Page 4 of A Shot in the Dark (Fated Mates Collection | Triple Threat #1)
No one says a word as I leave the offices and descend in the elevator.
I am the very depiction of sorrow and loss as I head a block down the street to the one restaurant I know will let me linger because almost no one ever comes in there.
It’s in a strange little neighborhood that somehow gets overlooked by most everyone including real estate agents who should have bought it out a long time ago and replaced it with another skyscraper’s footprint.
I slip into the restaurant, barely noticed even by the hostess, which is exactly what I need right now. The fewer people notice the box marking my abject failure, the better.
“Oh, hey, I didn’t see you there,” a curvy waitress mentions as she stops short beside my table. “Did Gina seat you?”
“No,” I admit. “I didn’t want to be a bother. She seemed to be dealing with a lot of things on the phone. I figured when somebody spotted me they’d take care of me. And here you are.” I offer her my most welcoming smile; one look at her face tells me she knows it to be as fake as it feels.
“Okay.” She flashes me a smile too full of teeth. She pulls out her notepad and eyes me skeptically. “So what can I get you?”
“I think I need to start off with a coffee. I need to just stay here for a little while,” I explain.
I stare at a section of her tightly done updo that’s come undone and wings out at a weird angle.
In the restaurant’s light it’s a mousy brown, but I’m guessing that in the sun it’s shot through with color.
Even if it does seem as frazzled as the rest of her.
“Absorb the vibe. Try and get my head back on straight.”
Her gaze flicks to the box of my belongings, then back to me. “You’re not the first person to come in here carrying a box and wanting little more than a bit of space. I’ll try and keep you under the manager’s radar. She can be a bit bossy and push people out to get higher table turnover.”
“Thanks. That makes sense. It’s all about money after all, isn’t it?”
“You would think so, living here. A standard coffee or do you want something fancier?”
“I’ll take it black.”
“Are you punishing yourself or is that really your preference?”
That earns a short laugh.
“That’s what I thought,” she quips. “So what would your order normally be at a café?”
“Oh, God, you really don’t want me to do this, do you? To order my regular?”
“Give it to me like you mean it.”
“Iced half-caf caramel macchiato, one-third soy, two-thirds coconut, drizzle of chocolate, drizzle of caramel, topped with nonfat whipped cream and chocolate cookie crumbles. Light ice,” I specify, as if suddenly taking pride in being difficult.
“You’re one of those ,” she dares with a conspiratorial look.
“You mean a high-maintenance bitch?”
“You said it, not me,” she chuckles. “Lucky for you, I’m one of those too. So, if that’s what you want, that’s what you’re gonna get. I get the feeling that you’ve been going without what you want for a very long time.”
“Shit, yes,” I admit, wrapping my arms around my box protectively as I sink down into the lumpy booth’s seat.
My drink arrives within five minutes—record time for any establishment this close to the city’s beating heart.
And even better than it arriving quickly is the fact that it’s perfect.
No, there’s no name on the side of some carefully branded cup.
It’s no fancy coffee brewed from beans grown in either Guatemala or Cambodia and picked by the light of a blue moon by nimble-fingered virgin fairies and roasted only under a sun hanging in a spotless cerulean sky.
No. If coffee could be grown in Jersey and roasted in the basement of some guy named Joey, this is what it’d taste like.
But the distinct sturdiness of the coffee is offset perfectly by all of the little add-ons.
If the devil is in the details, then right now that bastard’s skinny dipping in my drink.
I spend the next hours in that restaurant, sipping my coffee, then ordering a tea that’s nearly as complicated, picking slowly at a salad decorated with colorful edible flower blossoms and a variety of gorgeous leafy greens, following that with a cup of soup that sounds intriguing, but doesn’t quite hit the mark on flavor.
Watching the time tick by on my phone, I finally order an entrée to go.
And dessert to have with one more cup of coffee.
“This time I actually want it black,” I specify.
“It’s your funeral,” she jokes and I give a little snort. “I get it: to balance out the sweetness of the dessert,” my waitress says, giving me an approving nod.
“Exactly.”
My waitress—Sheryl with three kids, two of whom have a deadbeat dad (Chuck)— lives in one of the many neighborhoods I’ve been told that, as a single and attractive young woman, I should avoid.
She’s strong but sweet and when I admit I got fired, Sheryl mentions her mean right hook and offers to “sucker punch whichever dick did it.” Sheryl is the personification of my first cup of coffee.
She sticks with me the whole time and makes me wonder who started the idea that some neighborhoods were safe and others were not.
Placing the already-boxed and bagged to-go entrée and perfectly plated piece of chocolate mousse cake (complete with an artistically done smear of raspberry crème) in front of me at the same time along with the steel steaming cup of black coffee, she asks, “So you’re going to have dessert first.”
“Precisely. The way this day has gone? And yesterday? I have no idea what’s coming, so I better enjoy what I can, while I can.”
“Ouch. That’s a pretty grim way to look at it.”
“Yes, but it still includes cake, so, not all bad,” I comment, as I take my fork and carve into the multi-layered and densely dark chocolate slice of heaven before me.
“And then your plans are to what? Head back to your apartment?—”
“— condo,” I correct around a mouthful of the most luxurious chocolate I’ve tasted in a long while.
She nods, “— condo, settle in and eat your entrée?”
“Yes, I suppose so. I haven’t been giving much thought to the future, though. As strange as that may sound in light of my current predicament of being jobless and without any discernible social safety net. Getting fired? Not on my to-do list.”
“Yeah,” she agrees, her face scrunching up the slightest bit. “I want to make sure you’re planning on having some sort of future.”
The cake is suddenly too dry and catches in my throat. I cough, strangling. Sheryl takes a water glass off the tray she’s still balancing on her shoulder, saying, “Take it easy. Wash it down with this.”
I do. “Thank you,” I gasp. “Are you asking if I plan on hurting myself?”
“Maybe?” She takes a quick half-step back, then leans over to confide, “Sometimes people come in here in a situation somewhat like yours, and can’t see past right now.
They can’t imagine a future either because they’re so hung up on a present that’s already slipping into the past. They forget that the past is still just the past. They struggle with it, obsess over it.
I wanna make sure you’re okay before I let you step out that door.
Or even if you aren’t totally okay that you have the resources to feel better.
Job loss is only temporary, after all. Now it’s just the past—it can’t hurt you unless you let it. ”
“What made you so smart?”
“Sitting in this same booth five years ago wearing the same look on my face as you had a few hours ago.” She stretches out her left arm and turns her hand palm up to expose her wrist. On it is a tattoo.
“A semi-colon?”
“It means I understand now that life doesn’t have to come to a sudden and dramatic end, but instead we can pause and then continue on.” She stares down at it and a smile lights her face. “At least that’s what it means to me.”
“I’m glad you decided to continue on, Sheryl. And I bet your kids are too.”
“They are.” She beams down at me. “Are you gonna be all right?”
“Yes,” I conclude. “I need a little time to wrap my head around my new circumstances. I’m a survivor. At least that’s what I’ve been told by at least one lawyer.”
“Ah, I get it now.”
“And so should I, so do you want to give me the bill?”
“Sure.”
I pay and include a hefty tip that speaks to the quality of care I received while under Sheryl‘s watchful eye. And then I’m out the door, box in hand, and headed to find a cab.
Overhead, the light is fading from the sky and street lights begin to glow.
Watching the crowd drift in and out of the restaurant, I had the feeling most of the day had breezed by me; it’s sad how much I’ve let brush past.
I notice how strangely hot the day’s grown while I flag down a cab with surprising ease and give him my address.
The weather has been shifty at best—some blaming climate change, some mentioning the strange solar and lunar anomalies which seem to be happening with greater frequency than ever before.
I chalk it all up to the end of the world as we know it and just keep going about my day.
The cab journey is unremarkable as only the best cab rides can be, until suddenly it’s not.