Turn Me Loose

by Anne Calhoun

  Shoulders squared, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then plucked her notebook from her apron as she walked to the table. “Welcome to Oasis. My name’s Riva and I’ll be taking care of you tonight.”

  The look on his face when she started talking was almost worth what it cost her to walk across the floor and talk to him. His jaw literally dropped open.

  Priceless.

  Then his gaze skimmed her from her ponytail to the tips of her clogs. She knew how it looked, wearing the same uniform as the other servers, black pants and blouse buttoned to her collarbone, her makeup subdued to the point of pale and nondescript. In every way she was conscious of setting an example for the kids from the ESCC. His reaction time, always quick, hadn’t dulled. A split second to look her over, the sharp flick of his gaze striking sparks she felt from her earlobes to her nipples to deep in her belly. That’s what it had been like, his gaze flint against the tinder of her young, impetuous desire.

  Then he shut his mouth, and the laptop bag. “Hi, Riva.”

  She ignored that. “Can I get you something to drink while you look at the menu? We have craft beers from several of the local breweries.”

  He looked at the menu, then back at her. “Water. Thanks.”

  She nodded, then spun on her heel and walked away. The look in his eyes before he adopted the all-too-familiar expressionless demeanor had been shock, then pity. When she’d met him she’d been a college student. Now, to his eyes, she was a waitress. Worse, her standard greeting—I’ll be taking care of you today—sounded like an innuendo. God knew she’d thrown enough of them at him, desperate, angry, pushing back the only way she could. He’d held all the cards, and she’d hated him for it.

  “It was your fault,” she muttered as she poured ice water into a glass. “You were the stupid one. He just did his job.”

  “What?” Kiara said.

  A second wash of fear coursed over Riva, because the only thing worse than Ian showing up in her restaurant would be the kids she helped now learning why she reacted to him the way she did. “Nothing,” she said quickly. “Just talking to myself. It’s a sign of old age.”

  “You’re not that old,” Kiara said.

  Twenty-five. Twenty-five years old. Seven years older than when she met him, old enough now …

  She forced herself to smile. “How are you doing?”

  “It’s a little boring tonight,” Kiara said.

  “You could top off the sugars and stock silverware early and close the windows. It’s getting a little chilly in here. We don’t want food getting cold so quickly the guests can’t enjoy it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kiara said. Riva snagged a warm bread basket from the kitchen and used the trip to ensure everything was running smoothly. “We still have the salmon?”

  “Got plenty,” Isaiah called from the stove.

  When she came back out, Hawthorn was staring at his laptop screen. She set the bread basket on the table. “Are you waiting for someone?” He had to be waiting for someone.

  “No. Just me.”

  He’s alone. Why is he alone? Her heart did a traitorous little skip in her chest. She gathered the silverware and bread plate from the spot across from him. “Do you have any questions about the menu? We’re a farm-to-table restaurant,” she started, taking refuge in the standard patter. “The origins for the ingredients are noted on the menu. With the exception of the salmon, they’re all from Rolling Hill Farm, or other farms around Lancaster. The rib eye comes from a ranch up the road. We harvested the asparagus this afternoon, and the brussels sprouts this morning.”

  His gaze was no less piercing, seven years later. “What do you recommend, Riva?”

  He used her first name like he always had, like he had a right. That option was never available to her.

  Assuming his tastes hadn’t changed in the last seven years, she knew what he liked well enough to answer that question. Nights sitting next to him in an unmarked police car often included a run through a drive-thru window, so she knew he preferred grilled chicken to burgers, salads to fries. She’d spent enough time with cops to know their diets were frequently atrocious; the Eastern Precinct smelled of sweat, gun oil, coffee, and fast-food grease. “The steak is our specialty, and very good, but tonight I’d recommend the salmon. Chef Isaiah developed the sauce. It’s a grapefruit-and-shallot sauce, very light, and it’s delicious.”

  “Does it come with the asparagus?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll have that.”

  “Wine with the meal? Beer?”

  He scanned the wines listed on the back. “A glass of the Shale white,” he said.

  Dismissed. She hurried to the kitchen and put in the order, then poured a glass of wine. Shale was a local winery, and he obviously knew their reputation. Trying not to think about Ian taking a date on a local winery tour, she left the glass with him, touched base with her other tables, and brought more bread and a second beer to the first-date couple, who had both set aside their phones and were leaning over the table, actively engaged in conversation. She watched them from the safety of the server’s station. It was an experience she hadn’t allowed herself in seven years, and the reason why was sitting at table fourteen. Any relationship more serious than a casual hookup would require her to either tell the truth about what she’d done or to found a relationship on lies. She couldn’t bring herself to do either.

  With no appetizer, his meal should be ready in under twelve minutes. At the ten-minute mark she ducked into the kitchen. Isaiah meticulously wiped a dab of sauce from the edge of the plate, then presented it to her with a flourish. She gave the kitchen staff a thumbs-up, took the plate from him, and carried it through the door.

  On the way to the table she ran through the ways she could tell him he was wrong about her, that she wasn’t just a waitress—except there was nothing wrong with being a waitress—that she owned this building, the farm it sat on, and the tiny house hidden in the folds of the valley, too, that she’d been able to get loans, pay them back on time, help others. But in the end, she couldn’t change the past, and she knew perfectly well that of all people, Officer Ian Hawthorn had no reason to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  She set the plate in front of him without comment. “Can I get you anything else?”

  “No. Thanks.” He picked up his knife and fork.

  “I’ll be back to check on you in a few minutes.”

  The first-date couple ordered two bowls of ice cream drizzled with hot, dark chocolate and topped with raspberries. Head held high, she walked to the first-date couple’s table and set out their desserts. “Enjoy,” she said with a smile.

  As she walked away from the table, determinedly not looking at Ian, her phone buzzed with an incoming call. Mom Home lit up the screen, along with a picture of her mother holding Sugar, her teacup Yorkie. As always, Riva’s heart gave a glad little leap when she saw the picture. As always, she shunted the delight aside, and the regrets, too. They would return in the middle of the night, when she was alone, and, for the thousandth time, trying to figure out a way to have any kind of relationship with her mom.

  Setting a good example for her staff, she silenced the call. Except the phone rang again. Immediately. The universal signal for bad news.

  “Hi, Mom,” Riva said. “What’s up?”

  “Hi, dear. Are you busy?” her mother asked in a high, tremulous voice.

  “We’re in the middle of the dinner shift,” Riva said, looking around the front. No new customers, everyone else served. She plastered a smile on her face, knowing it would come through in her voice. “I’ve got a minute, though.”

  “Of course you’re busy with the restaurant. I was going to ask … but I should have thought of that. Never mind.”

  “Ask me what?”

  “You know the auxiliary is raising funds for the drug treatment center at the hospital?”

  “Yes,” she said. Her mother had mentioned it on one of their infrequent calls a few months
earlier.

  “I’m not on the steering committee, only the leadership committee, but I was asked to host a thank-you luncheon for all the committee members. It’s a big honor, so much responsibility, and would be so helpful to your father’s business. I was going to ask you if you’d come home and help me plan it, but you’re too busy. Stupid me should have thought of that,” she said, scolding herself in a way that was all too familiar to Riva.

  This definitely wasn’t the sort of emergency Riva had in mind. Her father’s reputation could indeed benefit from the connections a successful luncheon would bring, but Riva couldn’t be less interested in making tarragon chicken salad and tea sandwiches for the Memorial Hospital Women’s Guild. Riva tucked the phone between her cheek and her shoulder, and went to lower the blinds on the west windows. “You’re not stupid. When’s the luncheon?” she asked automatically.

  “A few days from now. It’s not much notice. I’m sorry.”

  Riva rubbed her forehead. Of the three members of their family, her mother had the least to be sorry for, and yet every other sentence out of her mouth was an apology. “Mom, I wish I could, but we’re gearing up for the busy season at the farm, and I’ve got a new group of kids learning the kitchen.”

  “I know. Your life is in Lancaster, not Chicago. I wasn’t going to call, but you haven’t been home in so long…”

  Seven years, to be exact. A fist closed around Riva’s heart and squeezed just enough to let her know she wasn’t as unfeeling as she’d hoped to be. “I know, Mom. I’ll get home. Just not right now.”

  “I wish I understood why.”

  And Riva wished her mother would never, ever know why. “It’s no big deal,” she lied. “I just got busy here.”

  A stifled sob came through the line. “Mom? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Sugar. She’s not doing well.”

  This was definitely an emergency. Since the day they brought the teacup Yorkie home from the breeder, Sugar was never more than a few feet from her mother, and more often than not, in her purse or her lap. Fussing over Sugar was one of the few good memories Riva had with her mother, but her father thought Sugar was worse than useless. “Oh, no,” she said.

  “Your father says I need to start thinking about … you know … but I can’t. I can’t think about that!” she ended with a hiccupping sob.

  “Mom, I’m so sorry,” she started, when a couple of short yelps from the kitchen were followed by an “Oh fuck!” audible throughout the dining room. The swinging door to the kitchen slammed against the wall, Kiara flying through it. Riva’s nose knew first, the stench of acrid smoke already filtering into the room. Her body was already turning for the kitchen by the time her mouth caught up to say “I’ll call you back” to her mother.

  “Fire!” Kiara gasped.

  Three strides and Riva was through the door. A grease fire roared on the stove, spattering everyone in the vicinity with burning oil. Isaiah was on his knees in front of the big stainless-steel stove. Beside him, Jake swatted at it with his dishtowel, the surest way to injure himself.

  “Stop!” Riva barked.

  He stopped.

  “It’s a grease fire,” she said. A small one, at that, but fire was fire. Her voice was calm, only slightly louder than normal, but it got the attention of every kid in the room. “Work the plan. Step one.”

  Galvanized, Jake scrabbled at the knob controlling the gas heat and first turned it up. “Shit,” he said when the flames spurted for the range hood. He twisted the knob the other direction and the gas died.

  Kimmy-Jean had a big water pitcher filled. Arm extended, Riva stepped in front of her. “Step two.”

  “I’m on it.” Isaiah came up with the right lid and slammed it down on the pan, effectively throttling the flames. Oily black smoke hung around the now-silenced stove.

  “Good job. It was a small fire, so what else would have worked?” Riva said.

  “Baking soda. Lots of it,” Jake said.

  “Kimmy-Jean, get some, please.”

  Kimmy-Jean flung the pitcher into the sink and leaped for the shelf of baking ingredients. Brandishing a large box, she turned and looked at the ominous pan.

  “Isaiah, lift the lid. Kimmy-Jean, be ready.” The fire, as she expected, was entirely smothered. “If the lid hadn’t smothered the flames, dump lots and lots and lots of baking soda on it. But that only works for small fires. What don’t you do?”

  “Pick up the pot.” Three of the kids responded. She had them now, back in their brains and bodies, connected to themselves, one another, her. “You’ll burn yourself,” Kiara added.

  “Good. What else don’t you do?”

  “Throw water on it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because water won’t put it out, and the splatter can spread the flames or burn someone.”

  “Sorry,” Kimmy-Jean whispered, her pale face flaming almost as brightly as the fire had. “I didn’t know.”

  “Now you do,” Riva said gently. “This one didn’t spread. What if it had?”

  “Fire extinguisher,” Kiara said.

  As one, everyone in the kitchen turned to look at the brand-new extinguisher, hanging on the wall beside the door to the dining room.

  Where Ian Hawthorn stood, just inside the door, his laptop clasped loosely in his hand.

  All the air sucked back out of the room, like he was the still center of a black hole. “Po-po in the house,” someone murmured.

  Riva turned her back on him, ignored him in favor of the important teaching moment. “Jake, will you please demonstrate how to use the fire extinguisher?”

  Giving Hawthorn the side-eye, Jake pulled the extinguisher from the bracket. “Pull the pin, aim at the fire, using sweeping motions,” he said, demonstrating like a cabin attendant, ending with a flourish. The rest of the kids giggled nervously.

  Isaiah poked at the pan’s contents. “These brussels sprouts are, like, bricks.” He held the pan out, showing the room the burnt husks in what was left of the grease.

  “Clean the pan out, Isaiah, and start again. Where are we with the orders?”

  “One more salmon and a rib eye to go out.”

  “On the fly,” she said, but Isaiah was already in motion. “Whose table is it?”

  “Mine,” Lucy said.

  “Go back, explain the delay, tell them we’re comping their meals, and offer a glass of wine or dessert on the house. Quick in,” she said, waving her hands to draw everyone in. “Nobody got hurt. We’re all ok. You’ve got this.”

  She gave Isaiah an extra pat on the back and Kimmy-Jean a hug. After inspecting the stove for spilled grease, she directed Jake to wipe it down carefully while Isaiah scoured clean the pan. Hopefully, if she ignored him, he would get the message that everything was under control.

  But when she turned around, he was still standing there, like he had every right to be in her kitchen without permission. The front staff had sidled past him, returning to their work. Riva walked right up to him. She’d fooled herself into thinking she’d forgotten what he looked like, that time had faded her memories of his face. But here, in the kitchen’s bright light, she saw him like it was the first time and like they’d been apart for seven years.

  His hair was dark brown, no hint of red or blond to the fine strands, and cut shorter than when she’d first met him. His eyes were too dark to be green, too light to be brown, and as shuttered as ever. The twin grooves bracketing his mouth were deeper, better suited to his face. Back then he’d been too youthful for the lines—and the eyes—to make sense. Now, it was as if the rest of him had aged to catch up, a web of fine lines visible by his eyes.

  All this she saw in the blink of an eye, enough time for her animal brain to register impressions and send another bolt of desire along her nerves.

  She covered with belligerence bordering on rudeness, keeping her voice down for the sake of the kids. “What are you doing here?”

  “I smelled smoke and came to help.”

 
; She almost laughed. Almost. “We don’t need help,” she enunciated. “Please return to your table.”

  He didn’t have to move. She knew that. He pointed, she walked. He insisted, she gave in. He judged, she swallowed her pride. Seven years ago, he’d held all the power in his hand, because helping him was the only thing that stood between her and prison. She’d resented him with every cell in her body, and wanted him just as badly.

  And all the while a red-hot tension simmered inside her.

  His gaze searched her face, unflinching, as if he were unaware of everything she’d thought and felt. Of course he was. He’d used her to get what he wanted, seen her as nothing more than a college student looking to make a few extra bucks dealing pot and pills from her dorm room.

  Heart pounding in her chest, she extended her arm, indicating he should go back to the dining room. It was bravado, a last ditch effort to impose her will on him. To her utter shock, he turned and went. She gave him a moment to settle himself back at his table, then approached.

  “Can I get you anything else tonight? Some dessert?”

  “No, thanks. Just the bill.”

  “Your meal is on the house,” she said.

  He paused in the act of angling his laptop into the protective slot in his bag. “That’s not necessary.”

  “I appreciate your willingness to help,” she said.

  “That’s my job.” He meant running toward fire, gunshots, people in trouble. Or people making trouble. Like she had. “Most people panic, or freeze. You did well in there.”

  She took a deep breath, because times had changed, but no good ever came from snapping at a cop. “Again, I appreciate your willingness to help and would like to thank you by comping your meal. I’d also appreciate it if this was your last visit to Oasis.”

  His gaze flickered over her face, then down while he finished zipping the laptop bag. “That’s a shame. The food was really good.”

  He stood up, shouldered the bag, and walked out. She picked up his plate and found two twenties tucked under the edge.

  Damn him.

  She slid the folded bills into her apron pocket and cleared the table. In the kitchen she put the money into the tip jar to be shared equally among the staff at the end of the night. In the middle of the comforting, familiar noise and smells, she inhaled, hoping to catch the scent of fresh greens, seared salmon, or even freshly scooped ice cream.