Page 41 of Tumbleweed Temptation
“Oh, all I hear is Austin Driscoll comes back here with his ideas and costs me money.”
Ginny frowned. “For one, I thought you liked Austin. And for another, wouldn't you want a doctor to be interested in preventative care, not just worrying about care after people are already sick?”
Janine snorted. “I do like Austin, except he seems hell-bent on trying to take you away from me.”
Ginny lifted a conciliatory shoulder. “We work well together, and he’s always challenged me to do more than I think I can do. But he’s not taking me away. This is just something we’re working on outside of the office. But listen. This part is fun.” She leaned her elbows on the counter. “We want to have a contest, like one of those cooking shows. We open it up to the public, give them parameters, provide the ingredients and the cooking space, and have them come up with healthy recipes. Then each of the restaurants hosts a different competition. We have an audience, kind of, to sample what they’re cooking. Then the winner gets their recipe chosen to be reproduced by the restaurant for that week, and that draws in new customers. It’s a win-win. I have it all in here.” She held up the spiral.
Janine started the coffee maker. “How can you have an audience? You’re going to put everyone in the kitchen?”
“No, just the contestants will be in the kitchen. The audience will be out here, waiting for the results. And they’ll taste each of the offerings and vote on the best one. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“And when are we going to do this?” Janine crossed the room to unlock the front door.
“Well, we’re rotating restaurants, and we’re giving each competition a different theme. Like, healthy dinners, healthy breakfasts, healthy desserts, healthy food for a busy night.”
“That’s four nights, and there’s only three restaurants in town.”
“Maybe Hailey can do two nights. She and Delgado’s have nights where they close. But you have the most space.”
“Have you talked to Mr. Delgado yet?”
“No, because I wanted to talk to you first, and he mostly speaks Spanish, so I’m going to have to get Javi to help.” Which meant she was going to have to explain it all over again to Javi. She needed to make bullet points, add that to her spiral.
Mr. Johnson walked through the open door, their regular first customer. Automatically, Ginny picked up a cup and filled it with coffee to carry over to him.
“What do you think?” she asked Janine before she delivered his coffee.
“I think no one is going to want to do it. We have what we do on the menu because people like to eat it. If they don't like something, we take it off the menu. And I don't think anyone’s going to want to play in your little game.”
“Can you consider it, at least? I mean, we can go ahead and do all four competitions at The Wheel House, and then she can be the one with the exclusive recipes.”
Ginny knew she was hitting below the belt there. Janine hated giving Hailey a leg up on anything.
“We’ll see,” Janine said.
*****
AUSTIN WAS GLAD HEand Sofia had a calmer day than he and Ginny had had—his first such day since he started, to be honest—but he missed seeing Ginny. He wished they’d had an easy day so they could have talked more. But he at least was going to have a normal lunch break, and he would treat Sofia, also.
Together they walked over to the diner, even though she mentioned Delgado’s, and he thought he could probably talk to Mr. Delgado about the idea of the competition, but he also wanted to hear what Janine had to say.
And he wanted to see Ginny.
Lunch was a pretty busy time, and they had to wait for a table to be bussed before they could sit in Ginny’s section. A couple of empty spots remained at the counter, and Janine motioned them toward them, but Austin shook his head. He wanted to sit in Ginny’s section and see if she’d made any progress with Janine. They had a safety plan with Hailey, but he really wanted to include everyone in this effort. The more healthy options people had, the better.
But even when they were seated, Ginny didn't come help them.
Janine did.
“What can I get for you today?”
“A couple of teas in to-go cups. Ginny busy?”
“She is.” Janine placed the menus carefully in front of each of them.
“Did she talk to you about our plan?”
“She mentioned you had an idea.”
