“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “You’re confused, Charlie. And kind of sad.”
Charlie shrugs. She’s been called worse.
“Then we’ll wait.”
They stay that way, staring each other down, until the song ends. Only then, when the diner is plunged into silence, does Josh decide that maybe Charlie’s tougher than she looks and that maybe—just maybe—she’s not bluffing. He waves to Marge, who’s been watching them from behind the counter.
“Could we get the check, please?”
“Sure thing,” Marge says, seeming surprised, probably because they barely touched their food. Charlie feels bad about that. All that work for nothing. Marge brings the check and places it on the table. To Charlie, she says, “I took your order off the bill. After what I did to your coat, it’s the least I can do.”
“You’ve done so much already,” Charlie says, meaning every word. Without Marge, she might not have realized what she needed to do. As far as she’s concerned, the waitress helped her realize this situation could be more blessing than curse.
“It was nothing,” Marge says, locking eyes with Charlie. “I help when I can.”
On the other side of the table, Josh reads the check and pulls out his wallet. Watching him count out bills, Charlie says, “Be sure to leave a big tip.”
Josh slaps twenty dollars onto the table. Satisfied that the tip is indeed big, Charlie says, “Shall we go?”
Josh doesn’t move. He’s preoccupied—looking past her, over her shoulder, out the front window. Charlie swivels in the booth until she sees what he’s looking at.
A cop car.
Local.
Pulling up to a stop in front of the diner.
Charlie can’t believe her eyes. Turns out she wasn’t bluffing, even though she certainly thought she was. But Robbie understood her message loud and clear and had indeed called the police, a fact that leaves her feeling proud and relieved and grateful.
Josh waves to Marge, who’s now behind the counter, dutifully cleaning the Formica even though no one’s probably sat there for hours.
“You’re working too hard, Marge,” he says, patting the space next to him. “Join us. Take a load off.”
“I don’t think the boss would like that very much,” she says.
“Is he here?”
“No.”
“Then you’re the boss.”
Charlie’s attention is split between the cop car outside and the waitress tittering behind the counter. Her head moves back and forth, like she’s at a tennis match, trying to take it all in.
The cop getting out of his patrol car.
Then Marge dropping her rag on the counter.
Then the cop ambling toward the front door, in no hurry at all.
Then Marge coming to their table, taking a seat next to Josh, and saying, “I suppose it won’t hurt to get off my feet for a second.”
By the time the cop enters the diner, Charlie’s hit with a third distraction.
The steak knife.
It’s no longer on the table.
Josh holds it again, gripping it the way a movie thug wields a switchblade, the tip vaguely aimed in Marge’s direction.
Charlie’s gaze hopscotches around the diner, going from the knife to Marge to the cop now standing at the counter. He’s tall and lanky and young. Face like a choirboy.
“Evening, Tom,” Marge says. “Didn’t think you’d be coming in tonight. I thought you hit the pizza place on Tuesdays.”
At first, Charlie wonders if the cop can see the steak knife in Josh’s hand and how in the past few seconds it seems to have moved a little closer in Marge’s direction. It’s not until she follows the cop’s gaze from the counter to their table that she realizes everything below Josh’s shoulders is blocked by the back of the booth.
“I’m here on business,” Officer Tom says, looking not at Marge but to Josh seated beside her. “We got a call about a possibly dangerous situation.”
“Here?” Marge says, incredulous. “Nothing happening here. Slow night as usual.”
“We’re just passing through, Officer,” Josh adds.
Officer Tom turns to Charlie. “Is that true, miss?”
“Me?”
Charlie turns her head in a way that lets her see both the cop and, in the edge of her vision, the knife in Josh’s hand, which seems to have gotten even closer to Marge. Then again, it might just be Charlie’s imagination. It’s steered her wrong before.
“Yes,” she says. “That’s the truth.”
Charlie eyes the holster on Officer Tom’s hip and the police-issued pistol strapped inside of it. She wonders how much experience a cop so young has had. If he’s ever had to face a man with a knife. Or defuse a hostage situation. Or shoot someone in the line of duty.
She gives the scene another all-encompassing glance, skipping from Officer Tom’s gun to Josh’s knife to Marge and then back to the cop, trying to gauge the distance between all of them.
She wonders if she should yell to Officer Tom that Josh is a killer.
She wonders if he’d be able to draw his weapon before Josh jammed the steak knife into Marge’s stomach.
She wonders if Officer Tom would then open fire on Josh.
Charlie pictures the immediate aftermath. Her cowering in the booth, her hands over her ears as Josh lies dead on the table and Marge bleeds on the floor and smoke still trickles from the barrel of Officer Tom’s gun.
She wonders if this, right now, is all just a movie in her mind. It doesn’t matter that Josh can see the cop and Marge can see him and that both spoke to him. All of that could also be part of the movie. A fever dream built out of hope and denial and wishful thinking.
It wouldn’t surprise her if it was. She’s experienced them enough to know the drill. They emerge when she’s stressed and scared and needs to be shielded from the harshness of reality, which describes her current mood in a nutshell.
Sitting in that booth, looking at a cop who may or may not exist, Charlie thirsts for a reality check the same way an alcoholic craves booze. An intense yearning that threatens to overwhelm her. But asking Officer Tom if he’s real isn’t a good idea. Charlie learned her lesson in the rest stop bathroom. She knows that saying what she’s thinking will only make her look crazy and, ultimately, untrustworthy.
Plus, there’s Marge to consider. Poor, innocent Marge, who has yet to realize that inches from her midriff is a knife sharp enough to take out her spleen. If Charlie says or does anything suspicious, Josh might hurt her. He might even kill her. Charlie can’t let that happen. Her conscience, already so burdened, wouldn’t be able to take it.