by Allie Gail
I furrow my brow suspiciously. “I don’t think my dad wants me talking to strangers.”
“Hmph.” The white mustache twitches again. “Normally I’d say that’s a good policy and all, but if you don’t mind my saying so, I don’t think your daddy’s anywhere around. Now is he?”
Tensing, I wrap my fingers around the strap of my bag, preparing to bolt.
The man sits back in the booth and lifts his hands. “Hey, don’t take off on my account. Ain’t none of my business what you’re doin’ here all by yourself. For all I know, you got a damn good reason for wanderin’ the streets in the middle of the night. Maybe you’re one of them vampires like you see in the movies. That why you ain’t eatin’ nothin’? You done turned into a creature of the night with fangs and all that?”
I raise an eyebrow.
He snaps his fingers. “I know. I bet you’re with the circus. You one of them circus folk? I sure hope not, ’cause just between you and me, I don’t trust anyone that associates themselves with the likes of clowns. Hate to say it but those things give me the heebie-jeebies.”
I know he’s just trying to make me laugh, but I don’t have it in me to find anything funny right now. “No, sir.”
“Well, reckon the only way to save you from talkin’ to strangers is introduce myself.” He holds out a hand. “Name’s Joe.”
“I’m…Lucy.” I shake his hand, but I am not giving him my real name.
“Nice to meet you, Lucy. Now are you gonna pick up a spoon and help me out with this thing or we just gonna let it melt all over the table for Penny to clean up?”
Relenting, I unroll some silverware from the napkin it’s wrapped in and pull out a spoon. I wait for him to take a bite first before digging in. He is eating the pineapple part, which is my least favorite. I like the hot fudge part best, then strawberry after that.
He doesn’t say anything else for a while, so I have nothing to do while I eat but study him. I think he looks exactly like Sam Elliott, the actor. He was in one of my favorite Christmas movies, Prancer. But this man is wearing a black t-shirt that has the fire department’s logo on it.
“Are you a fireman?” I ask timidly.
“Was for thirty-five years. Retired from that. These days I teach a class over at the fire academy.”
Wow…a real fireman. “Did you ever save anyone from a building that was on fire?”
His eyes crinkle as he smiles. “Yeah, a time or two.”
I am impressed. “Did you ever get burned?”
“Nothing too bad. We protect ourselves pretty well. Smoke inhalation was the worst thing to worry about.”
“Oh.” I take a few more bites before shyly telling him, “I’m glad you never got burned.”
“More ways than one to get burned, Lucy.” He looks at me kindly, and for a second I wonder how he is able to read me so easily.
“I guess.”
“Care to tell me about it?”
“Tell you about what?”
“Whatever’s burning you at the moment.” Putting his spoon down, he leans back and gazes through the window into the dark, empty parking lot. “Whatever it is you’re runnin’ away from.”
Inhaling deeply, I release a long sigh but don’t say anything.
“Tell you what. How about we make a deal. I’ll promise not to tell anyone where you are, not if you don’t want me to. But only if you’ll promise to level with me and tell me the God’s honest truth. Sound fair to you?”
I look up at him guiltily and softly confess, “My name isn’t really Lucy.”
“Kinda figured that. You don’t look like a Lucy.” Pushing the empty dish aside, he folds his arms over the table and studies me closely. “You know, you ain’t gotta tell me your whole name if you don’t want to. How about just your first name, so I know who I’m talkin’ to.”
“Leah.”
“See, now that’s better. You look more like a Leah. When I hear Lucy, I think of that bratty little girl who used to pull the football out from under Charlie Brown. You don’t look like the type who would pull a football out from under anyone.”
I try not to smile, but I can’t help it. He’s funny.
“So I’m guessin’ you ain’t sittin’ in a diner in the middle of the night because you pulled a football out from under someone?”
“No, sir.”
“Then maybe you’ll tell me what brings you here, Miss Lucy No-Name.”
I hesitate. “If I tell, you promise you won’t send me back? Cross your heart?”
“Cross my heart.” He actually crosses it.
And then, figuring I have nothing to lose, I start talking. I spill it all. I tell him everything, starting from the day of my birthday and recounting every miserable and lonely week since then, up to tonight’s fiasco, leaving nothing out. I tell him all about Renaldo and how my mother is trying to pretend that nothing is wrong and that I think she doesn’t want me anymore because I am a tomboy with a smart mouth and I have never been good enough at anything.
Joe never interrupts me once. He listens. He actually listens. And once I am done, when I have finally unloaded every single thing I can think of, only then does he make a move to speak.
I expect him to lie to me. Because that’s what grownups do, right? They tell you what they believe you need to hear. I wait for him to tell me not to worry, that everything will turn out okay and I should just trust that my mother knows what she’s doing. Because she’s my mother, after all.
But he doesn’t.
Scooping up one of my small hands between his rough, calloused ones, he pats it gently and says the last thing I would have expected.
“I’m gonna shoot it to you straight here, kiddo. Before you start actually believin’ that any of this is your fault. What your mother did…well, if you’ll excuse the language here, it was just plain shitty.”
My eyes widen in surprise.
“Yeah, I know,” he chuckles. “We’re taught to respect our parents and all that. And you should, don’t get me wrong. But adults are human beings too, and let me tell you, ain’t none of us perfect. We don’t always make the right decisions. Hell, sometimes we act more childish than the kids we’re supposed to be raisin’. And that sounds exactly like what your mother is doing right now. You gotta trust me when I tell you that you’re not the one who’s bein’ selfish here, Leah. By walkin’ out on you to chase butterflies that don’t even exist, she’s committed the most selfish act a mother can.
“Now, I can’t tell you everything’s gonna turn out the way you want it to. Chances are, that ain’t gonna happen. Your mother has made it crystal clear that right now, her dreams and desires are more important to her than anything else. I’d like to tell you she’ll come to her senses one day, but that would just be giving you false hope and what you need right now is a dose of the truth.”
Frowning, Joe rubs his chin thoughtfully before continuing. “The truth is, she may never be able to come back from this. Not even if she wants to. And that’s on her, not you. One thing I do know is that nothin’ you do will affect her decision either way. What she did, she did for herself, and it didn’t have a thing to do with you. Whether you’re perfect or whether you’re the most rotten kid ever born, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. Mothers aren’t supposed to walk out on their kids no matter what. So don’t you ever, for one single second, think that she left because of you. That just ain’t so.”
My chest aches. I can feel my lips trembling, but thankfully there are still no tears. I am glad. I don’t want to cry in front of Joe. It might make him feel bad and I don’t want to make him feel bad. Not when he’s been so nice to me.
“So I guess there’s just one question left, little one. What do you want to do now?”
Once again, I am surprised. He is giving me an option?
“I want to go home,” I admit. “But I’m afraid my dad will be mad. What if he makes me go back? I know it’s only for the weekend but I just can’t…”
“That
what you really think? That he’d send you back, knowing how upset it would make you?”
“I don’t know.” I pause to consider this for a minute. “No. I guess not.”
“Well, it’s up to you. I could call him for you, if you want me to.”
Stifling a yawn, I rub my Keds together. My feet are wet and cold and I have itchy mosquito bites on my legs and I am tired. So tired. More than anything, all I want is to crawl into my own warm, soft bed and sleep for a long, long time.
“Beats spendin’ the rest of the night in this diner,” Joe advises with a grin. “Or wanderin’ around out there in the dark.”
I bite my lip, wavering.
“Tell you what. What if I explain everything to your daddy for you, right up front. So you don’t have to.”
I perk up. “You’d do that?”
“Sure I would. That’s what good buddies are for, right?”
“Well…” There’s really no reason to put this off any longer. I can’t spend the rest of my life in this restaurant, after all, can I? “Okay.”
“Atta girl. I know you made the right choice.” Turning his head, he hollers, “Hey, Penny!”
The strawberry blonde comes bouncing through the swinging doors, a half-eaten piece of toast in one hand. “Yeah?”
“Lemme borrow your note pad.”
Reaching into her apron, she pulls out an order pad and pen and tosses them both on the table.
“How about writin’ your number down here for me,” Joe instructs. “And your last name, so I know who I’m talkin’ to when I get him on the phone.”
I do as he says, watching as he rips off the sheet of paper. Standing, he says to the waitress, “Do me a favor and keep Miss Leah company while I go in the back and make a phone call.”
“Sure, Dad.”
Wait. Dad? I look up at the man, stunned, and realize that he is hiding a grin beneath his thick mustache.
“You’re…that’s your daughter?”
“Yep. That awful waitress is my oldest girl, Penelope. Ain’t that a kick?” With a sly wink, he turns and wanders off through the double doors.
It’s 3:45 a.m. when Joe returns from making that call. I know because I am sleepily counting the Roman numerals on Penny’s wristwatch as I lean against her shoulder.
It’s 3:59 when my father arrives.
I think I may have dozed off, but the instant I hear the bell jingling above the door as it swings open, I am wide awake.
One look at my father’s anxious face is all it takes to reassure me that no, he isn’t angry. Of course he isn’t. He is worried, plain and simple. And I wonder – how could I have ever thought he wouldn’t understand? How could I have let myself believe that?
He is the one person in the world who could understand.
The one who’s been right there with me through it all.
Without saying a word, he gathers me up in his strong arms and holds me tight.
Only then am I able to cry.
Chapter Ten
“Do you not keep in touch?”
It was a simple enough question, or so I thought, but the way Leah has abruptly morphed from happy-go-lucky to ill at ease has me wondering if I may have inadvertently stuck my foot in my mouth.
When she finally responds, my suspicions are confirmed.
“I guess you could say that, seeing how I haven’t seen or heard from the woman since I was a kid.”
I know at this point I should probably drop the subject, but I can’t help wanting to press her for more information. Something about this girl intrigues me. I want to know everything there is to know about her. Find out what makes her tick. How she became the offbeat person she is.
Plus, it helps divert my attention from the shattered dream of an all-night fuckathon.
It’s like winning the lottery, only to find out someone lied about the numbers.
“And why is that?” I prompt her, trying not to openly stare at her thighs. That skimpy little nightie is doing one helluva number on my resolve to keep my hands to myself. “Uh…if you don’t mind me asking.”
She glances over at me with a shrug, her mocha-colored eyes slightly glassy from the alcohol. “You’d have to ask her. Me, I haven’t had the opportunity. She bailed on my tenth birthday and never looked back.”
Whoa. That wasn’t quite what I was expecting to hear. Maybe that they didn't get along or something, but this...
“You saying she split on you?”
“Yep.”
“Just like that? Out of the blue?”
“No warning whatsoever.”
“And…what, you never saw her again after that?”
“Oh, I saw her again. Once.” Squirming closer to me, Leah rests her head against my shoulder and I instinctively put an arm around her. “She came back a little over a month later, just long enough to introduce me to her sleazy new boyfriend. Being pretty mixed up about what was going on, I wasn’t exactly receptive and that didn’t make her too happy.”
“What the hell did she expect?” I mutter, shaking my head. Jesus…some people.
“She expected me to just smile and accept things the way they were, no questions asked, like a good little Stepford child.”
“I’m guessing that didn’t go over so well.” Knowing Leah, it was more likely a full-scale disaster of epic proportions.
“You might say that. She took me to the hotel where they were staying, and I ended up sneaking out in the middle of the night and running off. Luckily someone found me and called my dad. He came and picked me up. Oh man, was he ever pissed!”
“He was mad at you?” I ask, surprised.
“Oh, no – not at me. At my mom. See, she never bothered to mention that she’d brought her pervy boyfriend along. My dad just assumed she was there by herself. No way would he ever have let her take me if he’d known she had some strange man shacking up in the hotel with her.”
“Where’d she meet this guy in the first place?”
“I have no idea. He lived in Portugal so I’m guessing online, maybe? My dad and I were pretty much in the dark about the whole thing. There were a lot of questions that never got answered. All I know is, after Daddy brought me home he called her and cussed her up one side and down the other. After that, she never tried to contact either one of us again. Her lawyer handled the divorce. We heard through him that she was planning to get remarried as soon as possible. To Renaldo. Blech!”
“Renaldo?”
“Yeah. Trust me, he’s everything you’re picturing.”
“So that was that? She never tried to call or send you a Christmas card or anything?”
“Nope. Not a word. She changed her phone number, deleted all her social media accounts and dropped off the face of the earth. Well, not really – we did have her address in Lisbon since it was on the divorce papers, but I don’t know if she’s even still there. It’s not like I have any reason to look her up. She made it very clear that she was done with us, and that’s fine. We all moved on. No biggie.”
I hold her a little closer, touched by her sudden vulnerability. She seems to be trying awfully hard to downplay something that I know must have been traumatic for her.
Then I remember something else. “Does any of this have anything to do with the curse?”
“How’d you know about that?” She sounds surprised.
“Willow brought it up, remember? When you were talking about your upcoming vacation. You mentioned that your birthdays tend to bring about total calamity.”
“Oh, that’s right. Well, it’s true. Bad things always happen on my birthday.”
“They can’t always happen,” I protest.
“I beg to differ. They can and they do. I’d give you a rundown, but we’d be here all night.”
“It just so happens we have all night. How about an example? Start with your last one. What went wrong then?”
“Trust me. You don’t want to know.”
“Fair enough…tell me about the year before, then.”
“Year before last? Oh, please. I got off easy with that one. There was some kind of busted pipe or something and the city had to turn off the water until it was fixed. Picture it. No water. All day long. So much fun.”
This is her idea of calamity? Going one day without water? “You do realize that kind of stuff happens all the time.”
“Did I mention I had a nifty case of food poisoning at the time?”
“Oh-h…” I can’t help but chuckle at the sheer cringe-worthiness of her plight. “I can see where that wouldn’t be too pleasant.”
“Can you say understatement?”
“Gotcha. Moving on. What about the year before that?”
“Backed into a ditch. Did quite a lot of damage to my car. Took months to pay off the repair bill.”
“Damn. How’d you manage to do that?”
“It was dark and I couldn’t see behind me. Took out a mailbox, too.”
Sounds about right. “And the one before that?”
“Let’s see…if memory serves correctly, that was the year of the Great Underwear Heist.”
“The what?”
“This is a crazy one. It started when my washing machine decided to commit suicide.”
“Okay, I’m with you. Washing machine croaked.”
“Well, wouldn’t you know, practically everything I owned was dirty. So I hauled my laundry downtown to the laundromat, figuring it would take less time to do it there than washing just one load at a time at my parents’ house. But I got bored waiting for it to get done so I walked down to the dollar store to look around and when I came back, everything was gone.”
I am trying very hard not to laugh here. “Someone stole all your clothes?”
“Not everything. They were nice enough to leave behind one lonely little sock. By the way, that reminds me – do you still have the clothes I left at your house?”
Grinning, I avoid her question by insisting, “I want to hear about last year.” This is getting more interesting by the minute. After all, how much bad luck can one person consistently have?
“That would be the infamous YouTube video.”