Hello, Sunshine

“I haven’t not enjoyed seeing your fall from grace, considering that you slept your way to where you are now, as I suspected all along.” She paused. “And the truth is you give a bad name to us real chefs who are actually trying to make a difference.”

“You make toast. You know that, right?”

Her phone rang, an annoying pop song blaring through. “Hold that thought.”

She picked up. “Hello?” she said into the phone. “Yeah, on the corner. Duane.”

I followed her eyes to a taxi making its way down Greenwich Street. “There’s my boyfriend,” she said.

The taxi stopped right in front of us, and out stepped a tall, handsome guy in jeans and a T-shirt.

“Hi, A,” he said, making his way toward Amber.

“Hi, sweetie.”

It took a minute to place him.

It was the cameraman—the one who had filmed the behind-the-scenes shoot for A Little Sunshine, the one whom Ryan had been jealous of. The one whom he had fired.

It took him the same minute, his eyes widening, as he looked my way. “Holy shit,” he said. “Hey there . . .”

My heart started pounding. I waved hello, not saying anything.

Amber looked back and forth between us, enjoying the moment. “That’s right! Don’t you two know each other? Charlie worked for you, for a couple of days. Actually, just a day, because you fired him.”

Charlie shot Amber a look. “Amber, what are you doing?”

I turned to Amber, keeping my voice low. “Amber, I had no idea he was your boyfriend.”

“Well. Now you do.”

She leaned into Charlie suggestively and kissed him hello.

“Sunny and I were just talking about how careful you have to be. Who you’re nice to, who you fire. Especially when you fire them for trying to stay loyal to their girlfriend.”

“Ryan fired him.”

“Because you asked him to,” Amber said.

I looked at Amber in disbelief. That wasn’t at all how that had happened, but she certainly wasn’t going to believe it. That was the trouble with being a liar. No one trusted your truth.

Charlie touched her shoulder. “Amber, I want to go,” he said.

She kissed his cheek. “We do have a reservation.”

“At the restaurant you can’t remember the name of? How will you ever find it?”

She smiled. “We’ll be okay,” she said.

She took Charlie’s hand, and they started walki

ng down the street.

Then Amber turned around. “By the way . . . if you asked this person, the person who did this, I’m guessing they’d say it’s less about revenge and more about something else.”

“And what’s that?”

“Loyalty,” she said.