A thundering crash echoed through the empty kitchen when a towering stack of brand-new, stainless steel sauce pans toppled over.
"Damn it," Tracy mumbled just in time to step out of the way of impending disaster.
The stack of cookware, worth thousands of dollars, slammed down onto the red tile floor so hard that the individual pieces flew off in every direction.
By the time that the last piece stopped clattering and dancing, Tracy could feel the rising tide of frustration in the pit of her stomach. There wasn’t much time left before the restaurant- her restaurant- was set to open and it felt like absolutely nothing had been done. The kitchen needed to be set up, the employees still needed to be finalized, the design crew still had to finish work on the dining room and, what made Tracy more nervous than anything, there was her appointment to meet with her new head chef: Gordon Baxter.
An esteemed chef with dozens of prestigious awards under his apron, Gordon had only agreed to work for Tracy for a salary that ate up much of the restaurant’s start-up budget. If she couldn’t get a constant stream of people coming in the door, there was no way that she could afford to keep him on the payroll.
Of course, Tracy knew that her lover, self-made billionaire Paul Hayes, wouldn’t even bat an eye at forking over hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep her afloat. He had done exactly that, paying off all of her bills just for a chance at being with her. But, as their relationship started to grow, she found herself less and less interested in what his money could do for her. Having all of those bills off of her back was the most liberating thing that she ever experienced. In the back of her head, however, there was always a nagging feeling of guilt.
With both hands’ fingers splayed out, she ran her finger tips through her long, loose hair and leaned back against the shining stainless freezer door. Once there, she let herself slide down onto the floor.
"What did I even do to deserve all this?"
After kicking away a stray pan- though most of them were stray at that moment- Tracy closed her eyes and squeezed all of the hair near her scalp in two firm fists. The tight pulling helped to quell the thundering migraine that had been lingering behind her right eyebrow for days.
Worse yet, her dream-world visions hadn’t happened in even longer; almost a month.
She let the hair uncurl from her digits and began to massage her temples with one thumb each. There was so much stress in her life; so much to deal with all at once. Surely that had to be the cause, because the alternative made Tracy literally feel ill. To have that kind of power, to be able to see people's dreams, and then have it ripped back away was the cruelest sort of joke.
On the other hand, it was one less responsibility that she had to put up with.
From the back, a loud clanking of a different sort made Tracy open her eyes and look up, where she was met only by the blinding white halogen lights overhead.
The knocking repeated it’s self.
"Hello?"
It was Mr. Hayes, his voice heavily muffled by the heavy back door. Tracy slapped both hands onto her knees and forced herself upright.
"I’m coming! One second."
She dragged her feet around the corner and threw all of her weight against the door, which popped open with yet another clatter. Waiting on the other side with a bottle of wine and a smile from ear to ear, Mr. Hayes held his arms out for a hug.
Past where he stood, the clear sky had turned into a silky shade of deep navy blue. It had been almost noon when Tracy arrived, so the darkness that had fallen caught her a little off guard.
"Hey there," he tried to meet her distant gaze. "How’s it going?"
Tracy blinked slowly and looked to her right, where the remnants of the saucepan avalanche were still plainly visible.
"It’s going."
Mr. Hayes let his arms drop and walked in through the door. He peered around the corner for a moment then turned back to her with a look of concern painted across his face.
"Are you okay? Did you get hurt?"
"No, no." She shook her head and reached a hand out to his arm. "The stack just fell over. I’m fine. It’s just that this headache is killing me."
After setting the bottle of wine down on an empty storage rack that was destined for cases of fresh vegetables, Mr. Hayes wrapped his arm around Tracy’s sunken shoulders.
"Still? Hasn’t it been a few days now?"
"Yeah. I mean, I think so."
He tightened his grip and started to lead her through the kitchen.
"You know, I can have someone come in and do all of this for you without all the stress."
The two pushed through a set of swinging doors and into the dining room. When they got there, Mr. Hayes carefully guided her toward a seat.
"No," she said with a firm tone and let herself sink into one of the few dining room chairs still down on the ground. The rest had been carefully flipped and placed on the table-tops to make sweeping and mopping easier. "You know that I don’t want the help."
Mr. Hayes held both hands up like he was trying to prove that he wasn’t armed. "Okay, okay," he said softly. "I take it that you won’t be wanting any wine, either?"
Tracy looked up to him and scrunched her eyebrows together to get a good look at him. The fog of pain had spread into her vision, making the periphery look like cloudy pools of water. Even when she spoke up again, her words were slow and careful.
"I don’t need any wine. Between this and not getting enough sleep, I already feel drunk."
"I see," he replied plainly, moving around her until he was standing behind her chair.
With both of his large hands, Mr. Hayes reached down and began to massage the throbbing cluster of muscles between Tracy’s neck and shoulder. With each of his thumbs, he made wide, sweeping movements over her shoulder blade.
Tracy groaned with approval, so he continued.
"When is your appointment with Gordon?"
"Tomorrow morning," she sighed.
"Are you nervous?"
She closed her eyes and let her head sink forward with a quiet, "Mmhmm."
By then, the hard rubbing had turned her into putty in his hands. With every powerful sweep that he made, Tracy’s head would bob up and down before falling back down to its original position. As the massaging continued, she could feel some of the tension starting to melt away, though an overwhelming urge to sleep quickly took its place.
Even though the visions had stopped, her dreams, which were filled to the brim with fantastic nonsense and awful monsters that were seldom seen, made every night both fitful and restless.