Rainer grunted. It was as close to agreement as he offered before service.
Anika worked Friday night with her nerves filed to a point. Delia was at home with Ellis and a stack of library books about fermentation that Ms. Brantley had recommended, plus a novel about a girl detective that Delia loved because the detective was wrong half the time and still kept going. Anika seated guests, smiled, recovered a lost credit card, and avoided the kitchen door as if it were a cliff.
Near nine, Patricia asked her into the office again. Rainer stood there with a printed page.
“Draft conditions,” Patricia said. “For your review. Not a contract of employment. A supervised tasting and technique hour, proposed for next Saturday at three, ninety minutes maximum. You present the entire time. Delia chooses whether to continue after thirty minutes. No public announcement. Staff who gossip outside get written up. Rainer?”
Rainer handed Anika the page. His handwriting in the margins was sharp. He had added: No knives beyond demonstration. Heat managed by chef. Student observes first, participates second. Questions encouraged. Praise rationed.
Anika almost smiled at praise rationed. It sounded like him. It also sounded, strangely, like respect for a child’s reality instead of a marketing arc.
“I’ll take this home,” Anika said. “Ellis and I will talk. Delia gets a voice. Miss Odette gets a voice. You get an answer by Wednesday.”
“Wednesday is fine,” Patricia said. “Earlier is fine. Never is fine.”
Rainer met Anika’s eyes. “I was condescending to her before I listened. That was ugly. I don’t require a Saturday to correct my manners, but I would like a chance to teach her something that isn’t born from my mistake.”
Anika held the paper carefully, as if it could crease into a future too heavy. “We’ll see.”
Saturday—the Saturday of the week of the incident, not the proposed tasting—passed in ordinary family weather. Ellis took Delia to the laundromat because the apartment machines were broken again. Delia read fermentation footnotes while the dryers tumbled. A woman folded towels and complimented Delia’s braids. Delia said thank you and meant it. She helped Ellis carry the baskets up the stairs and argued, lightly, about whether sour dough starters counted as pets.
“They are science,” Delia said.
“They are pets that try to kill you with neglect,” Ellis said.
Anika slept later than usual, then woke and reread Rainer’s conditions at the kitchen table with coffee. She annotated them. She added a line about school nights remaining untouched. She added a line about Delia’s right to refuse any task without explanation. She crossed out a phrase in Patricia’s draft that said exceptional young talent and wrote person learning instead.
When Delia came home smelling like warm cotton, Anika showed her the paper.
“You don’t have to want this,” Anika said. “Wanting it doesn’t make you disloyal to me. Not wanting it doesn’t make you small.”