by Sam Mariano
That helped her decide she must have just dreamed she told him he had a pretty smile. Surely if she would have complimented the man he would have softened toward her a little, right?
Saturday rolled around, and Julie dreaded it, even though she only had one party. She was home by two o'clock, so she took a shower—even though there was no water pressure, she tried to enjoy it—and then thought about what to make for lunch.
The ringing of her cell phone took her mind off the pro/con list between making broccoli and cheese and munching on some saltine crackers vs. ravioli—ravioli required cooking tomato sauce, which seemed to make Poppy Seed very unhappy, so that one had been losing anyway.
But when she picked up her phone, she saw the same number that had called her the week before, so she answered, not sure whether to expect Leigh or Aaron.
"Julie?"
It was Leigh. "Hi, Leigh."
"I'm surprised you haven't already learned to ignore this number when it calls you on a Saturday—everyone else seems to have picked up on that."
Smiling, Julie asked, "Did someone call off again?"
"Yep," Leigh replied. "She said it was last minute…she has to take her sister to the doctor."
"What time do you need me to come in?"
"Yay! My second favorite flavor of Lifesaver! Can you come in four to eight?"
"I've got nothing better to do," Julie answered honestly.
"You're the best, Julie. Thank you so much."
"No problem."
Honestly, even if it was work, Julie was relieved not to have to sit at home like a loser for the second Saturday night in a row, passing out before eleven while she read a book.
Riveting stuff—that was her life in a nutshell.
Plus, she only had one more eligible book to read before she ran out—well, basically ran out. Technically she had Girl with a Pearl Earring left too, but she wasn't about to read that one—the topic made her too agitated, and when she went to sleep in a bad mood she was having really weird dreams, so she was attempting to keep the reading light.
When Julie went in at four, she saw that other than herself, it was just Leigh and Aaron working, then of course the cook and dishwasher in the back.
It worked for her. She really didn't care for Debbie—who clearly didn't care for Leigh, and Julie couldn't figure out how anyone could dislike Leigh—and she didn't seem to work enough to really get to know any of the other waitresses.
Everything seemed to be running really smoothly –like it usually did when Leigh and Aaron were both working—even though it was a relatively busy night and Julie still kept forgetting how she was supposed to describe the Reuben sandwich.
Then, as it approached seven o'clock and began to slowly wind down, a single customer walked in the door.
Julie glanced up, plastering on a smile for the petite girl who had walked in, and she went to grab a menu.
Leigh's hand shot out toward Julie and all she said was, "Don't."
Julie's jaw dropped open as she saw something she had never seen before in her life—pure hatred all over Leigh's face.
Leigh was capable of hatred? And by the looks of it, not typical hatred, but a deep, burning kind of hatred. If Julie didn't know Leigh better, she might expect her to spring across the café and lunge at the girl's throat.
Even though she had no clue what was going on, Julie knew she had to get a better look at anyone who could have that kind of effect on Leigh, the sweetest person in all of Chicago.
Looking back at the girl who had walked in, Julie took a typical female inventory. The girl was short, maybe just about five feet, give or take an inch, and she had beautiful bright red hair that flowed down her back, almost to her butt. Donning a lovely white sweater and a pair of jeans that hugged her curves, the girl seemed to be displaying the slim perfection of her curves in a way that just wasn't fair to any other girl in the room. She had blue eyes, you could tell even from a distance, and the cutest dimple in her left cheek as she smiled, brilliant white teeth standing out even against her smooth, porcelain skin.
She was beautiful.
Her blue eyes were still shining, her cute little smile in place, and even not knowing her, even knowing she must be bad if Leigh didn't like her, Julie felt the urge to just go talk to her, to bask in her glow.
Then a cold breeze interrupted all thoughts of glowing as a stone cold Aaron –even colder than Julie had seen him before, which she found impressive—walked over to the register, barely sparing the stunning redhead a glance.
"Are you ordering?" he asked a bit rudely.
Leigh's eyes narrowed as if daring the girl to say yes and give her some reason to be brutally attacked.
"Hi, Aaron," the girl said.
Even her voice was lovely. Talk about unfair.
Torn between watching Aaron be colder to someone than he was to her, and prying information out of Leigh, she tried to compromise by nudging Leigh and keeping an eye on the counter interaction.
Leigh glanced over at Julie as if she had just remembered she was there—and she probably had—then Leigh sneered, "Shannon Hamilton."
At hearing her name, the girl glanced over their way, but when she met Leigh's gaze her smile slipped for a second, then she quickly looked away, turning her attention back to Aaron.
Leigh was seething beside Julie, and Julie was too intensely curious to move from where she stood, seemingly rooted to the ground.
"How have you been?" asked the girl named Shannon.
"Great," Aaron responded, not looking up from the tablet and the register he seemed to be putting orders into.
Julie wondered what he would do if he ran out of orders to put in the register.
"Did you need a table?" he asked shortly.
"Oh, I am not waiting on her," Leigh whispered furiously to Julie. "If she sits, you have to take her. We're not doing it."
There was a slightly protective twist on "we're" as she informed Julie of that piece of information, and Julie filed it away to contemplate on one of her lonely late nights.
"It's rude to whisper, you know," the redhead said, a sharp edge to her voice as she turned to glance back at Leigh, a look of animosity in her formerly clear blue eyes.
"I'm sorry," Leigh said, walking over to the counter. "Did you want me to refuse to serve you a little louder?"
Julie gasped, her eyes widening at the first rude interaction she had ever seen from Leigh.
Shannon scoffed. "Excellent service, Aaron. I give it two thumbs way, way up."
Suddenly, she wasn't looking quite as pretty as she had before she opened her mouth.
"Well, there are plenty of other places to eat in the city, Shannon. If you don't like the service here, you're welcome to leave," Aaron stated.
Since Aaron was backing Leigh up, the redhead seemed to retreat. "I wanted to… come in and say hi."
"Hi," he said dryly. "Mission accomplished."
With that, he seemed to be out of things to do at the registers, so he walked away from the girl into the back.
Shannon stood there a bit awkwardly as Leigh stared her down. After a few seconds, Shannon muttered, "I see you haven't changed. Still Aaron's little pit bull."
"Someone has to watch his back for vicious snakes like you," Leigh responded.
"Ugh, you wish," the girl said unkindly. "Like I would have let you serve me anyway—you'd poison me just to get me out of the way."
Scoffing, Leigh said, "I don't have to get you out of the way, sweetie, you did a fine job of that yourself."
"That was a long time ago, okay? Back off."
"You think he forgot what you did to him?" Leigh asked on a laugh. "He'll never forget, and he'll never forgive you, so you've wasted your time coming in here—why don't you go outside and stand on a corner where you'll feel more at home?"
"Very clever," Shannon said sarcastically, her eyes narrowing.
"Oh, come on, surely someone would hang a five dollar bill out the window—it could be a pr
ofitable night for you. More than you’re worth, that’s for sure."
Julie couldn't keep from smiling; she didn't know what had gotten into Leigh, but as sweet as Leigh was, it just made her insults seem very funny to Julie's ears.
The redhead smiled tightly, but before anything else was said Aaron came back up front with salt and pepper, and he began opening up salt and pepper shakers at the counter and refilling them.
That was Julie's job, she realized, and only then did she finally frown.
What kind of person must this Shannon be that she had muddled Aaron's thoughts to the point that he was doing Julie's job. He hated Julie.
"You know, I don't work at Subway anymore," Shannon said, moving closer to the counter. "I didn't know if you had been in there lately, but I left. I'm actually working up at Walgreens now, the one up by the ice rink—you should stop in and get a slushie sometime. I remember how you love slushies," she said, smiling a warm smile as she sat at the counter.
Looking closer, Julie saw that Aaron's jaw was locked so tight that she was actually concerned he might break it.
"Are you ordering?" Leigh snapped. "This area is for paying customers only."
Shannon let no annoyance show on her face as she said, "Sure, I'll take a cup of coffee. Two cream, one sugar," she said quietly to Aaron.
Aaron finally glanced up, sighing, and he glanced at Leigh, but then he just turned around himself, grabbing the coffee pot and turning back to the redhead, turning her coffee cup over and filling it up.
"Cream and sugar's right there, you can help yourself," he stated.
"So, you're working here now? I thought you liked your other job," Shannon said conversationally.
"I don't work here, I own here," he stated evenly, less emotion in his tone than when he spoke to Julie.
Leigh must have finally remembered there were still a few people left, because it seemed that she had to use a lot of will-power to pry herself away from the redhead to go check on her customers.
"Wow, that's great," the girl responded.
Intrigued, Julie ran over and grabbed the pan of creamers, then she began refilling the creamers at the tables right by the counter so she could still listen.
"You never stopped in to see me when I worked at Subway, either," she said to him. "I had hoped you would."
"Did you really expect me to?" he asked flatly.
"No," she said quietly, her voice remorseful. "But I was hoping that you would find it in your heart to maybe forgive me someday."
He scoffed then, a harsh sound, and said, "Heart? That's funny."
"Oh, don't play tough with me, Aaron. I know you too well for that."
"Knew me too well," he corrected. "You don't know me at all anymore, Shannon, and I'm planning on keeping it that way."
"I know that I hurt you—”
"It doesn't matter what happened in the past, okay? It just doesn't. Drink your coffee, leave Leigh alone, and Julie will cash you out when you're finished. Have a nice life," he said, and with that, he disappeared into the back.
The girl named Shannon sat there on her stool stirring her coffee forever, and Julie began to wonder if she would ever leave.
Forty minutes passed and the girl sat there stubbornly, but Aaron didn't come out and Leigh never approached her again. It was as if she existed to no one in the café—except for Julie, who got stuck awkwardly coming over to ask if she needed anything else.
The girl merely smiled tightly, shaking her head and responding, "No, thanks. I'm just going to wait for Aaron."
But Aaron never came. In fact, when Julie had no one else to wait on she went looking for him, and she searched every nook and cranny of the café, but Aaron was nowhere to be found.
He had left.
He had actually left.
Julie was in awe that there was, in fact, someone in the world that Aaron seemed to hate more than Julie herself—this Shannon Hamilton person.
Obviously she was an ex, but as she tried to picture stone-cold Aaron with the fiery redhead on the stool, it just didn't seem right.
Of course, Julie didn't know the story.
Julie wanted to know the story—really bad.
The last man left the dining room so that all that remained was the redhead, and Julie took the opportunity to run back to where Leigh was hiding to try to pry some gossip from her.
"Who is she? Do you know Aaron is gone? Like, he actually left."
Leigh nodded, but without her usual smile on her face she looked strange. "I told him just to go ahead and leave, I'll close up."
"Doesn't he usually close up every night?"
"Yeah, but I open Sunday mornings anyway, so it's not a big deal. Once the side work is done I won't have too much to do when you leave. Can you just try to get that done before you go?"
Nodding, Julie said, "Yeah, of course. I can stay a little longer if you need me to."
Leigh shook her head. "No, it'll be fine. I can do it, just catch up all the side stuff and you can go whenever your shift ends…or whenever she does, but if she doesn't leave by eight I'll probably just kick her out."
"Who is she?" Julie asked.
"Just some dumb whore," Leigh stated, then she turned her attention to whatever she was writing in pencil on the clipboard.
Man, that Shannon girl really knew how to bring the place down, Julie thought as she walked back out to start on all the side work she hadn't gotten around to doing yet.
It was exactly 8:02 when Leigh finally came out of hiding, sat the clipboard down and said, "You need to leave, we're closing up."
Looking slightly startled, the redhead said, "But your sign says you're open until—”
"The sign lied," Leigh stated. "Aaron left anyway, he isn't coming back, so you may as well go. He doesn't want anything to do with you, he never will. Just leave him alone. You've done enough damage."
"It's really none of your business, is it, Leigh? You probably shoved Aaron out the door—wouldn't want him to have a chance to actually talk to me, now would you?"
"Get out, you stupid bitch," Leigh said.
Looking a little surprised, the redhead stood, but she didn't look like she was done. "I made a mistake, Leigh."
"Damn right," Leigh agreed without hesitation. "Now you can leave, and don't come back—you're not welcome here."
"I don't think you have the authority to ban me from this restaurant," Shannon said, her eyes twinkling.
Leigh smirked, her eyes hard. "Bet me."
Shannon lost her smile, and her expression turned vaguely annoyed. "Whatever. The coffee was cold anyway, and since you made Aaron leave…" The redhead opened up her little purse, asking, "How much do I owe you?"
Julie was about to tell her the actual cost of a single cup of coffee, but before she could Leigh said, "Three forty-nine."
Her perfect eyebrows shot up. "For a cup of coffee?"
"Yep," Leigh stated.
Rolling her eyes, the girl dug in her purse. "Whatever, be a bitch, doesn't really matter to me." Then the girl put three dollar bills and two quarters down on the table, saying, "Keep the change."
With that, Shannon Hamilton got up and walked out the doors—and Julie found herself hoping it was the last time.
Glancing tentatively at Leigh, Julie ventured, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Leigh said, her voice a little tired. "If all your stuff is done, you can go. I've got this from here."
Nodding, Julie said, "Okay. Well, I'll see you Monday."
Forcing a slight smile, Leigh said, "Yeah, Monday. Have a good night, Julie."
"You too," Julie responded, grabbing her coat and her purse and offering one last wave before she made her way out the doors as well, almost eager to get home and see if Aaron was there.
---
He wasn't home.
She didn't know why she had expected to see Aaron there when she got home, but unless he was hiding in a closet, he definitely wasn't there.
Where was he? If he hadn't gone
home when he left work, where had he gone? Then again, where did he ever go? She didn't know.
Still, it seemed that with that Shannon girl coming in and him leaving, he would be home.
Then again, maybe he had been there, but he left before she got home.
Without him there, all she had to do was sit there and wonder what kind of evil things Shannon must have done to Aaron. Maybe that was why he was so mean—maybe he had been hurt so badly that he became embittered. Sometimes that happened to people.
Without all the facts, she knew that she could make up all kinds of stories in her head about the hated redhead, and she knew she was probably bored enough to do it, but before she could color her opinion of the situation with her imaginary situations, she decided just to turn the TV on.
As the hours ticked slowly by, and the reruns ran together, she wondered when she should actually get worried. Surely he would have to come home, right? And if he didn't, what did she do? He had never neglected to come home at all before, but it was getting late. Checking the clock once more, she verified that it was creeping close to one a.m. and her eyelids were beginning to feel really, really heavy.
Still, despite his obvious feelings about her, she felt she needed to be there and be awake when he got home. She wanted to show her support—even though she couldn't put her finger on why. All things considered, it should probably be the redhead she was sympathizing with, because she certainly knew what it felt like to feel the frostbite from Aaron's cold shoulder.
Since she kept feeling herself fall asleep on the couch, she decided to go into Aaron's room and curl up in his bed for two reasons. One: if he came home, he would wake her up if she was in his bed, so she could show her solidarity. Two: if he didn't come home at all, she got the bed for the night.
Turning the television off, she yawned and moseyed into the bathroom to brush her teeth, then she went in and climbed into Aaron's bed all by herself, pulling the cool blankets up around her and sighing contentedly. He had such a comfortable bed—or maybe it just felt comfortable in comparison to her boat.
Julie the face painting pirate and her boat bed.