Chapter 8
Maya
T he lunch rush at Calder Café and Market always comes in waves, and after five years, I have learned to read them the way I once read tide charts back in San Diego, anticipating the swell before it hits, to get access to the best fish to serve in my restaurant.
Here, the tides are people. I adjust my pace without thinking, keeping everything moving even when the room fills with noise, overlapping conversations, and the constant rhythm of plates, orders, and expectations.
I move between tables with practiced ease, balancing two plates along my forearm while sliding a third onto a corner table just as a customer reaches for his coffee, my smile warm but measured, my attention sharp enough to catch the smallest detail before it becomes a problem, because in a place like this, in a town like Silver Pine, people notice everything, and I have built my life here carefully, one interaction at a time, making sure I am known for the right reasons.
“Extra pickles, right?” I ask as I set a burger down in front of a regular who has been coming in every Tuesday since I started, and he nods with a grin that tells me I got it right, that being remembered still matters, which it does, more than I ever expected it to.
Remembering creates a kind of belonging that feels earned rather than given, something steady, something predictable, something I can rely on in a way my old life never allowed.
Behind the counter, Tess catches my eye and tilts her head slightly toward the kitchen, a silent question about the next order, and I give a quick nod before pivoting back toward the floor, already recalculating what needs to happen in the next few minutes, which tables are about to turn, which customers might linger, which new faces need just enough attention to feel like they belong here too.
It is a rhythm I trust, one I have grown into over the past few years, and there are moments like this, when everything aligns just right, when I can almost convince myself that this has always been my life, that I have always been the assistant manager of this café, that I have always belonged in a mountain town where the air feels thinner and the winters stretch longer than anything I imagined when I was younger.
But the truth never fully disappears. It lingers just beneath the surface, slipping in at the edges when I least expect it, in the scent of garlic hitting a hot pan in the kitchen, or in the way someone laughs too loudly and pulls me back to crowded evenings that feel both distant and immediate at the same time.
Even now, as I wipe down a table near the window, I feel my attention drift, my gaze settling on nothing in particular before I pull it back with quiet discipline, because I have learned how to do that, how to redirect before the past settles too deeply into the present.
San Diego still lives inside me in ways I cannot fully untangle.
It lives in the sound of my parents’ voices, in the rhythm of Filipino language woven through everyday conversation, in the lessons my mother repeated often enough that they became part of the way I think without effort, reminders about respect and reputation, about the way people talk and the way they judge, about how a single decision can echo far beyond the moment it is made.
I hear her even now sometimes, not as memory but as instinct, that quiet question threading through everything.
Ano ang sasabihin ng mga tao - or - What will people say?
It used to feel like a constraint, something that limited me, something I had to push against to build anything of my own, and maybe that is why I held onto my restaurant so tightly when I had it, why I poured everything into it as if proving something not just to my parents but to myself.
‘Maya’s Authentic Filipino Cuisine and Third Best Burgers in Town’ had been more than a business; it had been a declaration, a way of blending the parts of me that never quite fit together anywhere else, the daughter who honored where she came from and the woman who wanted something entirely her own.
I can still picture the kitchen, the heat that never quite faded even late at night, the way the air smelled like garlic and oil and something deeper, something that felt like home and ambition at the same time.
And I can still picture him there.
Marco, leaning against the counter while I worked, watching me with a focus that felt grounding and dangerous all at once, as though he saw something in me I was not always ready to acknowledge.
The memory slips in before I can stop it, sharp enough that I feel it settle into my chest before I push it back, redirecting my attention to the present with the same discipline I have practiced for years.
I reach for a coffee pot, the familiar weight anchoring me again, because thinking about him has never led anywhere good, not after everything that happened the last time we were in the same room, not after the way things ended at that bar in Silver Pine.
It took time to rebuild after that, more time than I expected, and I did it quietly, without drawing attention to how much effort it required, focusing instead on what was in front of me, on the life I could control, on becoming the version of myself who did not wait for anyone to decide whether I was worth staying for.
“You’re drifting,” Tess says, stepping closer and lowering her voice just enough that the words stay between us, and I glance at her with a small smile that softens the instinct to deny it.
“I’m not drifting,” I reply, reaching for a stack of menus and aligning them more carefully than necessary, using the motion to prove a point I am not entirely committed to defending. “I’m just thinking.”
“Same thing,” she says lightly, but there is something knowing in it, something that tells me she sees more than I say, which she usually does, and for a moment I consider offering something more, something that explains the shift without inviting too many questions.
But I let it go instead.
“I’m fine,” I add, and this time the words land more solidly, not because they are completely true in every sense, but because they are true enough for the life I have built here, for the version of myself that has learned how to keep moving forward even when part of me still lingers somewhere else.
Tess studies me for another second before nodding.
* * *
But sometimes when I lay awake at night in my apartment, or as I drift into sleep, I think of him, and only him.
No other man has impacted me the way he still does.
We never had a chance to move forward in our intimate life.
I never saw him naked. I never felt him.
But in my mind, in my fantasies and in my dreams, I think about him, his body, so strong, so well toned, as a Navy Corpsman.
I think about what it would be like to be with him fully, finally.
In one recurring and evolving fantasy, we make love right there in my restaurant after closing, the window shades drawn.
We shower together, even though my restaurant does not have a shower.
And we lay together on top of the tables, our naked bodies embracing.
I feel his strength and he pulls me close to him.
In my dream fantasy, I always move first. I always take action.
He is always so polite, and respectful, and maybe a little shy, that I kind of have to.
I move down his body and take him fully in my mouth.
I hear him moan with pleasure. He calls out my name again and again in whispers at first, then louder.
When I sense that he can take no more, and as my body feels hotter and hotter, I move up on him, and straddle him. I lower myself on to him like an expert, even though I’m not, definitely. We kiss in the quiet of my restaurant. He thrusts up into me, I respond over and over again.
As I feel him deep inside me, I squeeze and this brings me to new heights, to new awareness.
I lift my body up and lower it back on him, as I hear him moan each time, each time a little more loudly.
It’s ok, the restaurant is closed. We are alone.
I share his moans with my own, as I feel my body become more and more aroused by his cock inside me, but his movements, by him.
In my mind’s eye, I always come first, and he always follows. We lay together wrapped in blankets, which my restaurant also does not have. We talk about forever.
When I awake early with the alarm clock, the fantasy dissipates, and the memories come rushing back, the bar, how he left.
Where he might be now, whether he still thinks of me.
And of course, I need to get up and shower for a new day at Calder Café and Market.
I feel loved there, I feel welcomed there.
Silver Pine has a way of making me feel at home.