Chapter 9 - No Credit for Tomorrow
The supplier's notice was polite, which somehow made it worse. We had forty-eight hours to settle our oldest invoice, and until then every order required payment on delivery. Eddie wanted to put it on his personal credit card. I told him no so firmly that he put the card back in his wallet before I'd finished the sentence.
“I don't get to save the business by risking your rent,” I said.
“You've risked plenty.”
“And that's something we should stop, not imitate.”
We sat around the prep table with Marisol, Keisha, and a legal pad. There was enough flour to make biscuits, enough beans for chili, and enough frozen fruit to put a cobbler on every table in town. There wasn't enough meat, and the price of eggs had climbed again. We devised a two-day menu we could make with what we had, then offered prepaid lunch boxes to offices and mechanics along the railroad.
I asked people to pay only for meals they could receive that week. No memberships, no promises about a future restaurant. I wrote that clearly on the order form. If the diner closed on Friday, nobody would be left holding a worthless voucher.
The first order came from the fire station. The next came from the nail salon. By noon, someone at the hospital had ordered nineteen sandwiches, and Mrs. Fulton had convinced her entire bridge club to buy soup. Keisha tracked every payment. Marisol transferred the exact ingredient budget to a separate operating subaccount so we could see whether the plan worked without confusing it with Long Table donations.
It didn't cure sixty-three thousand dollars in overdue bills. It paid for tomorrow's food. That was something.
At three, Dad came in carrying an envelope from the landlord. I braced myself. Instead of another threat, it contained a request for a formal payment proposal and current sales figures. The owner, Mrs. Garrison, was willing to meet if we had numbers.
“She's not evicting us today,” Dad said.
“No. She's asking whether we can actually pay her.”
Dad swallowed. “I called her.”
“Good.”
“I should have called months ago.”
“Also true.”
He watched me label lunch boxes for delivery. “I don't know how to talk to you anymore.”
“Try asking a question that isn't really an instruction.”
He thought for a moment. “Do you want the diner?”
I stopped with a sticker between my fingers. I'd always said I loved the Blue Lantern. Loving it and owning its debts were not the same thing. I thought of the roof leak, the customers, the clock above the grill, and the way staff looked at Dad before asking whether they were getting paid.
“I want the people in it to be treated honestly,” I said. “I want a place where the Long Table can continue. I don't know whether this building can do both.”
Dad nodded slowly. “That's an answer I didn't want. But it's an answer.”
By late afternoon, Liam had delivered three boxes of labels from his print shop. I paid the invoice from our lunch proceeds. He tried to wave it off; I made him take the money. Nobody needed another quiet favor that became a weapon later.
“I'm staying with my brother for a while,” he said as I counted change. “Vanessa and I agreed we shouldn't make decisions about the marriage while we're fighting through lawyers and accountants.”
“I hope you both get room to think.”
“She's asking me to tell Claire the donation from Mom is confirmed.”
“Don't.”
“I won't. I told her she needs to speak to Mom herself.”
He looked toward the line of lunch customers. “I thought the wedding would be the hard part. Booking everything, keeping everyone happy.”
“Marriage doesn't come with a seating chart.”
He smiled without much amusement. “Apparently mine did.”
At five, Claire called Dad and requested a final meeting before the financing deadline. He asked me to come. For once, he didn't say it was because Vanessa might listen if I were in the room. He said he needed someone who knew the actual cost of serving a plate of food.
We met Claire at a small table in the closed dining room. She looked at the reduced menu and said, “This is precisely why the company needs professional control.”
“Professional control might help,” I said. “I'm interested in the version that uses accurate information.”
She presented a revised offer. Aster would provide immediate cash, but only if the Long Table ceased operations at the Blue Lantern and Dad signed a long-term brand license. My role remained absent. Denise's pledge had been removed from the financing figures; Claire did not acknowledge that we'd had to ask.
Dad read the offer, flipping slowly through each page. Vanessa sat across from him, gripping a pen.
“We can't sign this tonight,” he said finally.
Vanessa stared. “Dad.”
“We need independent advice.”
Claire closed her folio. “The offer expires at six.”
“Then it expires,” he said.
For one small second, I was proud of him. Then I remembered the bills. Vanessa stood so quickly her chair struck the wall.
“You've chosen her,” she told Dad. “You've chosen an old building and a soup line over a future.”
He didn't answer quickly enough to satisfy her. She snatched her bag and walked out. Claire followed without another word.
After they left, the dining room seemed wider, emptier, and astonishingly expensive. Dad sat with the unsigned contract. “What happens now?”
“We meet Mrs. Garrison,” I said. “We see if anyone can help us understand our options. And we tell the staff exactly where we are.”
May you like
He nodded. When I went to lock up, I found a handwritten note taped to the window. Someone had left it during dinner: We bought twelve lunches because you fed my dad when his pension was late. Keep making soup. Underneath was a ten-dollar bill folded into a paper crane.
I put the bill in the donation box and kept the note. Tomorrow would be harder. I didn't need to pretend otherwise to feel grateful tonight.
