And my mother always said, you can never go wrong when you take the high road.
His dark brows meet as he turns my direction, studying me. “Thank you.”
“Your eggs should be out soon.” I leave and check on my three other tables before his order comes up, and when I return with his breakfast, he’s on his phone. He doesn’t acknowledge me or thank me with a quick wave of his hand when I place his plate in front of him. He simply reaches for a fork.
My stomach hardens, unsettling.
So much for the closure.
If anything, I’m more confused than I was before.
I spend the next fifteen minutes fully immersed in work, even pre-bussing some of Rachael’s tables so I have every reason not to stand around fixating on why he’s here and why he’s pretending not to know me.
When he finally flags me down and asks for his check, a blanket of anxious heat warms my body and I will myself to find the right thing to say before he walks out of here.
“Thank you,” he says a minute later, when I hand him the leather check wallet. His total was thirteen dollars and fifty-eight cents and I watch as he slips a ten and a five-dollar bill inside and tells me to “keep the change.”
The dollar forty-two is a far cry from the hundred-dollar tip he once left.
“Why did you come here today?” I ask, hand on one hip and head cocked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why did you come here today?” I state my question clear as fucking day, enunciating every last syllable.
Isaiah frowns. “Is this some kind of trick question?”
“Why did you request me?” I ask.
“I … didn’t.”
Pulling in a hard breath, I massage my temples before splaying my hand across my beating heart. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Are you mad about the tip?” he asks. “I usually try to tip more, but you made me wait fifteen minutes for my check and now I’m going to be late for a client meeting.”
“Oh, so now we’re going to pretend this is about the tip and not about the way you’re treating me?” I ask. My mouth falls and I can sense the burn of cherry heat in my ears.
“The way I’m treating you?” He scoffs, sliding out of his booth and standing. “Ma’am, I think you’re confused.”
Ma’am.
He’s back to calling me ma’am.
“Did you hit your head or something?” I ask. “Is that what happened? I’m not being facetious, it’s a legitimate question. Do you have amnesia?”
Isaiah chuckles, like I’m being cute, and then he shakes his head. “Are we done here? Because I’ve got someone waiting for me back at the office.”
At the office?
He’s been back long enough to get a job in an office that requires a suit …
He’s not fresh off the military boat. Not at all. And at this point, I’m starting to wonder if he was ever really in the army. It could’ve all been a ruse, maybe something he tells girls so he can get laid and have an excuse never to see them again. Or maybe he was some method actor studying for a role?
Then again, the letters came from an APO … so that couldn’t be it.
Gram always says, “It takes all kinds,” but I never knew what she meant until now, when I’m standing in front of one of the worst ‘kinds’ I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he says, squeezing past me, his meaty hands on my shoulders. Straightening his jacket, he gives me one last look—like I’m the crazy one here—and then he turns to leave.
Gathering his dirty dishes, I take them back to the kitchen, scolding myself for all those wasted days and sleepless nights I spent worrying about that selfish prick.
When I said I wanted closure, I didn’t know it was going to feel like this, and I didn’t know it was possible to mean less than nothing to someone who meant more than something to me.
Thirty-One
Maritza
* * *
The clock on my nightstand reads 2:41 AM.
I’ve been tossing and turning since ten o’clock, when I took a Benadryl and a melatonin and thought I could force myself into a coma-like sleep.
All I wanted was to shut my mind off for two seconds, to stop the spinning and the madness and the questions that’ve been playing on a loop in my head since Isaiah walked into my café yesterday morning and pretended like he’d never seen me in his life.
Sitting up and finally accepting the fact that I’m not going to get a single minute of respite tonight, I click on my lamp and reach into the drawer of my bedside table, grabbing a pen and the notebook of letters I’d written Isaiah for a brief period of time when he was supposedly out on some mission—before the radio silence.
Flipping to an empty page in the middle, I write a letter that’ll never be sent, but at least if I get it all on paper and out of my head, I might be able to catch some sleep before the sun comes up.
* * *
Dear Isaiah,
Eight months ago, you were just a soldier about to be deployed and I was just a waitress, sneaking you a free pancake and hoping you wouldn’t notice that my gaze was lingering a little too long.
But you did notice.
We spent one life-changing week together before you left, and we said goodbye on day eight, exchanging addresses at the last minute.
I saved every letter you wrote me, your words quickly becoming my religion.
But you went radio silent on me months ago, and then you had the audacity to walk into my diner yesterday and act like you’d never seen me in your life.
To think … I almost loved you and your beautifully complicated soul.
Almost.
Whatever your reason is—I hope it’s a good one.
Maritza the Waitress
PS – I hate you, and this time … I mean it.
* * *
Pulling in a long, cool breath and letting it go, I close the notebook and tuck it away in the drawer before clicking my lamp off. Lying down and pulling the covers up, I stare at a dark ceiling before closing my eyes.
My mind is barely lighter than it was before, but my thoughts seem to have quieted a bit.
In the still, small minutes before I finally drift off, I remind myself that LA is full of people who use people, people who do unscrupulous things and who have no qualms about hurting others.
Isaiah Torres was never anything special—he was just another run-of-the-mill LA asshole.
Thirty-Two
Maritza
* * *
“Morning, Hollie.” I tie my apron around my waist and glance at the clock to confirm that I am, in fact, on time for work. Normally I can go a whole shift without seeing her because she’s usually hiding in the back, door closed and only emerging when there’s an issue.
But today it’s like she was waiting.
“I need to see you in my office.” My manager says a sentence I’ve never heard her say in all of my time here. She doesn’t smile.
“Everything okay?” I ask, following her to the back.
Hollie says nothing and I find myself holding my breath without even thinking about it. Every silent second is torture.