So apparently, I do still have the superpower of blocking out sounds as long as I’m coming to terms with my own restaurant’s mortality.

The sound from the dining room is hectic, as hectic as Maggie’s hair, bouncing in a cloud of curls, when she pokes her head into my office.

“What’s up, Mags?” When I left the floor, it wasn’t busy but it was steady, and I thought it would stay that way. From the whites of her eyes, that assumption was wrong.

Maggie bites her lip, glancing back down the hallway. She cringes as a loud bark of laughter travels down the hall from the dining room.

“Maggie.” I throw down the pen I was chewing on. “Spit it out.”

“There’s...a man? Here?”

“Last time I checked, men are like half of our customer base,” I mutter. “Unfortunately.”

“The man is asking for you,” Maggie says.

I look up. “Wes?” Maggie’s met Wes plenty of times, though. She wouldn’t be acting so squirrely if it was Wes.

“Not Wes. He says he’s your dad?”

“What?” I stand up. “He said he’s my father?”

She nods.

I hold my hand up. “This high?”

She keeps nodding.

“Gray here?” I point to where his sideburns would be.

“Yes.”

“Grouchy?”

She winces.

“Frig.” I’ve summoned him with my business failure. My fingers get tangled in my hair. “Is he staying?” I ask. “Is he eating here?”

Maggie steps into the office and lowers her voice. “He wants to order food and a bottle of wine. Did you want me to ask him to leave?”

Yes, I do.

Wes and Corrine come in every month or so. They’re quiet and they leave a tip even though the gratuity is included in the price of the food. Sometimes when friends and family come in they ask for too much, running servers around because they can drop a name, but not Wes and Corrine. They’re exactly the type of guests I want my team to have to serve.

My father, though. He’s the type of person who puts the gratuity out on the table and slowly picks away at it, holding servers up to a ridiculous standard they can never meet just to scare them. He’s the guest who asks for comps and sends perfectly good food back just because he can. He runs you, over and over. He does it all thinking he’s superior because “only college students, actors, and fuck-ups” work in restaurants.

My staff doesn’t deserve to have to deal with him and yet, the little girl in me who has always wanted his approval loves that he’s here. Even though I know the chances are slim, I still can’t help but think what if. What if I impress him? What if I show him how good I am at this? What if he recognizes that all my hard work was worth it? What if he actually likes it?

“Of course not,” I say. “I’ll come out. Who’s serving him now?”