“You guys sit down. I’ll bring out your iced tea and mango lassi,” I tell them.
“Oh — no more mango lassi for me,” Jodie says apologetically. “My old lady stomach can’t handle the dairy anymore. I’ll just take tea.”
I nod and escape into the kitchen while Ben leads Jodie to their table in the corner.
I’m carrying out a pitcher of iced tea for them a few seconds later when I catch a glimpse of some girl with neck-length dark hair and an expensive-looking pea coat jacket standing at the podium, her back to me.
“Be with you in a second,” I call. I feel her tracking me with her gaze as I walk into the sunny spot in the corner and pour drinks for Jodie and Ben. Jodie starts babbling as soon as I arrive, asking me Have you visited so-and-so yet? Did you hear about what happened with so-and-so? Business at Ben’s record shop is really picking up, you should go by some night when they have live music, and on and on. I’m glad for the girl waiting at the podium because it gives me an excuse to jerk my chin in her direction and say,
“Sorry, Jo, I gotta go help this customer”
and Jodie can only give me a disappointed but understanding nod.
I high-step it back to the podium and say, “Can I help — ” before freezing mid-sentence.
Because guess who it is?
“Hi,” yesterday’s Tinkerbell-sized Jane Lane seat mate says to me. “I heard this place had the best Nepalese and soul food fusion in town. Thought I’d check it out.”
Chapter 13: Racist generals and cryptic fortune cookies.
I tilt my head, grin at Amy. “It’s not bad,” I say. “I hear there’s a better place in Cleveland, but, you know, for a small town, Soul Mountain’s pretty good.” I grab a menu. “So… you really want some lunch?”
“Well, I hear eating when you’re at a restaurant is the thing to do, and I didn’t have breakfast, so… yeah. I do want some lunch.”
I wave my arm at the dining room, which is empty except for Jodie and Ben. “Where do you want to sit?”
“Anywhere in the sun,” she answers, and I grin again because Basel was grey, cold, and rainy when we left a few days ago, and so far, Ohio has been warm and sunny. At least it has that going for it.
“Lead the way,” I tell her.
She sits down at a table across from Jodie and Ben and asks me for menu suggestions. I give them to her, and fifteen minutes later, after running a few more credit cards and taking a few more take-out orders over the phone, I’m bringing her a bowl of thupka with sides of collards, cornbread, and my mother’s pimento mac ’n cheese.
Jodie gives me a curious look when I sit down across from Amy and rest my elbows on the table.
“So how’s Marcine so far?” I ask.
She butters her cornbread. “I’ve only been here for about sixteen hours, and this is the first time I’ve actually made it out of my hotel room, but… so far, so good?”
I chuckle. “When’s your friend’s wedding, again?”
“This weekend.”
I think for a second. Today’s Tuesday. “And what are you doing between now and then?”
“Helping out, mostly. She’s got a dress fitting tonight after work, I’m helping the wedding planner down at the church where they’re holding it tomorrow, then there’s a bachelorette party Friday night, the rehearsal dinner Saturday… blah, blah, blah.”
“Too bad,” I say. “If you weren’t going to be so busy, I thought I’d show you around the bustling metropolis of Marcine. Show you all the most exciting places. Like the statue of George Custer in the park across from the courthouse.”
She frowns. “George who…?”
“Custer. You know, famous dead general? Responsible for the deaths of thousands of Native Americans? Battle of Little Bighorn? Custer’s Last Stand?”
“Oh, right,” she says. “That Custer.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Is there another?”
She laughs. “Quit busting my chops. I only just woke up a couple of hours ago, and my body hasn’t figured out what time zone I’m in yet.” She takes a bite of her cornbread and closes her eyes. “Oh — this is good.”
“Toldya. You won’t find cornbread like that anywhere else in the state.”
“I believe you,” she says. She swallows, washes it down with a mouthful of water. “So — about Custer.”
I chuckle. “About Custer? You just started a new topic of conversation with ‘about Custer’?”
Her pale cheeks redden immediately, and I like the effect. “Didn’t I tell you to stop busting my chops? But it’s not about Custer per se. More about going to see his statue. And all the other ‘big sights’ of Marcine. If you’re not too busy, I was wondering if you — ”
The phone rings at the podium and I lift up a finger. “Hold that thought. I gotta get the phone.”
I take another call-in order, asking the guy to repeat himself five fucking times because the connection is so bad, and I feel Amy watching me the whole time. It’s distracting, so I turn my back and lean against the wall, putting my palm over the ear that’s not against the phone so that I can finally hear him.
I go back to the kitchen to give the order to Becker and am not at all surprised to find Gerry sitting on his ass in the office, smoking a cigarette. I think about leaving it, because I still have a headache and I still think it’s too fucking early for sibling rivalry games, but I’m also stinging from the conversation with Momma this morning, so I fling the door open and step inside.
“You’re fucking smoking in the kitchen.”
He looks up from the stack of paperwork he’s got in front of him. “I’m in the office. And the door was closed,” he grumbles, but he stabs the cigarette out in the coffee saucer sitting in front of him anyway.
“You know we don’t smoke in here.” I wave my arm around the hazy office. “God, Gerry,” I say, and then I quote the ominous fortune cookie I’ve been carrying in my wallet for the past ten years. “Take the time to think before you act.”
“Think before I… Jesus Christ, Anika, since when did you become such a law-abiding tight-ass?”
“Since I didn’t want our customers’ food to taste like licking a fucking ashtray!”
“Sorry — I smoke when I’m stressed out, okay?”
I cross my arms against my chest. “And what the fuck do you have to be stressed out about? You live with Mom and Dad for free. You have the same fucking job you’ve had since you were sixteen. When you were sober enough to show up for work, that is.” I gesture at the desk. “But apparently you don’t have to work even when you are sober since you’re sitting back here on your — ”
“Come on, it’s been slow. I came back here to work on payroll. Thought I’d surprise Dad by getting it done today so he doesn’t have to worry about it this week.”
“Whatever,” I huff, even though it’s a legit excuse and I’m a little jealous that I didn’t think of it myself.
“Except — look.” He pushes a paper across the desk at me. “I don’t know if there’s enough money in the bank to make payroll this week.”
“Wait — what?”
I snatch the paper up, which turns out to be a bank statement. He’s right — the balance is much lower than it should be. He points at the computer screen.
“And look at this.”
I bend over his shoulder, read the figures in the accounting software he’s pulled up.
I’ll be damned. He’s right. We’re barely going to be able to make payroll — if we make payroll. And after payroll, there’s not going to be enough cash in the bank for the week’s groceries. Dad can always charge them, but the cashflow situation…
I drop the bank statement back on the desk, shaking my head. “I’m sure Dad’s got it figured out. There’s probably another account we don’t know about or something.”
Gerry shakes his head. “I don’t think so, Anika.”
His pronouncement echoes in the small office.
“I’ve got a customer waiting on
me,” I tell him after a few seconds of tense silence, during which time we sit there and stare at each other like confused mutes. I walk out of the office, out of the kitchen, and drop back into the seat across from Amy, where she nibbles at her mac ’n cheese.
“It’s good, right?” I say, hoping I don’t smell like cigarette smoke. “Baked mac ’n cheese with pimento and paprika. My mom’s secret recipe.”
She sets her fork down. “Every bite I take, I swear I’m probably gaining another five pounds.”
“I don’t think that math really works.”
I start my next sentence at the same moment she says “I was — ”
We both laugh. “You go ahead,” I say.
“Before you went to answer the phone, I was going to ask if you — I’m not busy tomorrow night, and I don’t have anything else to do when I’m not with my friend except sit in my hotel room and watch Pay Per View, so I thought… maybe you’d like to do something? Grab a coffee? Look at statues of dead generals?”
My heart speeds up, does a little happy dance in my chest like I’m eighteen again and holding Jenny’s hand in public for the first time. “Amy Ellis. Did you just ask me out?”
More red cheeks and it’s adorable. She lifts both eyebrows. “Only if you’re going to say yes. If you’re going to say no, then I was just asking because I was bored and I don’t know anybody else in town and my friend’s going to be too busy to hang out tomorrow night.”
Before I can answer her, the phone rings again.
“Hang on, okay? I need to answer that.” I get up, push the chair back in.
She groans and shakes her head. “You’re killing me.”
“Just — hold on a sec,” I say over my shoulder, laughing.
But Amy doesn’t have anything to be worried about. Of course I’m going to go have coffee with her tomorrow night. My only disappointment is that she asked me out before I got a chance to ask her out.
I feel fucking lighter than I have in weeks when I strut to the podium.
Still got it.
Chapter 14: I only came to talk (yeah, right).
Wednesday
We’re in the weeds again Tuesday night, and I come home exhausted and sore and smelling like lentils. It’s practically enough to trigger PTSD-style high school flashbacks. Dad doesn’t come to the restaurant at all after Mom’s morning doctor’s appointment, so Gerry and I are the ones who manage the restaurant and close up at the end of the night.
Wednesday morning rolls around and I’m back at Soul Mountain by ten o’clock, rolling silverware and double-checking the toilet paper supply in the bathrooms before our eleven AM open, and I’m already completely fucking over this and counting down the hours til my coffee date with Amy.
Dutch comes by right after eleven with my toddling baby niece in tow, and we chat and it’s awkward and Gerry hides in the office and everyone, including Dutch, seems glad when she leaves again.
Jodie and Ben show up at noon, even though their weekly Scrabble date was the day before, and Ben surprises the whole damn restaurant by ordering fried chicken instead of dal bhat tarkari and I think, That’ll be the most exciting thing that happens the whole goddamned shift — Jodie and Ben showed up on a Wednesday, and Ben ordered chicken.
Couldn’t have been more wrong.
Because at two-thirty, right as the lunch business starts to peter out and we begin thinking about getting ready for the dinner rush, in walks a woman with long, braided blonde hair, and yoga pants. She’s got an infant snug inside a sling against her chest and a pre-schooler with his mother’s big brown eyes holding onto her first two fingers.
She pauses for a second in the foyer, and I watch her with clenched fists and a stomach that burns like I just gulped down a bowl of Momma’s five-alarm chili too fast. I wonder if she’s looking at the black and white photos of my family, or just stalling because she’s trying to decide if she really wants to pull open the second door and waltz into the main body of the restaurant.
Just as I’m sure she’s about to turn back around and escape into the parking lot, she opens the second door and walks in. Uses her free hand to brush stray hair out of her face when the cold draft catches it and pushes it forward.
Instead of looking directly at her, because it’s like staring straight into the fucking sun, I look down at the kid hanging off her hand. He’s got his mother’s eyes, true, but it’s already obvious he’s going to end up a spitting image of his father.
My fingers uncurl long enough to find a dry eraser cap sitting on top of the seating chart. I start fiddling with it.
Jenny hesitates, walks up to the podium.
“Hi,” she says.
I grab a menu, nod down at her son. I unclench my jaw. “You need a high chair for him?”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t come to eat, Ani.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I just wanted to talk.”
“I don’t.”
She releases a long, slow sigh. “I got my hair trimmed yesterday afternoon, and Jodie told me you were in town. I thought I’d come by. Say hello.” She glances down at her son and smiles softly. “Introduce you to my wild things.”
I glance over involuntarily to the table in the corner. Is that why they came on a Wednesday? Jodie wanted to see the show play out in person?
Fucking Jodie. Woman can’t keep her mouth shut for longer than two minutes at a time. Never pauses to consider that what she says to someone in her salon chair might lead to unwanted consequences for other people.
“I’m busy, Jenny.”
She looks pointedly around the empty restaurant, arches an eyebrow. “Really? Doesn’t look like it.” She hesitates before speaking again. “C’mon, Anika. Can’t we act like adults here? It’s been more than five years since we talked. I just wanted to see you. Hear how you’ve been.”
I cross my arms against my chest, ignore the way I can feel my pulse slamming against my ribcage. I lean back against the wall. “You’re right — it’s been years since we talked. I don’t see why we should start now.”
She takes a step closer, lowers her voice even though she just pointed out that we are alone in the dining room. “You never gave me an explanation. I thought we’d been doing really good at being just friends. Then you blocked my number. Deleted me off social media. Why?”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“But why? Why the sudden change? Friends for years… and then nothing? With no warning?”
I squeeze the marker cap in my hand, feel its open end bite into my palm. “Being friends turned out to be too hard. You cheated on me.”
Her perfect brow wrinkles. I used to think it was cute when she got mad. Now… Oh, hell. I don’t know how it makes me feel now.
“I cheated on you?” she says, voice ticking up an octave or two. “Don’t you think that’s the pot calling the kettle black?” Then her eyelids drop closed; she draws in a long breath, lets it out slowly. It’s Jenny’s reining-her-temper-in look. I used to think that was cute, too. “If it was so hard to be friends with me, why were we friends for so long before you stopped talking to me?”
I shrug. I know the real answer, but there’s no fucking way I’m telling her. Especially not now. Not after five years of carefully maintained radio silence.
“Maybe I got tired of being expected to comment on every fucking picture of your kindergartener you posted or texted or emailed.” I point at the baby against her chest, then at the kid hanging off her arm. “Where’s the other one? You thought it’d be easier for me if I didn’t have to look at the one who broke us up?”
Hurt spreads across her face. But she’s always been a better person than I am, so instead of responding to me using her child as a weapon against her, she reins in what’s left of her temper and changes the hurt into a smile. “Andy’s in school. He’s nine already — fourth grade this year.”
“Great. Nine,” I spit out. Nine years since I came home to find a positive pregna
ncy test in the bathroom trash.
“Anika. Don’t be like this. Andrew isn’t who broke us up, and you know it. Mason isn’t even who broke us up. We broke us up.”
I snort. “Oh, so it’s ‘we’ now, huh? I guess that’s an improvement over it being all my fault.”
Jenny bends down, hands her phone to the boy who comes up just past her waist, says something softly in his ear. He dances off, jumps onto the waiting area bench with that eager energy only little boys have, swings his feet below him. Watching him, I feel something pop deep inside my heart, like some sort of inner fan belt split apart and I’m about to overheat.
She steps closer to the podium, cupping the back of the infant’s head protectively.
“Please let’s not fight. I just… I honestly just came by because I was hoping you would finally be ready to talk to me again. Can’t we at least try having a civil conversation? One that’s not about the past?”
She’s looking up at me with those wide, innocent brown eyes, and for a split second, it’s like no time has passed at all. I’m back in high school, at a New Year’s party, leaning over her the moment before our first kiss. I’m back in college, trying not to wake up Ophelia with our whispered Skype session. I’m back in Phoenix, coming home from basketball games to a woman who stands on tiptoes to reach tiny hands around my neck and pull me down into a kiss.
And because I’m a complete fucking pushover who apparently hates myself, and because I still feel guilty, and because of sheer force of habit — after all, for thirteen years I always did whatever this woman asked of me — I hand her a menu and I say, “Go find a table. I’ll get you a high chair.”
“I told you I’m not here to eat.”
“It’s a restaurant, Jenny. People don’t come here to stand around in the lobby.”
She glances over her shoulder, to the adorable little boy playing with her phone behind her. “If we sit down and order some food, will you join us? Will you talk with me?”
Anika takes the long way home up soul mountain: A lesbian romance (Rosemont Duology Book 2) Page 8
