by Elia Winters
Jacen frowned again. “You okay? This isn’t like you, home on a Friday, video chatting instead of going out. I swear, you’re here all the time, now.”
“I live here, Jacen.” She carried the tools she’d used back to the closet, then stripped out of her shirt on her way to take a shower.
“Well, let me know if you change your mind about coming with us,” Jacen hollered down the hall. “I don’t like to see you moping.”
“I’m not moping!” She left her clothes on her bedroom floor and locked herself in the bathroom, in part just so she wouldn’t have to continue that conversation. Sure, yeah, she’d been moping, but that wasn’t Jacen’s problem.
She took her hair down to rinse it, massaging her scalp with her fingertips. With the warm water running over her body, she could close her eyes and relax, if only the tension that had settled into her muscles these last few weeks would go away. It wasn’t money; she never had enough of that, but always managed to get by. And she didn’t want to think that it was Gwen. They hadn’t been good for each other, despite making a healthy attempt at a relationship, and the breakup was the right move. Missing her was normal. But she wasn’t actually missing Gwen as much as that physical closeness. Cuddling on the sofa to watch a movie. Spooning together in bed. Kissing, pressing against each other, hands and mouths bringing sweet, mindless pleasure. All that was gone, and her bed was empty.
Scarlett stood beneath the water until it began to run cold, then reluctantly got out and toweled off. Silence in the house meant Jacen had left. She put on fuzzy pajamas, even though it was the middle of the afternoon, and flopped down on the couch. Her phone stared at her, blank. No one was calling or texting. Gwen came to mind again, and she grimaced. She had better find some way to shake off this funk. In the meantime, though, she had work to do. She pulled her laptop over with a sigh.
* * *
“Closing?” Megan had to repeat the word just to make sure she’d heard Winston right. “As in, no more Starlite Diner, forever?”
Winston rested his wrinkled hands on his desk and smiled sadly at Megan across the cluttered surface. His blue eyes turned down at the edges, the smile not reaching them. “We made it through Christmas, and that’s as far as the Missus and I were hoping to take things. I’m sure you’ve seen this day coming.”
She hadn’t, but she didn’t want to tell him that. Obviously she hadn’t expected the Starlite to stay open forever, but Winston and Martha hadn’t given any hints of retiring. Well, other than the travel brochures that had been piling up on the desk...and the shortened business hours after the holiday...and the way Winston had started photographing the place and sighing wistfully after the New Year.
Oh.
Nodding, Winston leaned back in his chair. “We’ve had a good run, all of us, and you’ve been darn indispensable these past few years, but we got an offer from the Winn-Dixie that’s too good to turn down.”
“When?” Her voice cracked, and she tried again. “When are you closing?”
“End of the month.”
The end of the month. That month. January. Megan’s mind tipped on its axis, like her whole center of gravity had shifted, and she wrapped her hands around the arms of the chair. She’d been here for nearly ten years. Ten years. The Starlite had been her first job, a part-time dishwashing gig when she was still too young to get a job almost anywhere, slowly increasing in hours and responsibility as she got older. When Scarlett quit to take a job at the grocery store, Megan had continued at the Starlite. After college, without any immediate job prospects in Communications, at least none that didn’t require leaving the area, the Starlite had taken her on full-time. She couldn’t picture her life without these too-early mornings, brewing coffee before dawn and setting out paper placemats and silverware for the regulars.
Megan loosened her grip on the armrests, taking a breath and trying to regulate her tumult of emotions. “Have you thought about trying to find new owners? Instead of closing it?”
Winston chuckled. “Oh, we talked about it. Wondered if you might want to buy the place.”
If she had the money, maybe she would. She leaned forward to say so, then froze, mouth slightly open. This was only supposed to be a temporary job. The fact that a temporary job had grown to a nine-plus-year commitment was not because she loved it.
Winston barely paused, seemingly oblivious that she was about to speak and had stopped. “Martha told me, she said the worst thing we could do is try and saddle you with this place for the rest of your life. Restaurant’s on its last legs, Megan. You’ve seen it. We’ve all seen it. No, the Winn-Dixie wants the space, and we’re giving it to them. For a pretty penny, that is.”
Megan’s tumble of emotions settled into something like numbness, all feeling draining out of her and leaving an empty stillness behind. She’d been in this cluttered back room so many times, the sights were all familiar, but each object stood out like it was new again. The cork board covered with newspaper clippings from the restaurant’s fifty-year history. Framed photos of the T-ball team the diner had sponsored for years, most of those kids grown up and gone off to college by now. Gray filing cabinets crammed into the corners, each drawer filled with decades of vendor invoices and god knows what, since Winston and Martha always resisted digitizing their systems. Stacks of papers on every available surface. There was a whole wall of employee photos from the years, everyone who had ever worked at the Starlite Diner, from busboys to line cooks.
Megan was there, right in the middle of the wall, from back when she was first hired. Her sixteen-year-old face stared back at her. Not much had changed in nearly ten years. Sure, she’d upgraded her glasses, but she still had the same mousy brown hair, practically in the same shoulder-length cut, with the same bland smile. Teenage Megan looked resigned to whatever was ahead of her. Her stomach twisted in discomfort. Was she still the same teenager inside, just in an older body?
And then, next to her, Scarlett’s face smiled back. They’d been hired at the same time. Scarlett’s hair was a wild light-brown cloud, and she had the same goofy smile as Megan. Back then, Scarlett had seemed so sophisticated, but this photo made her look like just another sixteen-year-old kid.
Megan’s gaze drifted over the most recent row of faces in the photographs, the handful of other waitresses and cooks who traded shifts with her. Only a few, now, with the decline in business. “Does anyone else know yet?”
“We thought we’d tell you first.” Winston shuffled some papers around, averting his gaze. “You’ve been with us the longest. I figured you deserved to know first, even if you probably saw the writing on the wall for a while now.”
She must’ve looked stricken, because Winston frowned and shook his head. “Now, don’t you worry. We’re gonna take care of all of our employees, best we can.” He patted his pockets, then got up from the squeaky office chair and began rummaging through the piles. “Let’s see. Where is this. It’s a big envelope. Ah, here it is,” He pulled a manila envelope out from the file and reached inside, peering in as he sorted through the documents. “Here we go. We looked up what was standard, and we threw in a little extra because you’ve been such a big help, and because we got a good shake from the Winn-Dixie deal.” He came around to her side of the desk and handed her a check.
Megan looked down at it, and then looked at it again, disbelieving. “Ten thousand dollars?”
“I know it’s not everything, and it’s not a salary, but it should at least keep you going for a while.” He shifted awkwardly, pushing his glasses up the brim of his nose.
Megan’s heart pressed against her ribs. “You didn’t have to do this. I can apply for unemployment or something.”
“It’s the least we can do.” He smiled sadly. “You’ve been part of the Starlite family since you were just a girl. We could barely keep the place open without you.”
Megan got to her feet and gave Winston a hug, car
efully, the kind of hug you’d give your grandfather if he’d just had surgery. She and Winston had never been on a hugging basis, but this was different. He patted her back awkwardly. “Thank you,” she said.
“No leaving before the end of the month, though, all right?” He held her at arm’s length and wagged a finger at her. “We’re gonna have a lot of stuff to pack up, and a few dozen more breakfasts to cook. Your trip to Vegas will have to wait until February.”
Megan laughed, even if she felt more sick than amused. “Sure. February.”
Chapter Two
Ten thousand dollars. Megan stared at the check in her hand as she sat in her car in her driveway, not yet willing to move from that spot. What was she going to do with this kind of money? It would pay all her bills for months and months. She had good savings, what with never going anywhere and running up very few expenses. If she was frugal, she could probably make her savings plus this income last...eight, nine months?
But what was she supposed to do without the Starlite? She got tired by 8:00 p.m. She woke up every day at four. Her rhythms were diner rhythms, patterns she’d forced her body into in order to keep this job that she—honestly—didn’t really like that much.
Oh, wow, her world spun just thinking that. She said the words out loud. “I didn’t really like that job.” Guilt, embarrassment, fear, all rushed through her system one after the other. She tried it louder. “I didn’t really like that job!”
Her laughter bubbled up, hysterical, the kind of half-wild laughter that would get out of control if she didn’t tamp it down. It wasn’t happy laughter; it was the fraught, unstrung kind, the kind when a person had reached the end of their rope. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself and got out of the car.
Megan fumbled the key into the lock of her house, jiggling it a few times to get the tumblers to click. She should call the landlord about this one of these days. Still staring at the check, she nearly walked into the doorframe as she went inside. The warmth was a welcome change from outside, where Florida’s damp winters made fifty degrees feel like half that. Not that she really knew what twenty-five degrees felt like; it pretty much never got that cold here, and she had never been out of Florida.
Megan stopped in her tracks, right between the living room and kitchen, a jolt running from her head to her feet. She’d never been out of Florida. And here she was, holding ten thousand dollars in her hand, convincing herself to squirrel it away in the bank and stay inside her little box.
Or.
She could do something crazy.
Teenage Megan came to mind, herself at sixteen in that photograph, trying to blend in with the background. That Megan had wanted to have adventures. She’d told herself she was going to do all these things someday, once she’d gotten out of high school, then once she’d gotten out of college, then any day now, always later, after she put a few things in order. There were always reasons to avoid change. Reasons to turn down invitations, to ignore job opportunities, to stay exactly as she was. It was always easier to keep the status quo than to shake up her life. She’d taken the path of least resistance over and over again, and here’s where she had landed.
She could take this ten thousand dollars—or not all of it, even just a fraction of it—and go somewhere.
Not Vegas, as Winston had joked. Vegas wasn’t her style. Honestly, what was her style? She hadn’t lived enough of her life to even develop a style, but she had dreams. She had a whole list of places she wanted to go, a scrapbook full of “someday” visions for her future. With the check burning hot in her pocket, she pulled the scrapbook off the living room bookcase and sat down on the sofa.
“What’s that?”
The voice from the kitchen made her jump and slam the scrapbook shut. “Jesus, Matt, I forgot you were home.”
Her brother was already poking around in the fridge. “I’m always home.”
“Tell me about it.” Megan put the scrapbook back on the shelf. She’d look at it later, when Matt wasn’t around to make snide comments. “Didn’t you have work today?”
Matt chugged his water and leaned against the fridge. If he’d had work today, he’d wasted no time changing back into running pants and an old T-shirt. He didn’t look like he’d shaved, either, and his hair was uncombed. “I took today off. I had a headache when I woke up.”
Megan wrinkled her nose. Great, another day off for Matt. She approached him in the kitchen. “Speaking of which. You have your share of the rent money?”
“Didn’t I Venmo you yet?” He looked at the calendar hanging on the wall, then made a thoughtful noise. “Wasn’t that due on the first?”
“Of course it was due on the first, and you told me you’d have it to me once you got paid, so I covered your half.” Megan tried to keep her voice calm. If Matt got into a snit, he’d withhold rent for the month just to be spiteful.
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded, sipping his water and rubbing his abs absentmindedly with his free hand. “Sure, I can get that to you. Remind me when I’ve got my phone.” Before she could protest, he started out the door, grabbing his phone off the table as he did so. “See ya.”
“You’ve got your phone now,” she shouted after him.
“I mean remind me when I’m not busy.” He was still on his way out.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m meeting Dan at the gym,” he hollered, already leaving.
“I thought you had a headache.”
If he answered, the words were lost as he shut the front door behind him.
Megan exhaled through her nose, a hot, angry puff of air. He knew just what to say to piss her off, and always had, ever since they were kids. If he weren’t completely incapable of being a responsible adult, he would have his own rental instead of living with her, and she wouldn’t have to babysit him all the time for things like paying the bills and cleaning up after himself.
He walked all over her, and she never stood up to him. It never seemed worth the effort. Maybe that should stop.
Megan wiped up the edge of the counter where Matt had spilled some water. Even Matt had done his share of traveling, although he’d mooched off the generosity of friends and relatives to do so. But her? She’d been safe. She’d been predictable. She’d stayed home.
And now, she was laid off with ten thousand dollars and very little clue what to do next.
* * *
The email from Juliet said only cryptically that she had news for both of them, and asked to video chat around seven that night. Scarlett had already sent back yes, probably assuming that Megan didn’t have any other plans. The assumption would have rankled Megan if it wasn’t so damn accurate. At 7:05 p.m., a message came through in a newly formed group chat.
Megan stared at the words for an inordinately long time. It just said, Hey! Are you two around?
At this point, it was getting weird not to just announce whatever news she had instead of demanding a video chat, but Juliet had always been a fan of grand gestures. It was part of what made her get along so well with Scarlett when they were kids. Juliet always had the best make-believe games, and Scarlett would be eager to build on her story, and Megan was just happy to be included.
It was also weird to be in a group chat with Scarlett. They’d had that conversation this morning, and then Megan was laid off, and now it was like she was in this twilight zone of worlds being overturned. Once upon a time, things were simpler between them. Scarlett had been the kind of best friend she would go to the moon for. Now? Now was a different story.
Scarlett responded to the chat first, the little circle with her cheerful face popping up on the screen. Sure! What’s up? she typed. She was like some kind of poster for an anti-depressant. Surely some of the intervening years should have taken some of that chipperness away.
Megan had to respond, then, because otherwise Juliet was going to think she was the only one i
n the chat. I’m here too! The exclamation point felt ridiculous. She wasn’t an “exclamation point” kind of person, and she never had been. Would they think this looked as fake as she felt?
Hey girls! Oh my god. Let’s video chat.
What could she say other than Sure! with another damn exclamation point?
Within moments, all their faces were up on the screen. Nostalgia hit her like a wave of ocean water, the kind you don’t see coming that knocks you flat on your ass. Juliet looked amazing, as good as ever, her blonde hair loose and perfect around her shoulders. She was older than when Megan had last seen her, obviously, but she still looked like a model.
Alongside Juliet was Scarlett, whose light brown curls looked cuter in a messy bun than Megan’s hair looked when she styled it. Next to their faces, she looked like the friend who was going to tell them not to go to the party because the parents wouldn’t be home. The disparity had her pulling self-consciously at her glasses before either of them said anything. Of course, then she couldn’t really see, so she had to put them on. Now she looked indecisive and nerdy. Perfect. Just the way she wanted this weird reunion to go.
“Girls! Oh my god, why haven’t we done this before?” Juliet was looking down, staring at their faces rather than the camera, probably.
Because we’re not friends anymore! Megan’s inner voice said, chipper and too-perky, but Juliet didn’t deserve that. Juliet hadn’t pissed her off, after all. Juliet hadn’t abandoned her at the most terrifying part of her life to go off to some other prestigious college like Scarlett had.
“What’s new?” Scarlett sounded as cheerful as Juliet. Probably her life was amazing now; Megan didn’t know.
“First tell me about you! Megan, where are you living? What are you doing?” Juliet rested her chin on her hands.
“Uh. I’m renting a house,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. She didn’t need to mention that her brother lived with her. “And I’m, you know, I’ve been working at the Starlite. Trying to pay off that student loan debt. But uh... I’m making some big changes! Career change.” She smiled.
