Rowana's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Rowana spread her savings across the kitchen table and counted it three times. Enough to buy the empty diner on Main Street. Enough to feed every cold, tired person in town comfort food, like her mother taught her. But not enough to make a single mistake. She was seventeen. She could braise short ribs and bake bread from memory. She had never tracked a dollar in her life. Her dog pressed his black fur against her leg. She scratched behind his ears, but her eyes stayed on the stacked bills. "If I buy the stove and the dishes, Caver, I don't know what's left for food. I don't know what's left for anything." The numbers slid around in her head and refused to sit still. Snow ticked against the window. Her mother came in slowly, apron tied over her skirt, one hand on the doorframe for balance. Vivian was thinner than last winter. The sickness had taken her strength but not her sharp blue eyes, and those eyes went straight to the mess of money. "You're guessing," Vivian said. Not unkind. Just true. "A kitchen you can run blind. Money you cannot." She lowered herself into a chair and reached for Rowana's hand. "Go for it, baby. But don't let the counting beat you before you cook a single plate." Rowana's throat tightened. "I don't know how to count it. That's the whole problem." The front door opened. Her father stamped snow from his shoes and shrugged off his coat, white shirt and suspenders underneath. Harvy ran the bank. He had been working late every night to help pay for her dream. He saw the table and set down his leather satchel without a word. "How much to open?" he asked. "How much per week to stay open?" "I don't know," Rowana admitted. "I only know I can cook." Harvy pulled out a chair and opened the satchel. He took out a plain green ledger, the kind the bank used, and slid it in front of her. "Then we learn the rest tonight." He uncapped a pen. "Money in. Money out. Every day, one line. You skip a line, you go broke." For two hours they worked. He showed her how to list the stove, the plates, the first week of flour and meat. He drew a column for every dollar earned, a column for every dollar spent. Vivian corrected the food costs from memory, naming prices Rowana had never thought to ask. By midnight the ledger had a page. A real one. Rowana could see, in her own handwriting, exactly what the diner would cost and exactly what it needed to survive each week. She closed the book and held it to her chest. "I can do this now." Harvy nodded, then tapped the final figure. The weekly number was higher than she had feared. "You can," he said. "But you'll have to open soon. Your savings cover six weeks empty. After that, the diner has to pay for itself."