Taco Ballz Deep- Chapter One: It's a Going to be a Very Good Day

Una Gold was having a great day. She didn't mind that it was 9 am on a Sunday. She had just been hired as an assistant manager at Taco Ballz, a restaurant known for its deep-fried nacho balls. This was a major step up from her last job as a dishwasher at a local deli. Although she may have made a few deliberate omissions to achieve such a position in her resume to get the job for which she had already forgiven herself. Still, everything was coming up aces for her. For the first time, her hair fell exactly the right way when she was styling it that morning. She even finally found her favorite yellow polo shirt that fit her just right and it had no wrinkles despite being rolled up in her extra fitted sheet for the last month. When she was en route, all the intersections she drove through on her moped had green lights. The summer air was warm and smelled of fresh-cut grass. Una was delighted to walk into the restaurant and get to business.

She walked through those doors and went straight up to the boss's office, Mr. Owens, who was the man who had conducted her interview last Tuesday. Only Mr. Owens wasn't in there like he said he would be, no one was. Una walked around looking for who had unlocked the restaurant's doors and whose rusted grey Honda Civic was parked outside. She came across a man from behind who was taking down old promotional posters by the storage room. He nearly elbowed the confused Una when she approached him. "Jez!" He let out when he almost bumped into her as he was turning around. "You can't just sneak up on a guy like that, you know?!" He said to her. Una trying to put her best foot forward held out her hand and introduced herself, "Good morning. I'm the new assistant manager Una Gold. And who might you be?" She asked. The man answered, "I'm Miro Wolfgang. I'm the manager here." Una unable to contain her glee replied, "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Wolfgang!" Miro was very handsome. He was 6'2 with short curly dirty blonde hair, piercing blue eyes that could make a woman's clothes fall off if he caught her gaze the right way, and one hell of a devilish grin.

"So you're the new hire my uncle sent to help me shut down this place? Here do me a favor and hang this sign up on the door, would you?" Miro said handing her a printout that read "Out of Business All Taco Ballz Half Off Regular Price" Una was crestfallen. "Shut the place down?" She questioned looking at the sheet of paper Miro had given her. Miro half paying attention to her explained, "Sure, the place hasn't been in the green since before COVID. As if times weren't hard enough, no one wants to eat here because some kid found a dead mouse in his milk carton a few months back." Una recalled hearing about that on the news when it happened. Upon learning that piece of the restaurant's history Una vocalized her visceral reaction with "Eww." Miro went on, "Yeah, we should have stopped doing business with that vendor years ago. But what are you gonna do?" Una walked to the front and hung up the sign.

When she came back to the kitchen Miro was setting up the grill. The heat of the day was already making him have glistening cheeks and her as well. Una wanting to make the best of things asked, "Well, I'm not sure where to start. I've never shut down a restaurant before. Where do you want me?" Miro giving her the run down told her, "We have a few regulars that are probably going to stop in after we open at eleven. In between that, we are going to finish packing up and cleaning whatever we can for when I turn over the keys to my uncle tomorrow. The storage room has been cleaned out for the most part and all the other employees have already found new jobs elsewhere, but that's it. It's just us here until we close at ten tonight. Any questions for me?" Una picked up a broom that was leaning against the counter and said, "Nope. Let's get this started!"