With Vincent no longer under my roof, I threw myself into work even harder. Every spare moment I had, I grabbed a stack of the restaurant's business cards and went door to door through every office building in the neighborhood, hoping to draw in the lunch crowd.
And it paid off.
One company placed a standing order for fifty boxed lunches a day, with the condition that no menu items could repeat within a five-day workweek. If I met their standards for a full month, they'd sign a long-term supply contract.
Fifty lunches at twenty dollars each meant a thousand dollars a day. Even counting just twenty-two workdays a month, that was an extra twenty thousand in revenue.
That was how I managed to scrape together the five thousand dollars a month for Caroline.
But busier meant more expenses, so I hired another server.
Every morning, I was up at four to hit the wholesale market and prep ingredients. After the cook finished the dishes, I packed the containers myself, sealed them, and ran deliveries. At eleven-thirty at night, I locked the doors, washed the dishes, and mopped the floors.
I grew more exhausted. More gaunt.
Godfrey still came in to eat, just a little less often.
He never paid.