Chapter 15
“Have you been a server before?” I asked the young man on the phone.
“Not technically,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, define the word server.”
I got the feeling he meant for that to be a rhetorical question, but I answered it anyway. “Someone who takes food orders and then delivers said food.”
“I’ve never done that,” he said. “But I have worked fast food.”
That wasn’t nothing. Fast food was hard. “How long did you work there?”
“Like two weeks.”
“Right. Okay, well, I’ll be in touch, Timothy. Thanks for your time.”
He was the fourth phone interview I’d done today and the fourth one I didn’t feel I could advance to the next stage. Raya would take pity on the Timothys of the world, and soon we’d have a staff full of incompetent people. I had to at least get some good candidates in front of her.
I sent Presley a quick text, asking her how she was doing. It was one week into my promised two-week fix, and although the staff was using the app consistently now for schedule changes, I was afraid not much else had changed and she was still feeling overwhelmed and dissatisfied.
The bell rang from the other room along with the words “Sutton! Refill!”
I closed my eyes, took a calming breath, and stood. I sucked in some air. I was sore. I hadn’t thought I’d used every muscle in my body the day before, but apparently I had.
“Hey, Mom,” I said, coming into the living room. She was lying on the couch, her leg propped up. “What do you need?”
“Water.”
There was a large lidded cup with a straw and handle sitting on the coffee table that I’d filled earlier. I picked it up to refill it, only to be stopped by its weight. It was full.
“There’s water in here, Mom.”
“I can’t lift that. It’s too heavy. I need a normal glass.”
Right. Because her perfectly working arm had lost all its strength apparently. I moved to the kitchen.
“Mom, remember someone is coming over today. One of my friends.” I wasn’t about to tell her that he was coming over to help me with her.
She wouldn’t like that at all. But she seemed to be relatively kind to strangers, so I had high hopes that my mom would actually treat a pretty boy like Elijah well.
Be on her best behavior. Even if he did nothing else, that, in and of itself, would be a nice break.
“Is it Tara?” she asked. “She’s a nurse, you know.” She always said that like she was the proudest parent in the world. Like she had something to do with Tara’s accomplishments.
“Yes, I know. But no, not Tara. His name is Elijah.” After several quiet beats I added, “Mom, you know I own a restaurant, right?”
“Of course I do. That’s very brave of you. Have you paid that girl’s parents back yet?”
I didn’t know why I ever told her we borrowed money from Raya’s parents to start Luminesce. Probably because she had asked point-blank how it was possible, but I regretted it now. “We make monthly payments.”
“Well, then…” she didn’t finish the sentence, but I knew how it ended: Then you don’t own it, do you? “I read that review about your restaurant online. I saved it on my phone.”
She saved the review that called my restaurant lackluster?
Why did that make my insides twist? Why did that make me want to defend myself, to tell her that was from months ago?
That I was trying to figure out how to give the restaurant more character?
That things had picked up? I knew how I’d sound if I opened my mouth though, so I just filled a plastic cup with water and brought it to her.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said.
“Okay, I’ll help you.” As I transferred her to her wheelchair, I said, “If you start exercising this arm, the doctor said once your dizziness clears up, you can use a scooter.”
“You’re tired of helping me?” she asked.
Yes. “No, of course not.”
“Because I didn’t ask for this to happen to me.”
“I know.”
“And you’re my only daughter. You said you wanted to be here.”
“I do.” I wheeled her to the bathroom, wondering if now was the time Elijah was going to show up.
We hadn’t talked about a specific time. We really should’ve exchanged numbers, but we’d yet to do that.
Probably my fault since I’d been trying my hardest to keep him at arm’s length.
To not know him. To get out of this therapy thing altogether.
But he didn’t show up while I was helping my mom in the bathroom.
Or when I made her lunch or gave her a sponge bath or changed the bandages on her head and abdomen.
He didn’t show up when I made her dinner or helped her into some pajamas.
He didn’t show up as I was giving her nighttime meds and muscling her into bed.
And he definitely didn’t show up when my mom said, almost as an afterthought, “I guess your friend never came,” like she wasn’t surprised at all.
It wasn’t until my mom was long asleep and I had done the dishes and was straightening up the living room that I heard a soft knock on the door.
I wiped all emotion off my face—all the exhaustion, frustration, anger, disappointment—and replaced it with indifference as I opened the door.
Elijah’s face was the picture of penitence, brows drawn down, big, sad eyes, disheveled hair. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
I looked over my shoulder and stepped out onto the porch, pulling the door shut behind me. “It’s fine,” I said. “I told you I didn’t need help anyway.”
“You’re not mad?” he asked. “I feel terrible.”
“Nope, I do this every day. I don’t need an extra body in the way.”
“Sutton,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he wasn’t buying my nonchalant routine or if he just felt extremely guilty; whichever the case, he kept talking.
“My brother said he’d be at the gym all day today, but he had some wedding emergency.
So I asked my dad if he’d come but … well, that didn’t happen.
And I don’t have your number—I need your number—or I would’ve called you.
I tried to get it from Tara, but she was on a long shift today and wasn’t answering her phone. You’re … sure you’re … fine…?”
“No big deal. I had almost forgotten you were coming.”
“Right. Okay. Is there anything I can do now?”
“At ten o’clock at night?”
“Is it that late?” He pulled out his phone. “Shit. It is. I’m sorry.” His eyes popped back up to mine.
My phone buzzed in my hand. It was a text from Presley. She hadn’t gotten back to me earlier. A little better, but not much. What happened to hiring more help?
“Everything okay?” Elijah asked.
“Yes, fine. Work stuff.”
“Something I can help with?”
“No,” I said. I couldn’t even do anything at the moment.
“What about food?” he asked. “I can get you food. Are you hungry at all?”
I shook my head and backed toward the door, grasping the handle behind me. “I already ate. But I’ll see you at therapy, yeah?”
“I can come back tomorrow. I’ll come—”
“Please,” I interrupted. “Please don’t…” Make promises you can’t keep.
I kept those last words to myself because that would give away too much.
Make him realize that my throat was burning and my eyes were stinging right now.
I was just tired. I didn’t need a person.
People had the ability to disappoint. To not follow through.
Like he had proven today. I could take care of myself.
Could take care of everything. I just needed sleep.
“Okay,” he said.
I pasted on a smile. “Looks like I don’t hit that hard after all,” I said, noting his jaw was not discolored in any way. Not even the slightest bruise.
“It was probably this great nurse I had who held some ice to my face,” he said.
“Or your Wolverine powers.”
He smiled, the guilt finally gone from his expression, and took a step back. His eyes scanned the house around me as if this gave him another piece to the puzzle he was assembling about my life in his head. “I’ll see you soon.”
I nodded.