by Cora Black
“I’m okay. Just distracted. That’s all.”
“You still thinking about that waitress?” He grinned.
“What’s she got to do with anything?”
“Oh, come on. Ever since that night at the diner you’ve been different. I figured you’d get her outta your system and everything would be okay. I guess I was wrong. What is it about her that you can’t get her outta your head?”
I wanted to tell him how wrong he was, that I didn’t have her in my head. I wanted to tell him she didn’t mean anything to me. It would have all been a lie.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know why I can’t get rid of her.” My shoulders slumped. I wanted to put my head on the table, I was so fucking tired. I hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep all week.
“Shit, man. That’s rough. But you’ve gotta get rid of her sometime. You know that, right?”
“Of course I do.” That time the anger came out in my voice, and I didn’t try to hide it. I didn’t need him talking to me like I was some kind of child. “Like I don’t know that. Like it’s not fucking killing me inside that I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“So why don’t you go and do something about it?”
“Like what?”
“Like going back to the diner, dumbass. Talk to her. Figure out what it is about her that you can’t let go of. You never even told me what happened between you guys that night. If I knew more, maybe I would be able to help you.”
I hadn’t told anybody, mainly because I didn’t think anybody needed to know. Maybe Chase was right, though. Maybe he would be able to talk me through it without me having to go back to the diner, which was the last place in the world I wanted to go to. If she saw me there, I didn’t know what she’d do. I remembered the way she’d pushed me away, and all I knew was I didn’t want to see that look on her face ever again.
I told him about her asshole ex-husband, the way he’d been hurting her when I walked into the kitchen, the way he’d threatened her. Chase listened to everything with a blank face, eyes hidden like they always were. Then I told him about the kiss. His mouth curved into a smile, and I knew what he was thinking. He stayed quiet, though. I had to give him credit for that.
“So that’s what happened. Beginning to end. She told me to go to hell, and I left, and there you were, and we came here. End of story.” I sat back in my chair, shrugging. “So, doctor. Tell me what my problem is.”
He grinned, shaking his head, but the grin disappeared pretty fast. “Okay, here’s the thing. I didn’t think I was gonna be able to help you—not really. I mean, I could give you a little advice, tell you there were plenty of fish in the sea, yadda, yadda, whatever. That ain’t the case here, though. Not after what you just told me.”
I leaned forward, arms crossed on the table. “Well?” I asked, waiting for him to go on.
“You might not like what I’m gonna say. I don’t need you getting all pissed with me or anything.” His old, weathered fingers tapped on the table. He had the same callouses I did, except the hair on the backs of his fingers was white, while mine was still dark.
“I think I’m a big boy. I can handle it.” I braced myself and reminded myself he was only trying to help.
“Okay, here it is. It’s natural that you can’t stop thinking about her. There’s nothing weird about it. You wanna save her. Plain and simple.”
“That’s it?” I asked once he had stopped talking. “That’s your big wisdom? I wanna save her? What, I have some hero complex?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about hero complexes. You got further along in school than I did. All I know is she’s in trouble. You wanna help her. Any of us would wanna help her, I think, if we walked in on her shithead ex hurting her like that. Shit, I wasn’t even there and I wanna shove the bastard’s head through a wall.” Chase’s fists clenched.
“I know. You have no idea how bad I wanted to do it, too. I kept thinking, if I could only tighten my arm around his throat…”
Chase grinned. “Yeah, I can see how you’d wanna. A stronger man than me for not doing it. So you’re worried about her. Hell, I’m a little worried myself. How’s she gonna get out of it? How’s she gonna move on with her life with him threatening her? You said it sounded like he was serious.”
“Oh yeah. Real serious.” I could hear his voice in my head like he was standing in front of me. Telling her she would be sorry. You’ll get what’s coming to you.
“So, yeah, you’re worried. Okay. Even more reason for you to go back there, find out what’s up. Maybe even see if you can help somehow. I’m not sure how…though we have our ways…”
“Don’t think I didn’t already think about that.” I had been thinking about ways to kill him all week. We knew people who specialized in things like that. Real professionals. In and out in no time, with no evidence left behind. “The only thing is the owner of the diner saw the whole thing between us in the kitchen. So there’s a witness who could testify that I once met him.”
“Well, hell.”
“I know.” We both sighed, thinking.
“You should go,” Chase decided. “Even if you think she’s gonna spit in your face, you’ll know she’s safe and still able to spit in your face. Sometimes that’s all a man’s got in the world.”
I had to laugh. “Spoken like a man who’s had a lot of women spit at him.”
“And I deserved it every time.”
I laughed again, standing. Then I stopped laughing when I remembered something she said to me. “Remember when I told you it was trouble that happened back in the kitchen that night? I never told you what I mean. She thinks he’ll make trouble for us. He’s super connected or something. Eric Cantrell.”
“Oh shit.” Chase sat back down with a heavy thud. “Yeah, he could be a real pain in the ass. Oh shit. You had to go picking a fight with him.”
“Me? I didn’t pick a fight. Besides, you just say here saying you wished you could put his head through a wall.”
“I still do, only now I’d make sure there were no witnesses when I did it, and no way to identify the body when I finished the job.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s a super-rich asshole with everybody in the city in his pocket. I mean it. You name ’em, he’s got ’em. Judges, lawyers, politicians, everybody.”
“Oh great. So she wasn’t just making that up. He could start shit with us.”
“Hell yes. If he hasn’t already, we don’t know it yet.” Chase looked up at me, his wrinkled forehead even more wrinkled than usual.
“I held off from hurting him because I wanted to do what was right for the club. I didn’t know doing anything at all would be bad for us.” There I went, fucking everything up, just like I always did.
“Calm down. It might not be that big of a deal. We’re guessing at all of this. He probably didn’t even get a good look at you, or any of us. This was all coming from her, right? He didn’t threaten you or the club?”
“No, it was all her.”
“Don’t worry about it, then. Go ahead, find her. See if she’s okay, see why you can’t forget her. Get it out of your system, okay? Because the club needs a vice president with a good head on his shoulders. You’ve got a good one—or you did, before you lost it. Get it back.”
“I will,” I promised.
***
The ride to the diner was familiar not because of the trip we took there the week before, but the times Mom had taken me there when I was a kid. I wasn’t joking when I told the guys I wasn’t sure if the place would be open anymore. It had looked ancient even when I was five years old. Twenty-five years hadn’t done it any favors, but there was something to be said for the memories that came up when I saw the neon lights from the sign in the distance. The few good memories I had of my mother before the drugs took over everything that used to be good about her.
I couldn’t think about that while I rode, though. I could only think about Kara. Would I screw things up with her, too?
Would I make her life even worse, the way I had ruined Lauren’s? Was her ex even angrier with her because of me? If he took it out on her, I would never forgive myself.
The diner’s parking lot wasn’t very crowded, but it was Sunday afternoon. I couldn’t imagine who would be there for a snack. A Friday or Saturday night, sure. Lots of people went in to soak up the alcohol with greasy food. When I was a kid, I could drink all night long, eat a double cheeseburger with bacon and a full side of fries, go to sleep right after and wake up feeling like a new man. At thirty, I had to take a Zantac before eating anything spicy. That kind of drinking and binge eating might have killed me.
I pulled up out front, looking in the windows as I walked up the ramp to the front door. I didn’t see her, but I guessed she could be in the kitchen. I did see that other waitress, that Darlene woman. She’d be able to tell me something, even if Kara wouldn’t.
Darlene’s face showed surprise and a weird sort of understanding when I walked in alone. “Just you tonight, hon?”
“I’m not here to eat, but thanks. I was looking for Kara. Is she here?”
Darlene’s face looked just the way it did when Eric was in the kitchen with Kara, and she didn’t want to tell me anything about it even though she knew she had to. “What is it?” I asked, looking in that direction. “Is she back there?”
“No, she’s not. She’s not even here, actually. She hasn’t been here all week.”
I stared at her. “All week? Not once? Is that normal?”
“No, of course not. She needs the money like crazy. She’s…no. I can’t tell you. It’s not my place.”
“Darlene.” I followed her as she walked to a table to drop off a check, then stood in front of her when she turned around so she couldn’t get past me. She huffed. “Please let me by.”
“Not until you tell me what’s up with her.”
“I don’t know all the details, and that’s the truth. Okay?” She finally gave up and took me by the arm, leading me to the counter. There weren’t any customers sitting there, so it was pretty private. “She hasn’t been in all week because of him. Okay? She won’t tell me why. She won’t tell Charlie why. She just says it has to do with him. I mean, I went to her apartment this week to drop off some groceries…”
“You went there? And she was okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, she seemed fine. So did the kid.”
“That’s good to hear.” At first I thought maybe he had one of his girlfriends call, pretending to be Kara, calling out of work, when he had done something to her.
“But she still wouldn’t give me any details, you see, and I did try. You don’t know how hard I tried.” Darlene looked like she was about to cry. I patted her on the shoulder, feeling like an awkward ass, but it looked like it meant something to her that I tried at least.
“Did she say when she’s coming back? I mean, she needs the money, right? She can’t stay away forever.”
“I know, I know. I’m worried sick about her, really I am.” I heard Darlene’s name called behind me. She waved to a customer. “I’ll be right back,” she said. “Just sit here.” I did like she said while she rushed off.
So she was gone all week, and she said it had to do with him. Why would she stay home because of him? Was he threatening her? Had he hurt her, and Darlene just didn’t know about it? Maybe he was following her around and she knew he would attack her at the diner again? None of my theories sounded any better than the others. They were all trouble for Kara.
“So? What do you think?” Darlene asked.
“Is she gonna lose her job if she doesn’t come back soon?”
“Oh, God, no. Charlie loves her too much. She’s a good waitress, too. I know that isn’t saying much…”
I waved her off. “It’s not easy. I get it.” I thought it over. There was only one thing I could do. I looked at Darlene, wondering if she would go along with me.
“I need Kara’s address,” I said.
She looked just as nervous as I had known she would. “Oh, gee, I don’t know about that.”
“Come on. Please.”
“Listen, I know you wanna help her, but…I mean, she’s gonna be pissed enough when she finds out I was talking to you about this. She’s a very private person. She doesn’t want anybody knowing her business. And between you and me, I think she blames herself for a lot of what went down between her and that asshole. A lot of women get that way, you know?”
Yeah, I knew what it was like to blame myself for something. More reason for me to want to talk to her, at least.
“I’m worried about her, Darlene. Now, either you give me her address so I can maybe protect her, or you worry about pissing her off. Meanwhile, anything could be happening to her right now.”
“Don’t you do that. Don’t you put that on me,” she whispered.
“It’s true, though. What are you more worried about?”
“I don’t want to violate my friend’s privacy.”
“And I promise, I’ll tell her you put up a fight before you gave me her address. I swear it.”
She grimaced, but pulled out her order pad to write down the address. “God, she’s gonna hate me for this. But you’re right—I would hate myself even more if anything happened to her and I didn’t help her in any way I could.” She pulled the sheet from the pad, smirking. “You’re good, you know. You should’ve been a lawyer.”
I laughed. “Yeah. Well, I’ve had enough experience with them.”
She blushed when she realized what I meant.
Chapter Ten
Kara
After getting off the phone with Mom, it was a quiet afternoon. There was never anything good on TV on Sundays, and we’d gone through every single movie in our collection over the course of the week. We stuck to reading stories together instead. Emma was getting better every day when it came to reading her simple little books, though there was more than once that I caught her making up the stories as she went along based on the pictures she saw on each page. I was more than happy to let her go at it. How much longer would I get to have her as a baby after all?
How much longer would I get with her? No. I couldn’t allow myself to so much as entertain the thought of losing her to Eric. It was an impossibility, plain and simple. She was my little girl, not his. He was only her biological father, part of her genetic makeup. She might have gotten his nose, the curve of his mouth, but did he know the songs she liked to sing during bath time? Did he know how to cut her sandwiches? Did he know her favorite food? Color? Movie? Book? Did he know she was afraid of the dark and needed a nightlight at all times? No. He’d never bothered to find out either. I couldn’t let him ruin her imagination, her spunk, her need to know things. He would never, ever have the patience to sit and answer her endless questions. He didn’t love her. He only wanted to make me suffer. I was so sure of it.
I leaned in, taking a whiff of my daughter’s freshly-washed hair. She smelled like Johnson’s baby shampoo, but something else, too. Something entirely her. I could never quite put my finger on it. I couldn’t get enough of whatever it was.
Naptime couldn’t have come soon enough. I loved my daughter, but an entire week with her had started taking its toll on me. I needed a little quiet time. Darlene had been kind enough to include two bottles of wine in my grocery delivery. I made it a point to ration them carefully, since I didn’t know when I would next be able to get my hands on any. Money would be tighter than ever after missing a week of work.
“I love you, sweetheart.” I smoothed the dark, baby-fine hair back from Emma’s temple before kissing her forehead. She was so sweet, so loving, and so sleepy. She curled up in a ball, arms around her favorite teddy bear.
“I love you, Mama.” She closed her eyes, a resigned note in her voice. I realized just then that she hadn’t asked all day if she would go back to school in the morning. I wondered if she already knew. Had she heard me talking with Mom? Or did she sense it somewhere deep inside? I wouldn’t have put it past her to f
igure it out on her own.
My thoughts sent me straight to the kitchen for a glass of wine. I savored the first sip of the cold, crisp Chardonnay, then sighed when I realized how important that glass of wine had become. Who was I?
I walked to the living room, swirling the wine in the glass. I used to drink a lot of really nice, expensive wine when I was with Eric. Just another one of the little extravagances he’d assured me were only for my benefit. The wine had become a crutch after a while, one which I’d had to monitor carefully from that point forward. That was something he’d never picked up on, the drinking. The eating, yes, and he’d bothered me incessantly over it. But not the drinking. I would still have a glass of wine with dinner, especially if we went out—something which became less and less likely over time. Otherwise, I’d cut out the glasses I used to drink alone, while he was on a business trip or golf outing or anywhere else. The wine I would drink to dull the incessant aching of my heart.