“Awesome job! I can see the counter,” Steve said as he approached with a heavy load of dirty dishes.

“But not for long,” Kate replied. “Where was this stuff hiding?”

“Hiding?” He set down the bus tub. “Dude, it wasn’t hiding.”

Just like Steve wasn’t hiding another goofy grin. Now, at least, she knew what was up.

“No biggie,” she said. “I’m game. Bring it on.”

And he did. Two more tubs soon joined the first.

“Is that the end of it?” she asked.

“Dunno. There might be more,” Steve said before ambling off.

“How’s it going?” Laila asked when she arrived with yet another stack of dishes a couple of minutes later.

Kate gestured at the mess. “Could be better. I’m not sure I get the rhythm of this place.”

“And that, my new friend, is where the third nugget of wisdom comes in.”

“Which is?”

The older woman smiled as she added her contribution to the mess. “Ask Steve once you’ve caught up.”

Another dishwasher might have whimpered, but not Kate. She was made of sterner stuff. Craftier stuff, too. After feeding another couple racks into Hobart, she took a quick glance around the kitchen. The servers and the cooks were all out front, too wrapped up in their current conversations to be paying attention to her. She quickly stowed the three remaining unwashed tubs on the floor, in the open area beneath Hobart’s exit ramp.

She’d barely had time to hide her grin, too, when Steve arrived with another load. He did a double take at the clean counter.

“Wow! Did you really get through all those dishes, Tink?”

“Tink?”

“Short for Tinkerbell. You made that stuff disappear like magic.”

Tink wasn’t the sort of nickname she wanted to encourage, but she’d have to deal with that later.

“Just doing my job,” she said, knowing that his view of the dirty tubs was blocked. “And Laila said you’d share her third restaurant hint with me as soon as I was caught up. So how about it?”