Lynn opens her closet and looks around for her chef's coat. It's her first day back to work since she was placed on bedrest, and she can feel her heart racing at the thought of being back at the restaurant. There aren't going to be any more midday naps or watching movies and games while taking care of Victor, it's now going to be taking orders, fulfilling them, and keeping the restaurant afloat.
"Where is it?" she asks herself as she rifles through her clothes, unable to find the coat. "It has to be here somewhere."
Francisco, who is getting dressed, silently watches Lynn. She doesn't seem to be aware of him as she tosses random clothes onto the floor, "Where the hell is it?!"
"Lynn, you don't need your chef's coat. Just wear an apron and a white shirt. You'll be fine."
She continues to search through the closet, "Well, I want my coat."
"Did you wash it?"
Lynn tries to remember, but when she can't, she settles on running to the garage to see if she left it in the basket of clean clothes.
Francisco slowly follows after her but walks into Victor's room to get him dressed before he goes to his grandparents' house. He isn't fond of the idea of Victor being in daycare, especially when he's only a few months old, luckily, there are grandparents nearby that can help. Of course, he'd prefer it if they didn't have to drive him over every day, but cheap babysitting doesn't come without its price.
"Alright, let's get you dressed up," he tells him, as he grabs some clothes from the drawer.
Victor follows his dad with his eyes. He's already been fed, burped, and put into a brand-new diaper. At this time, he's usually going back to sleep for his mid-morning nap, but he can't sleep well with his parents both running around.
Francisco walks over to Victor, picks him up from his crib and places him on his changing table.
"Why are you getting him dressed up for?" asks Lynn, who is buttoning her chef's coat, "He's just going to Mom and Dad's, not going to a business meeting."
"He shouldn't be laying around in just a diaper all day. Besides, it's only a pair of shorts and a new onesie. There's nothing wrong with a little structure, you know."
Lynn rolls her eyes, "Were you like this with Elena too?"
Francisco thinks about it. He didn't tend to dress her since he left before she woke up, though he's sure that he probably did the same thing whenever he could.
"Yeah, I did."
"It seems silly. I mean it's summer and Mom and Dad are probably going to let him lay around in his diaper anyway."
"Well, that's fine when he's there, but for now, he can wear more than a diaper."
"Fine," she says, not exactly enthused, considering her son's loathing of being dressed for too long. Then she notices something, "No socks?"
"I'd rather he lose them here than in two houses."
Lynn Sr. turns on the stove. He pulls out a pan, pours the oil, and cracks some eggs into the pan for the family's breakfast. It's his first day back to work since took his rather lengthy vacation, but it doesn't feel like enough. It was bad enough that he had so little time after his youngest was born, but now he has to leave Rita alone with five little girls, well, four, but it's five when Lori gets out of school, but that's still a lot.
Lori runs into the kitchen with two shirts to show her dad, "Which shirt should I wear, Daddy? The banana or the kitten?"
He looks at the two shirts. He has no idea when kids' fashion changed to such strange designs, but regardless, he gives Lori his opinion, and she runs back upstairs to get dressed for school.
From the kitchen, he can hear Rita running after the girls, as they try to avoid their morning routine. He remembers trying to be firm with Lori, thinking that they were going to knock this whole parenting thing out of the water, but as the girls started outnumbering them, that slowly began to disappear, and now they're just happy if they can get through breakfast without causing too much mayhem.
"Lynn! Can you come up? I need your help."
He pours the scrambled eggs onto a plate and runs upstairs, where he is met with the sight of Luna and Luan arguing over a shared toy, Leni trying to dress herself in an effort to mimic her older sister, Lori getting upset that Leni is stealing her clothes, and Lynn Jr. crying.
Rita is trying to rock Lynn while breaking up the fight between Luna and Luan. Lynn Sr. can see that his wife is a little more stressed than usual this morning, and he immediately tries to stop the fighting between the two.
"Girls, that's enough. Now put the toy down and get ready for breakfast," he tells the girls.
Neither one listens and goes back to tugging on the toy.
He spots one of Leni's dolls on the ground and offers it to her in an effort to get her to let go.
"Leni, look. Do you want to play with your Walking Kit?"
She looks at the cat toy and nods her head, letting go of the toy. Luna stumbles back onto the floor and begins to cry. Lynn Sr. runs to her and immediately tries to soothe her before his eardrums begin to bleed.
He loves his daughters, and hearing them cry makes him sad, but it hurts more to hear Luna cry, especially if it goes on for too long and they don't have any pain medicine for the eventual headache.
"Pip, pip, cheerio," he says in his best British accent, "Bob's your uncle. Please stop crying," he pleads, but she doesn't. "How about breakfast? I bet some eggs and pancakes will put a smile on that face?"
Luna quietly sobs at the thought of breakfast.
"That's my girl. Nothing makes the blues go away like Daddy's cooking. All aboard the Breakfast Train! Woo! Woo!" he calls out to the girls, even tugging a bit on Luna's shirt to get her to pretend to be the whistle.
She complies and he slowly walks them towards the stairs.
Leni is confused, "What train?"
He sighs, "Let's just go down for breakfast."
The girls follow him and take a seat at the table while he places their plates in front of them. As the girls eat, he looks up at the clock. In a few short minutes, he and Lori are going to have to go, her to school and him to work. He looks over at her as she excitedly eats, he wishes he could be that excited about his day, but after almost two months gone, he has to go back to the office.
Lori notices her dad's staring, "Ready to go?"
Lynn Sr. blinks, "What? No. I'm not ready," he tells her before taking another bite of his breakfast. He's sort of tempted to eat as slowly as possible, but he can't let her be late just because he wants to spend more time with the family. "Put your dishes in the kitchen and go get your backpack, I'll be right out."
He quickly shovels the rest of his breakfast into his mouth, gulps down his coffee, and gives Rita and the girls a kiss before running to Vanzilla.
"Lynn!"
He stops in his tracks, "What's wrong? Did something happen? I can stay if you want," he offers.
Rita shakes her head, "Aren't you forgetting something?"
He tries to think about what he could be forgetting, then Lori runs out the front door with her three younger sisters following after her.
"Right. Daddy did not forget about his little Lori-Lou," he says with an awkward smile.
As he and Lori step towards Vanzilla, it starts to become very real for the girls. Their dad, who is dressed in different clothes than his usual shirt and jeans, is about to go and not come back for hours.
Little by little they begin to cry or call out to their dad.
Lynn Sr. notices this and looks up at Rita, "Are you sure you're going to be, okay?" he asks as Leni wraps her arms tightly around his leg, begging him to stay home, while Lori pulls him towards Vanzilla. "I can always pretend to be sick," he offers, while adding a fake cough.
"I think we'll be okay," says Rita, "now go, before Lori is late to school."
"Alright," he says as he heads to Vanzilla, "I promise to call you during lunch."
"Daddy, let's go!" says Lori, mustering as much strength as she can to pull him away from her mom and sisters.
Francisco drives towards the restaurant. He was hoping that leaving home earlier would make up for taking Victor over to Lynn's parents, but he forgot to take into account all the info they needed to pass onto the grandparents and the fact that Lynn was struggling a bit with leaving him behind. Now, they could have sent the info earlier to either Lily or Lisa, and that's their own fault, but there isn't much that they could have done about leaving their son behind.
'Hopefully it gets easier,' he thinks as he quickly glances over at Lynn.
As Francisco pulls into the parking lot, he looks over at Lynn, who is tapping her foot incessantly. She won't admit it, but he can tell that she's nervous about being back at work after being gone for so long. Over the course of the weekend, he made sure to remind her that things are a bit different, she got annoyed that he kept bringing it up, but he wanted to make sure that she doesn't get shocked by the changes.
The employees in the kitchen are good, but they didn't have formal training, now they have someone by their side who did go to school and train in kitchens before coming to work for them. It wasn't easy at first, they were very resistant to the changes implemented in the kitchen. He used to see them give the new girl a bit of a hard time and try to put things back the way they were, but like a father to stubborn children, he had to put things back the way they were before the three moved things.
Now, his father-in-law also didn't love the changes, he spent years running the place and to see things chipped away at, hurt him. Luckily, his new hire was just as passionate about cooking and was able to win him over. Sure, she suggested some changes, but at the end of the day, things have to get past the restaurant's namesake before they are implemented.
The two step out of the truck and head towards the front door. From outside, the two can hear the staff moving about, getting ready for the start of the day, but as they approach the door, they hear hushes. Francisco opens the door and is met by the staff, who are standing still and looking over at the two.
The couple feels a little nervous, wondering what might happen next. They walk in and the staff greet them as they pass by, but they can't help but stare at Lynn. She's sort of gotten used to the stares coming from her family but having all of the waitstaff looking at her is different. It's more people, all of them ready to say what she's already heard.
Some of the waitresses approach Lynn and begin with the usual remarks, "Wow! It's been a long time." "How are you doing?" "How's your new baby?" "Do you have any photos?"
This is what Lynn was not looking forward to. As much as she likes all of her coworkers, she knew that the waitresses were going to be a bit more intrusive and ask about Victor. She sort of assumed that Francisco would have covered that when he came back, but she guesses that they didn't want to ask him.
When Francisco notices Lynn's delayed response, he answers, "You've seen him."
"That's one photo, and it's on your desk."
"It seems like enough. Now c'mon, we're gonna open soon, and we've got to finish getting ready."
Lynn and Francisco walk towards the back. She quietly whispers, "You know, you didn't have to do that."
"You wanted to show them?"
He should have expected it, she's a new mom after all, but Lynn doesn't strike him as the type to want to show off baby photos to her coworkers.
"No, but I can handle it."
He doesn't see a point in telling her that her hesitancy was clear to everyone, and instead leads her towards the kitchen.
Before she opens the door, she turns around and asks him, "So where's the new girl?"
"She usually comes in a little later." He looks at his watch, "We've got a few minutes before we open, maybe you might want to get a feel for the layout," he suggests.
Lynn walks into the kitchen and her three coworkers give her a brief greeting before getting back to work. That's what she was used to. With the three men getting ready, Lynn looks around at the kitchen and the storage room. Before, things were like how her dad left it, it made sense to her, she grew up with the same layout. Now everything is stored away neatly and whatever organized chaos that made sense to her is gone.
A young woman walks into the kitchen. She looks over at Lynn and smiles before offering her hand, "Hi, nice to meet you. My name is Jan."
Lynn Sr. steps out of the elevator and walks towards his desk. It's been a few weeks since he's been back here, and he's sort of nervous. On the drive over, his thoughts have been preoccupied with his wife and daughters, and now he has to get back to normal adult interactions with his coworkers.
As he passes by the secretary's desk he greets her, "Good morning, Carla."
The secretary is surprised to see him. He's been gone for nearly the whole summer thanks to the company's generous parental leave, and his combined paid time off, that she's gotten used to him not being around.
"Nice to see you back again."
"Nice to be back," he says with as much confidence as he can muster, which admittedly isn't much.
He takes a seat and looks at his desk. He turns on the computer and quietly waits for it to boot up but darn this company that doesn't upgrade its equipment.
The computer turns on. Lynn Sr. looks at the time at the bottom right corner as a minute passes, "Only seven hours and fifty-seven minutes to go," he says with dread in his voice.
In an effort to help lift his spirits, he pulls up his briefcase and opens it to reveal the latest family photo that they took a few weeks after Lynn was born. Then he notices something.
"Ding-dang-darn it, I forgot to bring a frame," he says as he longingly stares at the photo. He really wants to put it up so that it can hopefully motivate him to get through the day. "Maybe I have some tape here," he says as he looks through his desk drawers.
When he doesn't find any, he settles on asking his coworker for a piece of tape.
Lynn Sr. looks over the wing panel and asks, "Hey, Martha, do you by any chance have any tape I can borrow?"
She turns around, "Sure, what happened?" she asks as she hands the tape dispenser to him.
"I wanted to stick this photo on my computer."
She glances over at the photo, "Aww, is that your new baby?" she asks.
Lynn Sr. looks up, "Yup, that's Lynn Jr."
"What a cute baby, he looks so much like you."
"She's a girl."
The woman looks at the photo again. She looks at the baby's face and quietly nods her head, afraid to ask why he named his daughter after him. Sure, she looks a lot like him, but it's not exactly something you hear about too much.
Lynn Sr. hands back the tape dispenser, "Thanks, I appreciate it."
Hours pass and Lynn Sr. knows that for one reason - because he keeps staring at the clock after any little task he completes. He can't help himself, he wants to go home and be with his family, if only he had another week of accumulated time off.
"Hey, Lynn," a coworker says, snapping him from his thoughts, "we're about to go out to lunch. Do you want to come?"
Lynn Sr. looks up from the monitor, "I'll be right there, I just need a minute," he says, with thoughts of making a phone call to Rita and the girls before leaving with his coworkers.
The first ticket is handed off to the kitchen. Lynn looks at it and proceeds to open the doors under the station, but she notices that there are only bowls that they use for side dishes and sauces. She walks around the kitchen, occasionally bumping into her coworkers, who are managing their own stations.
After wasting what she deems a long time, Lynn gets sick of looking around and asks, "Rob, where are the plates?"
"We moved them," he says as he leads her to the new location by the meat section.
"Why are they here?"
"We typically start here anyway. It seemed smarter to move them there."
Lynn understands, though now she wishes that her brief tour before service stuck in her head more. Most of the time, she was complaining that she didn't like where everything was moved, that she didn't think about retaining the information past those few minutes.
She reads the ticket again, but as she stands around the kitchen, things begin to slow down as Rob tries to move around her. Before leaving, there was a bit of chaos that everyone was used to. There's still some chaos from the rush of people in the front, but compared to earlier in the year, things are more organized.
Rob grows frustrated as see Lynn looking lost. He takes the plate from her, and quietly continues to finish up the order, trying his best to ignore Lynn's stares, "Why don't you ask Greg if he needs a little help with the prep work?"
She hears the tired tone in his voice. Lynn scowls and walks off to help her other coworker. When she first started, Rob was the nicer one of the three, compared to Pete's blunt and more emotional nature and Greg's more standoffish one, she could count on him to help her out, but now it seems like that guy didn't exist. It feels like she's going to have to start over with him, but she shakes her head, thinking that she's being silly, though she can't shake the feeling as she walks away.
Greg pours some of the sauce onto a tasting dish. He can feel a pair of eyes on him, and he looks over at Lynn, who is watching him.
"Yeah?" he asks, wondering why she is standing there looking at him.
Lynn leans over and sniffs the sauce, "Can I try?"
He sighs but pours some of the sauce for her to taste.
She gulps it down. He's sure that she didn't really get to taste it, but maybe she'll prove him wrong.
"It needs a little bit of a kick."
Greg sees her about to reach for some spices and puts himself between her and the pan refusing to let her get near it.
"What are you doing?" she asks as she tries to force herself near the sauce.
"I got it. You know, not everything needs to be spicy."
"C'mon! A little won't be so bad."
Greg knows better. A little starts off innocently and then her hand will slip, and his sauce will get ruined, "I got it!"
She backs off, "Fine. So did you do anything interesting…"
Greg tries to ignore her so that he can continue to tend to the dish, but Lynn's talking is breaking his concentration. Before she left on maternity leave, the two didn't always get along that great, but after months apart, things have changed. Since Jan came along, he and the guys have been encouraged to try gaining more skills to help them shake up the menu a bit. Pete's not going to bother since he doesn't want to do anything other than be a dishwasher, but he and Rob have been trying to improve and that tends to come with a lot of hard work.
He glares at her, "You know, I'm trying to finish this for the lunch crowd, so can you leave me alone for a minute?"
Lynn doesn't take his outburst kindly. She looks for anything that she can do alone, while she gathers her thoughts, so decides to stir the pot of chili, angrily. She's doing the best to hold her tongue, but clearly everyone can see that she's frustrated.
A few months.
Apparently, that's all it takes for everything to become different around here. It's bad enough that she can't find anything, or that everyone groans or rolls their eyes when she asks where anything is, but now they're shooing her away. Suddenly, it feels as though her coworkers got replaced by new people, despite looking exactly the same.
She takes a deep breath and tries to ward off the weak attitude of hers. She has no idea where it came from, but she's going to keep it away, all she has to do is focus on the pot in front of her. Lynn keeps her eyes fixated in the pot, looking for any changes in color or for excessive bubbling, while ignoring the world around her.
When she declares the food complete, she grabs some towels to move the pot away from the burner. The smell of smoke has her stop for a minute, and she sniffs a ladle-full of chili. It doesn't smell bad, in fact, it probably needs a little more spice if you ask her, but she doesn't know what is causing that smell, until Lynn spots where the smoke is coming from.
She must have accidentally grabbed an extra kitchen towel and left it near the open flame.
Lynn grabs it and runs as fast as she can to sink to put it out, but the fire alarm goes off anyway, alerting everyone of what happened.
Rather than mention anything about the fire, she decides that getting out of the kitchen will calm her nerves, "I'm taking an early lunch."
Lynn Sr. quietly eats his lunch while listening in on his coworkers' conversation. It's mostly the young single guys talking about their weekend. None of them are dads, except for Norm and Mike, so talks around the break room are usually about weekend shenanigans.
He hasn't been able to contribute to those sorts of conversations in years, but when his coworkers need tips on where to buy milk, bread, and eggs at the best price, he'll be there with his own shopping story.
That definitely isn't the type of thing he would have bragged about in his twenties, but it isn't like he can hitchhike around the country or follow his favorite cowbell band until he goes broke. No, he left those days behind him after Rita told him they were going to be parents.
It feels so hard to believe how much things have changed in such a short time. He and Rita have gone from being a young couple without a care in the world to parents with five daughters. They never worried about money and now that's their biggest concern, well, that and his hair, but that's more of a him thing.
He looks at the clock, his break is almost over. While everyone decides to wait out the last few minutes of their break, Lynn Sr. heads back to his desk. He wanted to make a phone call before he went to lunch, but unfortunately his stomach betrayed him and he decided to eat, but now is his chance. He eyes the telephone and taps his fingers on his desk to keep himself from desperately reaching out for it, but as soon as he thinks about it, he stops.
He looks around to see if anyone is looking over in his direction, 'Just a little phone call… I'm sure Rita and the girls would love to hear a familiar voice.'
Lynn Sr. quickly dials the number and anxiously waits for Rita to pick up, 'Is this a good time?' he wonders. 'The girls are probably all having lunch. What if they can't hear the phone? Luna can be a bit loud or what if LJ was taking a nap and just got settled? Poor Rita.'
"Hello?"
"I'm sorry."
Rita is confused, "What?"
"Hi!"
"Hello?" she awkwardly answers.
"Is this a good time?"
Rita looks up at the clock. It's her husband's lunch hour, and she expected him to call, "Yes, it's a good time. Hold on, let me put it on speaker. Girls! Say hi. Daddy is on the phone."
Whatever little conversations were going on, stopped as soon as Rita mentioned him. On his end, it sounded like the girls were fighting over the phone so that they could talk to him, but somewhere between all the talking, he could tell that they were recounting their day to him all at once. He can hear Rita tell them to go one at a time, but none of the girls wanted to let anyone else go first.
He was fine either way, and as the girls spoke, he could feel his spirits lifting. His exhaustion and cranky mood were disappearing, but soon enough, Lynn Sr. spots his coworkers walking over from the break room, lunch must be over, "I've got to go."
He can hear the girls screaming, upset that he's going to hang up, "I know, I'm sad too, girls, but I have to go," he whispers.
One of his supervisors walks over to his cubicle and Lynn Sr. immediately puts the receiver down so that he doesn't see it, "Hey, Lynn, there's going to be a meeting around two."
Lynn Sr. nods his head. It probably seems more like an email sort of situation, but he doesn't expect the older man to have a good grasp on sending a group email to everyone in the office.
"Okay. I'll be there," he awkwardly waves, as his supervisor walks away.
From the receiver, he can hear the girls saying goodbye to him.
"Bye," he whispers into the receiver, "I love you too, sweetie."
"Umm… okay…" answers his supervisor.
He groans, thinking that he was being quieter than that. He knows that his supervisor isn't going to say much, but it is probably going to make the next couple of days an uncomfortable experience.
Lynn quietly eats her lunch, trying to process what the heck happened in the kitchen. She knows that she's been gone for a while, but now everything is different. Suddenly, everyone is more serious than before and the whole kitchen got changed around. She can't find anything, she's slowing everyone down by asking them questions, and she's sure that they're all annoyed by it too.
'Was I really gone for that long?'
Before she left, the guys did their jobs well, but they were never all so serious that they looked like they were ready to yell at her for a minor mistake. Well, maybe Greg, but not the rest of them. They used to like chatting with her while they worked, they were more forgiving of mistakes and messes, now everyone groans angrily as if she's getting in their way.
Lynn's phone buzzes and she notices a message from Lily. It's a photo of Victor taking a nap. She puts her phone away and stares at the wall in wonder. She doesn't know if she is doing the right thing. Her family made it clear that she needed to be at work, but now she's being tempted with photos.
Why did you send me that?
I thought that you would want to see him
Besides he's cute when he's sleeping
"What do you want from me?!" she yells out loud. "You tell me go back to work, now you send me a photo of Vic. It can't be both!"
Francisco walks into his office with his lunch and looks over at Lynn, "Are you okay?"
"How do you do it?"
He isn't sure what she's talking about, so he takes a guess, "Well, it helps that I was here when we were moving stuff around, so I got the jist of the layout-"
"Not that. I mean this," she says as she shows him the picture that Lily sent her.
He smiles, but he sees what she means. It's not easy for him either. After Elena was born, he was definitely not happy to leave her while he went to work, and the same can be said about Victor. However, families need money for necessities, and someone has to do it. He doesn't try to think too hard about what he'll miss, but unlike Lynn, he has a lot more experience stepping away and focusing on his work.
"That's a nice picture."
She immediately says, "I hate Lily for sending it."
"I think that you're more frustrated."
Lynn doesn't appreciate that response, "She and Dad tell me to come back to work, the restaurant needs me, but it doesn't, it's all good without me," she says before taking a sad bite of her food. "Right now, things are going smoothly. What the heck am I here for?"
"It never hurts for them to have an extra pair of hands," he reminds her, "Besides, you'll be able to learn everything soon enough. Also, think of it like this, with you here there's a little more slack, a chance for them to take some extra time off without thinking that the place will fall apart. You're not going to let your team down, are you?"
He chose those last words carefully, knowing that it would incite Lynn. With any chance, she'll head back out trying her hardest to adapt to the changes in an effort to prove that she isn't a hindrance.
With a smile that hopefully tells him that she's onto him, she answers, "No."
Lynn Sr. looks over at the clock. There is still another hour left before he has to go home. He somehow managed to make it seven hours, though he's sure that that has more to do with the phone call that he made during lunch. All day, he's been thinking about Rita and the girls, how they're doing, what they're doing, and everything he is missing.
It makes him yearn for a higher position in his company. He's seen some of the people above him, they earn more time off, can take off early for any personal matter without feeling like the boss is grilling them, and they get a nice private office all to themselves where no one can hear them making personal calls.
He sighs, wishing that he was in their shoes, but all he's good for is IT and cooking, if you ask him.
'One day…'
At five o' clock, Lynn Sr. punches out and walks as fast as he can to Vanzilla. After eight grueling hours being away from his family, he can finally go home and see them.
If only he doesn't have to deal with the traffic.
"Maybe if I come in earlier, I can leave work early too?" he wonders, not that it's possible, since he's the one that drops Lori off at school, and he doubts that everyone else wants to wake up earlier for breakfast.
When he pulls out of the parking lot, he is met with plenty of traffic. Cars all lining up close to one another, as everyone leaves the office for the day. People try to get in his lane, or stall the flow of traffic, trying to get into another lane that they need or one that looks faster. However, the worst thing of all is the traffic signal, which always changes to red right after maybe three cars move.
He really hates traffic.
What's worse, as he sits in Vanzilla, he can see his coworkers, all frustrated and itching to get home.
He can't blame them at all.
Lynn Sr. stares out at the familiar road in front of him and all he can think is, 'Just a little longer…'
After a mind-numbing drive, he finally arrives home. He quietly opens the door and is met with the sight of the girls playing and Rita with Lynn in her arms. The girls notice their dad at the door and immediately run towards him to give him a hug.
Rita walks over to her husband, "How was work?"
He offers Lynn his finger, and sighs, "Too long. I missed you and the girls."
"We missed you too," she said before giving him a kiss.
"How was it? Were the girls well behaved?"
Rita looks at him but remains quiet. She's sure that he knows that it isn't easy caring for four young children, five once Lori got home from school, alone. Now, she knows that he's fine with a bit of the chaos that the girls cause, he grew up with a lot of siblings, it's normal, compared to her growing up as an only child. She could have told him that everything was fine. However, she doesn't want him to think that his help isn't appreciated, so she settles on, "It was tough. I definitely missed having you at home."
"I know," he says as he pulls her into a hug. "Hey, you know what'll make everything perfect? How about I cook us up a big dinner? What do you say?"
"That sounds nice."
Lynn Sr. tries to take his finger back from his daughter, "LJ, let go, honey. Daddy needs to cook dinner," but she doesn't let go. "She definitely has a strong grip."
"I know. You're probably not going to get your finger back until she gets bored with it."
"I hope it's soon," he says with a little dread in his voice.
Francisco glances into the kitchen from the window. He can see what's going with the kitchen staff. It's the usual sight that he's seen since the staff got its newest member. With actual training under her belt, Jan knows tricks that help make things easier and she's nice enough to pass on those tricks to the others. They ask her for advice, and most of it is stuff that can be found in her textbooks, but it's still new information for the group.
Of course, the poor thing gets frazzled during busy rushes, since she doesn't have much more than school experience under her belt. It also doesn't help when Lynn Sr. pops in to check on things. Despite his gentle demeanor, she still gets a bit nervous at his critiques, almost as if she's waiting for him to blow up at her.
It sort of makes Francisco wonder what culinary school is really like.
Then there's Lynn, who is studying the recipe card in her hands. While everyone is getting things ready, she's getting herself reacclimated to the kitchen, seemingly ignoring everyone else moving around her. Somehow, she hasn't bumped into them, which is definitely a feat in itself, but the rest of the staff is going to want her help instead of having her look around.
Francisco figures that he can give Lynn a few more minutes before talking to her, but then Jan walks over to Lynn. He doesn't know what to expect, so far, they only have a grand total of five minutes talking to one another, and Lynn hasn't said much about her. She could ask what Lynn's doing, ask her for help with something, or even ask for an opinion on a dish.
From where he's standing, he can't hear what was said, but Lynn follows Jan away from his sightline. All he hopes for is that everything goes well. He knows that Lynn will struggle to ask for help, and she's going to insist on doing everything herself, but maybe she'll change her mind once she gets to talking with Jan.
He figures that unless someone calls him, things will be fine, and he can go back to his office to handle some paperwork.
In the kitchen, Jan asks Lynn, "Can you help me get these plates onto the cart?" she asks, pointing to the clean dishes that are crowding Pete's work area. With a sink full of dishes, and more coming from the wait staff, he doesn't have much time to stop.
Lynn shrugs her shoulders and begins to help out, figuring that between the two of them they'll be able to finish quickly so that she can get back to work. The two quietly push the cart to the new location and begin to unload the plates.
She is about to walk away, but Jan calls out to her, "Wait!" She turns around and wonders what the younger woman wants, "Did you want some help with the changes made?"
Lynn quietly nods her head and goes along with her coworker, as she tries to teach her where everything has been moved around to. At some point, Lynn figured that her coworker would run out of things to say to her, but after the layout speech, came the new recipes. Based on the pictures, they looked pretty good, but now it means studying the cards, so that she'll be ready in case people want to order said dishes - definitely not something that she wants to do with her rare free time.
For the rest of the day, Jan tries to make conversation with Lynn, who quietly stares as she continues talking. She can't recall when she stopped listening in favor of staring blankly at the young woman, but she figures that if she nods and tosses in a few words in agreement, then she'll let her go back to learning the recipe in peace.
"So what are your plans for the restaurant?"
"What?" asks Lynn.
"Your plans for the restaurant," she repeats, "Your dad mentioned that he handed it over to you a few years ago, but you've kept everything the same."
Lynn shrugs her shoulders. She hasn't put much thought into it. Heck, just the fact that she's kept it for so long is a miracle, and she isn't going to mess with that.
But is that what she really wants to do?
Working in the kitchen isn't her dream, it's just a job that she took on so her dad wouldn't sell the restaurant. However, when Lynn looks over at Jan and can tell by the way she talks, the way she acts, that this is what she wants to do, that she seems happy in the kitchen, even when crowds start showing up in the dining area.
"I don't know…" is all Lynn could say.
If only that was the only question. For the rest of the afternoon, Jan seemed to be interested in getting to know Lynn. Luckily, it wasn't anything too personal and she shared some info about herself, but as the day goes on Lynn's head is filled with so much information - from new recipes, to interests and aspirations. It really began to make Lynn think.
At the moment, this isn't what she wants to do. She misses the free time that she once had before she inherited the restaurant, being able to spend her time however she pleased, not worrying about keeping the restaurant afloat for fear of everyone losing their jobs. As far as she's concerned it's a decent living, but it's not what she wants to do for the rest of her life.
Lynn looks around to see if everyone is busy, and when she gets a chance, she looks at the photo that Lily sent. She takes a deep breath and remembers that as soon as her shift is over, she and Francisco are going to go get Victor.
Later that afternoon, as she and Francisco are heading over to pick up their son, Lynn looks out the window at each passing house and car. Her mind wanders thinking Victor, then work, and back to Victor, Jan, the kitchen, and then her parents. She begins wondering if going back to work was even a good idea. Her mom didn't go to work after she and her older sisters were born, she was a stay-at-home mom until maybe Lincoln or Lucy were born, meanwhile, she's got a three-month-old and jumped right back when she could, and for what?
To be shown that the kitchen runs better without her and that she's not as happy with where her life is at the moment.
She shakes her head, trying to get those thoughts out before it latches onto her.
Francisco glances over at Lynn. He can tell that she's not entirely happy about how today went. She's been out of the kitchen for so long, that she was completely out of it. Not that it helped that things have changed since then. He isn't going to fault his father-in-law and Jan, the kitchen is running much more efficiently, and the orders are coming out in a timely manner, the staff is getting more creative and offering their own dishes to add to the menu and they're knocking it out of the park.
"How was the afternoon?" he asks.
He only had a few spare moments to check up on her through the rest of the afternoon, and he tried his best to stay out of her sightline, though he's not sure how successful he was. For the most part, Francisco noticed that Lynn was getting tired as the day passed, likely from being overwhelmed by everything.
"It was fine."
Francisco is sure that she's lying, but decides not to pry, figuring that he might be wrong or that soon enough, Lynn will break and tell him.
"That's good."
She knows that he saw her earlier today, he's not as sneaky as she is, but to give them both a bit of hope, she tells him, "I'm just gonna pick myself up and do it again tomorrow, and again and again..."
When I go back and read The Champ, I get reminded of how slow it started in beginning. I think about how I want to get to the more interesting parts in this story, but it can't happen without the build-up. It'll happen eventually, and for now, I want to thank everyone for their patience and for reading
