gaze flew to the window over the sink, and Gabi didn’t miss the shuddery breath she inhaled. “But he’s better now. Soon, he can—”
“No, he can’t. Not yet, not for a while, and you know it.”
She hated to push, aware how much it would upset her mother, but she had no choice. As long as she was in Lyndon Point she could take on the management, including the bookkeeping and accounting, of the pizzeria. But before she left, and she would as soon as she could, she had to have someone in charge. Mama had run the dining room like a smoothly oiled machine for years, and at all of fifty-two, she was nowhere near too old to handle the expanded responsibilities—no matter how she tried to avoid work she didn’t feel suited her talents. After all, these weren’t normal times.
Although Gabi didn’t doubt her mother’s capability for even one moment, her mother had taken advantage of Papa’s insistence on pampering her over the years. But this couldn’t be circumvented. He needed them to step up.
“You do want to help Papa, don’t you?”
Mama sighed. “Yes, but—”
“Good,” Gabi cut in. “So here’s the deal. I have a good idea what we need to do to turn this around. For one, we have to be careful with costs—”
“Bah! Everything too expensive all the time now. How they want people to live, every time a dollar more here, ten more there?”
Oops! That hadn’t been where she’d intended the conversation to go. “Um, yes, and that’s why we have to be smarter than the economy. It means we need to make a few...ah...adjustments. I have some ideas that should help.”
Mama turned back to her, eyes narrowed. “Ideas?”
“Yes, ideas. We can adjust things a little and jump on current trends. I think we could tweak Tony’s a little and turn it into the perfect Italian bistro. Bistros are everywhere, and doing very well. If we did that, we would bring in customers from Seattle, and we wouldn’t have to count only on Lyndon Point residents. They can only eat a steady amount of pizza.”
“Bistro? Seattle?”
From her mother’s tone of voice, one would think Seattleites were nigh unto Venutians or something. This wasn’t the way Gabi had hoped her suggestion would be received. Before she could press her point, though, her mother scoffed.
“Bah! Tony’s is pizzeria, not bistro. It does fine.”
Gabi turned her notebook toward Mama. “Not so fine these days. Take a look at the numbers. We’re barely making a profit after you pay all the bills. Papa’s medical costs are high, and they could wipe you out if we don’t change something.”
Her mother gave the pages nothing more than a brief glance and a dismissive wave. “But—”
“You know what I’m talking about, Mama,” she said. “Remember that TV show you like so much? The one where the restaurant expert walks into a place that’s about to go under, changes everything that’s wrong, and then opens it up again, only better? That’s what we need to do with Tony’s.”
A momentary hesitation told her Mama at least was thinking about it. Then she said, “Tony’s not failing, Gabriella. We no need the Brit. È troppo—too much, that is. We do make money like we are.”
“Nowhere near enough to keep you and Papa going.” She tapped the open notebook with her index finger. “Here. You have to take the time and look at this. Carefully.”
As her mother read the figures, the color in her face vanished. She shook her head slowly as she continued to stare. Then she snapped the notebook shut and met Gabi’s gaze, her jaw firm, her shoulders stiff.
“Fine. Change what you want, but not Tony’s. It’s a pizzeria. Always was.”
Before Gabi could come to grips with that kind of logic—or lack thereof—Mama stood and marched away, mumbling something about it being time for Papa’s medicine.
Frustrated, she collapsed back into the kitchen chair. Now what?
Reality hadn’t changed, even though her mother had said she could change whatever she wanted. But what could she really do, since in her next breath, Mama had put the brakes on any meaningful change?
Where did she go from here? “Lord...? Is Mama in denial or just stubborn? I think I know what I have to do, but help me out, please. Show me how to reach her, how to win her over to my way of seeing things. Or they could face financial disaster in no time at all.”
The more Gabi thought about the situation, the more clearly she saw only one way out. Change had to happen. Even Mama had recognized that. But the only way to make a significant difference would be if Gabi moved forward with her ideas. Mama would see how much better everything was once the changes were made. Wouldn’t she?
Sure, she would.
After all, Gabi was the one who’d done all kinds of traveling in the past five years. She’d seen a whole lot more of the country during those trips than her mother had in twenty years or more. She knew best.
Calling up all her courage, she came to a decision. She was going to forge ahead. Even after Mama’s declaration. Her parents needed it. They needed her to rescue them.
* * *
“Zach!” Claudia called from the waiting room of the shelter. “Just talked to Ryder. He’s got the permits ready to go for the street. The Adoption Fair’s jelling into place with every minute that goes by.”
He didn’t look up from the shelter’s latest rescue. This one had been brought in with a severe skin condition due to months of neglect of her coat and hygiene, rotten teeth and diabetes. He needed to trim off the worst knots in the matted hair to keep the clippers from pulling too hard when he gave the sad little girl the much-needed buzz cut.
“Have you notified all our foster families?” he asked.
“Letters went out last week,” his right-hand woman answered from the doorway where she now stood. “Email alerts out yesterday, and I plan to call them all the day before the event. That should do it. They should all be at the fair to show off their fosters.”
“Sounds good.” He leaned closer to the stray to look at the hot spot he’d discovered. Poor thing had to be going crazy from the itch and pain. Once he cut off all the tangles that pulled at the root of the hair, she should be able to heal.
Satisfied with his inspection, if not happy with the dog’s condition, he glanced up at Claudia. “Did you ask the foster families to get the word out to their friends and neighbors? We need forever homes for these guys. Just look at this one.”
Claudia knelt at his side, her prematurely pewter hair falling in a sleek cascade close to the dog. She grabbed it back with one hand, and let the rescue lick her other hand.
“If I didn’t already have five of my own, I’d take her home with me tonight.”
He shook his head. “Ha! Don’t even think of it. I like Rick, and don’t want to get on his wrong side.” He grinned at the thought of the burly navy officer. “Your husband’s no pushover, you know? Those muscles don’t bode well for me if I do. Besides, I remember him telling you no more strays after the last adoption.”
Standing, she laughed. “Don’t give me that weakling routine. You’re no slouch, yourself, boss. I’ve seen you keep right up with Rick on that canoe, and let’s not forget you beat his socks off when we went skiing. About the adoptions, he’s said no more of them ever since the first one. Just like he said no more kids after the first one.”
Zack arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t know that. I guess you must have been the one with the...oh, let’s call them wishes for abundance. Five of each is a far shot from no more than one.”
She shrugged, a mischievous grin brightening her smooth, copper-colored skin. “He saw the light after I invested in a lot of prayer, and a whole lot of