Chapter 3

"What's going on now?" I asked Cecil.

"Mr. Armstrong and the vendors outside got into a fight!" Cecil said.

"Clement's back?" I said, surprised.

"Yeah, just got back. Took one look at all the food stalls out front and blew up."

"He wanted the vendors gone, they wouldn't leave, so he started flipping their stalls, and it turned into a brawl."

Cecil said it grinning from ear to ear.

I didn't know whether to laugh or shake my head.

I went downstairs with Cecil.

There was Clement, with a pack of his cafeteria staff.

He was squared off against a crowd of vendors, both sides shouting insults.

Off to one side, a food stall had been knocked over onto the ground.

The whole area was a mess.

Onlookers ringed the scene, plenty of them still holding food in their hands.

The second Clement saw me, his teeth clenched all over again.

"Carly, we're family, whatever else. You wouldn't let me raise prices, so now you're teaming up with outsiders to come after me?"

I frowned.

"Back when your restaurant downtown went under, I got you the spot here to open the cafeteria, and I lent you a million dollars to start it up."

"To help your business, I switched the staff meal stipend to meal vouchers so everyone would eat at your place."

"And you turned around and treated my company's people like dirt, shorting their portions more and more, and now you want to hike the voucher price by fifty percent."

"You tell me, is that any way to treat family?"

The moment I said it, the crowd around us started jeering.

"He's an ungrateful snake, greedy and rotten to the core!"

"Clement's Cafeteria should just shut down already, or there's no justice in this world!"

"Don't worry, Ms. Pruitt, from now on we've got your company's meals covered!"

The vendors were even more worked up, like they'd all closed ranks against a common enemy.

They'd all taken turns setting up their stalls downstairs before.

Business had been pretty good.

But Clement had run every one of them off, half sweet-talking, half strong-arming.

Now they'd finally gotten to vent it all out.

Clement had no comeback for any of it, his face flushing from purple to green.

"Fine, fine, we'll see about this!"

He stormed back inside with his cafeteria staff, seething.

But before long, a whole crowd of officials showed up.

City inspectors, business regulators, people from every department.

Clearly Clement had filed complaints against them.

But the vendors had kept the place spotless and orderly.

They'd even cleaned up the stall that had been knocked over earlier.

So there was nothing to write them up for.

The officials gave a few reminders and left.

Clement had been waiting at the cafeteria door to watch the show.

Seeing how it went, his face went from purple to black.

The entire dinner hour, the cafeteria stayed empty, dead quiet.

Outside, it was buzzing, like an open-air market at festival time.

I had Cecil arrange for someone to talk to the vendors.

We invited them to open stalls in the cafeteria of our company's new office building.

Rent-free for the first year, but the quality had to be guaranteed and the prices reasonable.

By the end of the night, more than twenty vendors had jumped at it and agreed in principle.

I also told Cecil to speed up the company's relocation.

That day I worked late.

I was just packing up to head home.

My phone suddenly rang.

It was Gerald Armstrong.

"Carly, what is wrong with you, ganging up with outsiders to squeeze out your cousin's cafeteria?"

"If it weren't for your cousin's cafeteria before, your company's people would've had nothing to eat. Now you want to kick him to the curb once he's served his purpose?"

"Your aunt and I doted on you your whole life, and it turns out you're nothing but an ungrateful snake!"

He kept railing at me, not giving me a single chance to speak, so I just hung up.

Ha. When I was little, Bertha Armstrong bullied my mother constantly, and none of you ever gave me a kind look, and you dare say you doted on me?

But right after that.

The family group chat blew up too.