Chapter 12
Chapter
“You think he’ll show?” Billy asks as he slides a grilled cheese through the pass into my waiting hands.
“Who?” I rack my brain for the day of the week so I can figure out what regular he’s referring to.
Pedro comes to the diner on Mondays and Wednesdays after his physical therapy.
On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings, Percival and Johnny claim counter seats, where they snipe at each other about the Ravens and the Steelers.
But those guys are like clockwork. Why wouldn’t they show? Honestly, they’re the best help at keeping my days straight. Work has time blending together until a whole month could go by without me realizing.
“The hot pilot. Bunsen.” Billy points toward a booth by the window where Riann waits for her grilled cheese. “She’s all excited for her interview. He’s not gonna stand her up, right?”
“That’s happening today?” As I hold her food, I realize now that Riann has her voice recorder set up, and she’s sitting poised in her seat, as if waiting, rather than surrounded by scattered books and homework, like usual.
“Yeah. She’s trying to pretend like she’s not excited, but I think it’s a big deal to her.” Billy’s eyes harden. “So, Bunsen. Do you think he’ll show?”
My mind slips to the moment when the plane was going down, how the man took a precious second to apologize to me. Then when we were on the ground, how he checked in to see if I was okay. And he did that all for a woman he doesn’t like.
That guy is serious about his responsibilities if nothing else.
“He will,” I say with confidence. “He’ll show up.”
Please let him show up.
Ten minutes later the front door bell rings, and I swear I hear Riann let out a squeak.
There, in nice-fitting jeans, a long-sleeved thermal, and a well-worn baseball cap stands George Bunsen. His eyes scan the diner until they find mine. He gives me a short nod, then turns his attention to Riann.
“Thank you for meeting me for this interview,” she says, standing up as she talks in an overly formal tone I’ve never heard from her before. “Can I get you anything?” She waves toward me, and I bite my lip against a snort.
Guess little Riann is growing up.
George tilts his head my way. “Just a coffee. Thank you.”
“Coming right up.” I wear my waitress persona, playing my part so I don’t mess up Riann’s professional reporter moment.
George settles on the bench seat across from Riann, and after filling him a mug from a fresh pot, I leave the two of them to talk, retreating behind the counter to where I spy Billy peering out from his kitchen hideaway.
“Guess you were right,” he offers.
I lean my forearms on the pass and try to ease some weight off my feet.
My soles ache, and I wish I could afford to buy a new pair of sneakers with better support.
Alas, that’s far down on the list of things my paycheck can go to.
At least this time of day—the lull between lunch and dinner—I get a brief break from the hustle.
“Yeah. But the real question is, how long until Riann has him looking for an escape route?” I keep my voice low, and Billy mirrors my arms-on-the-pass position until our faces are close enough that I can smell his spearmint gum.
“Aww, she’s not that bad.”
“She’s not bad,” I agree. “But she’s a teenager. That age group is scary. I’d rather face down a biker gang than a fifteen-year-old on her period.”
Billy chuckles, the corners of his eyes creasing with humor.
I like when the two of us are on shift together, even with all of his mother’s matchmaking attempts.
He’s fun to shoot the shit with when things are slow, and he’ll fry me up a hash brown halfway through my shift or whenever a customer is mean to me.
Just because he knows they’re my favorite version of potatoes.
“I dunno, Beth. You might just be a wimp.”
“I’m not a wimp,” I gasp in mock offense, reaching out to poke his forehead. “You know what? Next time I get a table of teenagers, how about you give me a turn on the grill? You can come out here and deal with their snark. Because that shit is sharp. I walk away bloody.”
Billy leans farther through the pass, having nothing to do other than banter with me until the dinner crowd shows up.
“Oh yeah? You got scars from a prom queen?”
I straighten and press a mockingly dramatic hand against my chest. “More than you can count. All under this uniform, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.”
Billy grins. “I dunno. I might find out one of these days. You know, when I stop being so shy and tell you how I really feel.”
A throat clears behind me, and I whirl to find George on the other side of the counter. He somehow seems taller than he was a moment ago. And for some reason, his intense attention is on Billy.
Maybe he’s hungry.
“Hey.” I pull out my notepad. “Did you want to order food? Or get more coffee?”
George resettles his attention on me, and I ignore the way the nerves on the backs of my legs—strange place—buzz. Also, my feet suddenly stop hurting.
Maybe they’ve gone numb from overuse.
“Yes,” George says. “I’ll take more coffee. And Riann has questions for both of us.”
“For me? But I didn’t do anything.”
His brow furrows. “You stayed calm.” That’s debatable. “And you lived through it.”
Sure, that’s true. Maybe she wants the angle of the coolheaded professional against the panicked newbie. I glance over to Riann and find her wearing an eager smile.
I sigh.
“Fine.” If I’m going to humiliate myself, it might as well be for a member of my diner family. “But only until an actual customer shows up.”
George waits until I slip out from behind the counter, then walks with me back to the interview booth. He gestures for me to take a seat, but I wave him in first.
“In case I need to get up quickly,” I explain.
He grunts and settles back on the vinyl bench.
And because my feet are in revolt once more, I perch next to him.
“You’ve got questions for me?” I ask Riann, wondering why she waited for George’s interview to bring them up. She’s here most school days and chats with me all the time.
“Yes. Mr. Bunsen told me what happened when the plane went down from his perspective. Now I want yours. Please walk me through what you remember happening as well as what you were thinking.” She holds her pen poised, gaze sharp.
I grimace, throwing my mind back to that moment and wondering if I should let her know exactly how many swear words went through my brain.
Riann probably doesn’t need that info.
“Well, the first thing that happened was the engine went quiet. Everything went quiet. Thinking back on it now, if we hadn’t been in danger, that probably would have been a peaceful moment.
But, you know, it wasn’t planned, so…” I go on to tell what I recall of our descent, being honest about how scared I was.
But also admitting how George’s calm kept me from completely melting down.
Hopefully that detail will slip by unnoticed.
“And then we were on the ground. I couldn’t even believe it at first. I just froze. George was the one to unbuckle my seat belt and open my door.” Leaving the burning imprint of his hand on my thigh that I still sometimes feel in the morning when I’m half asleep, waking up from a good dream.
No need to admit that out loud.
“Did Mr. Bunsen’s—”
“You can call me George,” he interrupts, although the comment is gentle.
Riann’s cheeks darken, but she sits even straighter in her seat and makes a note in her notebook. “Okay. Did George’s heroic acts inspire you to pursue your pilot’s license?”
The man in question shifts next to me, and I get the sense he’s not on board with the “hero” moniker. But I focus on another part of her question. “Who told you I’m working on my license?”
“A reporter never reveals her sources. Answer the question, please.”
I roll my eyes. So much sass.
“What he did was very impressive. And I admit that I was frustrated in the moment, not knowing what was going on or what to do other than sit there and let him handle it. But I’ve wanted to learn how to fly planes since I was seventeen.”
“What happened when you were seventeen?” George asks, as if he wants to conduct the interview now. I can feel his eyes on the side of my face. Guess he doesn’t know about the spring break incident.
“I went on a plane for the first time. Just as a passenger, but I still thought it was amazing.”
Yeah, a passenger in one of BBN’s jets. A jet that Shawn decided to charter without telling his dad or the company exactly what it was for. Nothing more than a vague “Spring break at the beach.”
I didn’t even know what was happening until we showed up at the tarmac.
My mom had signed off on me spending the weekend with my brother, who was twenty at the time, but I’m pretty sure she thought he was just going to take me camping or to a fancy hotel. Not fly several states away.
Mom wasn’t happy to learn how far we’d gone, but she was more chill about the excursion than Karl Newton was.
I overheard her on the phone the night after I got back.
Because Mom prefers to put all calls on speaker, I figured out right away who she was talking to.
The man who, as far as I knew, hadn’t spoken to her without going through a lawyer since the day she left her job at BBN.
My bet is that Mom picked up only because she didn’t recognize the number.
And on this rare call, Karl told my mother that she shouldn’t be teaching me how to guilt his son into using company resources for my personal amusement.
Mom had screamed back at him that he and his company could go to hell before chucking her phone across the room. Then she locked herself in the bathroom of our small apartment for hours. But I could still hear her sobs through the door.
I’ve never felt more guilty for enjoying myself. And I never asked Shawn to take me anywhere again, claiming that I’d had fun but missed my mom being away from her that long.