, too. But you couldn’t forgive him, could you?”
Lena’s expression darkens. “No,” she answers, honestly. “No, I guess I couldn’t.”
Cindy shrugs. “Then that’s all there is to be said, right?”
Lena nods. “Yeah.”
Cindy offers her a weak smile before turning to leave, closing the office door behind her.
Left alone, Lena lets her body sink into Bronko’s chair, feeling impossibly small in the throne-like seat, almost like a child sitting at their father’s desk. She looks once again at the framed picture of the staff, and once again, the pain in her chest is hotter than fire under a sauté pan. She lets it burn, studying every detail of every smiling face in the frame, especially those of the people they’ve lost.
