Chapter 3 - The Price of Being Kind| Priya’s cut required three stitches.
The restaurant’s first-aid attendant arrived with a medical kit, but Dela insisted on accompanying the young server to the urgent-care clinic across the street. Before leaving, she found Marisol in the kitchen and explained what had happened.
Marisol listened without interrupting.
When Dela finished, the older woman wiped her hands on her apron.
“Puit is going to punish you.”
“I know.”
“He’ll cut your best shifts. He’ll put you on the worst tables. He’ll make you regret opening your mouth.”
“Probably.”
“And you still did it?”
Dela looked through the kitchen window toward Priya, who was sitting on a stool with her hand wrapped in gauze.
“She looked exactly like I did at nineteen.”
Marisol’s expression softened.
Dela rarely talked about her childhood. Most of the staff knew only that she had grown up outside Chicago, worked through community college, and sent money to someone who needed it more than she did.
“What happened when you were nineteen?” Marisol asked.
Dela folded the clean cloth she had been holding.
“My mother worked two jobs. I worked nights at a diner. One evening, I dropped a tray because I hadn't eaten since breakfast. The manager told me to pay for the broken plates.”
Marisol frowned.
“You were a child.”
“I was old enough to work, apparently. But not old enough to make a mistake.”
“What did you do?”
“I paid him.”
“Dela.”
“I didn't have a choice. Rent was due, and my mother needed medication.”
Marisol said nothing for a moment.
Then she reached across the counter and squeezed Dela’s wrist.
“You should never have had to choose between kindness and keeping a roof over your head.”
Dela smiled, though the expression did not reach her eyes.
“That's why I don't want Priya learning that lesson from Puit.”
When she returned to the restaurant, the evening rush had nearly ended.
Puit was waiting near the staff entrance.
“Office. Now.”
Dela hung up her coat and followed him.
His office overlooked a narrow service corridor, not the glamorous skyline guests saw from the dining room. A framed photograph of the restaurant’s opening hung behind his desk. Puit stood beneath it with the incident report in his hand.
“You embarrassed me in front of the owner.”
Dela blinked.
“I didn't know he was the owner.”
“That doesn't make it better.”
“Would it have been better if I knew?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Do you enjoy being difficult?”
“No. I enjoy doing my job.”
“Your job is to serve guests, not question management.”
“Then management should stop creating situations that require someone to intervene.”
Puit slapped the report against the desk.
“You think you're indispensable because a few customers like you?”
“No.”
“Good. Because you aren't.”
He opened a drawer and removed a printed schedule.
“Starting tomorrow, you're moved to the lunch rotation. Your Thursday evening section is reassigned. Your hours are reduced to twenty-four a week.”
Dela stared at the paper.
Thursday evenings were her best shifts. They paid for her rent, her mother's prescriptions, and the community college tuition she was slowly saving to finish.
“You can't cut my hours because I helped an injured coworker.”
“I can revise the schedule according to business needs.”
“And this is a business need?”
“This is a consequence.”
He slid the paper toward her.
“Sign the acknowledgment.”
Dela did not take the pen.
“Will Priya be charged for the bottle?”
“That's none of your concern.”
“Then I won't sign.”
Puit leaned forward.
“Be careful, Dela. People who mistake stubbornness for integrity usually discover the difference when their bills come due.”
She picked up the schedule and folded it once.
“My bills were due long before I met you, Mr. Puit.”
She walked out before he could answer.
At the service station, her phone buzzed.
A message from Priya appeared.
I’m sorry you got in trouble because of me.
Dela typed back:
You didn't cause this. Rest your hand. Tomorrow is another day.
She stared at the words for a moment before sending them.
Then she slipped the phone into her pocket and returned to work, unaware that a second copy of the incident report had already reached Julian Rock’s private office.
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And unlike Puit, Julian was not interested in punishing anyone.
He wanted to know why a restaurant he owned had become a place where decent people were afraid to do the decent thing.
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