Sweet Girl Read Online Free Page A

the time I finish closing out that night, it’s nearly three in the morning. I’m exhausted from a heavy shift and probably from the argument with Brody earlier too. I mean to drag myself right back to the hotel’s employee parking lot and straight home to bed, but my feet start to move in a different direction. I pass the entrance to Gander and wind down a series of employee hallways before coming out into a small side lobby. I skirt the fountain and walk through the elevator bank and past the gift shop that doesn’t have a single thing that costs less than a hundred dollars.
    I find myself in the exact same spot I end up almost every working night.
    The lobby of the Buchanan is cavernous but broken down into unique individual sections, so it manages to feel cozy. When the hotel was remodeled six years ago, the owners shocked everyone (and by everyone, I mean people like my family, who follow the hospitality industry like others follow sports or politics) by luring Marcus Balmain away from a restaurant in New York. In a totally unprecedented move, they handed nearly their entire lobby over to the famous young chef and gave him carte blanche over everything from the budget to the design. Nobody believed any single menu was worth that kind of financial gamble, but with a James Beard award and two Michelin stars under his belt, Balmain had proved them wrong. For the owners of the hotel, it was a visionary move in a town that was rapidly being overrun by wannabe foodies. The men in my family scoffed at the salary the chef had negotiated as part of his deal. But six months into the new opening, there were lines out the door and press by the bucketload, and Brody, Liam, and Dad were trying to figure out how to steal Balmain away for themselves.
    On the far side next to reception sits Primi, which features dark whimsical furnishings and austere elegance. Its long tables and leather sofas are typically teeming with people enjoying drinks, appetizers, and a wine list you’d need a special degree to fully understand. Tucked next to Primi is the entrance to Secondi, the hotel’s five-star restaurant and crowning glory. Reservations are booked six months out, and even then you’ll likely be eating at five thirty on a Tuesday unless you know someone in management. And last, in front of me now, a pink haven sits in the middle of the room, bright and sweet like a dollop of whipped cream. This small collection of marble tables, French Regency prints, and ornate, gilded chairs has no place in the otherwise brooding lobby. Its purpose is to stand out, to tantalize, and it does. Behind those tables is an open kitchen separated from the rest of the room by a long white bar. This bar doesn’t serve alcohol, though; it’s covered with apothecary vases of every shape and size, and each is filled with one of the perfect handcrafted desserts that Dolci is famous for. Balmain designed the three spaces to function together so that guests might flit from one spot to the next and, by the end of the progression, have a complete dining experience.
    Just like every other time I’ve stood here, I watch through the glass as the early crew starts their work for the day. This is just the prep team; the actual pastry chefs won’t come in for a couple hours yet, but I still can’t help but watch as they practice the minutiae of spinning sugar into something delectable. Eggs are cracked and separated, brown sugar is measured out into giant mixing bowls, and so much flour is sifted at once that it hovers in the air like fog. I have the urge, like I always do, to walk through to the back and see it all up close. I want to know exactly how much butter they use in their flaky tart crusts or what the hell they put into the fleur de sel cake that makes it as addictive as crack.
    But that urge comes from the memories of another person entirely, and I ruined her dreams along with everything else. So I don’t walk back; I don’t acknowledge the crew at all. I