Two #2
Greta hands her a to-go cup. “Thanks for lunch, Mama.”
“I’ll see you at home tonight, right? 6:30 for dinner?”
“Yes, Mama.”
Coffee in hand, Mama Roseland waves to Shelton and leaves. I let myself laugh, earning myself a glare from Greta. She loves her mom. Honestly, the patience she has with her mom is remarkable, she never gets frustrated or mad. Her patience is outstanding.
Moving back to the computer, I remind myself what Albie and I were talking about. Ah, right. Finding me a prince to steal me away from here.
It’s not my actual dream. Albie’s story doesn’t happen very often. He’s truly living a fairy tale. I’m just… living.
Shelton joins me after a few hours. He perches on the desk beside me as we share a scone and he watches a few videos with me.
“You doing okay?” he asks. The same question he asks most days.
Once, I ran away from home. I was nineteen and mistakenly thought that, since I was an adult, my father wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Somehow, and I’m still a little fuzzy on the details despite being the center of the entire thing, I was forced home again.
These are the moments when I’m thinking about the shit in my life that I find my little fidget ball helps the most. As if the little pop of pushing the buttons in is a nerve and I’ve just relieved the pressure.
It’s a strange place to be. I’m not wanted, but he also won’t let me leave. He won’t let me work someplace for minimum wage or work over forty hours, but he doesn’t like me either. I’m stuck. A prisoner in my home.
As if thinking about him summoned him, the buzzer that Shelton set up goes off. Which means Greta pressed it, having spotted a member of my family. My heart jumps into my throat as dread seeps through me.
Shelton grips my shoulder tightly, lending me support, before joining Greta. My desk in the back room is hidden on the same wall as the door. If I’m sitting normally at my desk, I can’t see into the café at all. Which means no one can see me either.
We all know how this is going to go. I slip on my apron and pull a hat with the cafe’s logo onto my head. Just inside the door are boxes of things that can be restocked out front, left there specifically for this reason.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Prosser,” Greta greets.
“Hello, Greta,” my father says. His voice is always neutral, pleasant to her and Shelton. I’m not sure it’s by choice so much as he was here one day when Shelton had someone escorted out of the café for their behavior.
It wasn’t staged, and it was a complete coincidence that my father was there at the time.
But I think it served a purpose. A reminder that he’s in a private establishment and regardless of what connections he has, he can be removed from the property and served a restraining order so that he’s not allowed inside.
Part of me wishes for it. To have a place where he can’t reach me. But I know he’d also demand I quit, which I won’t do—partially since I can’t quit somewhere I don’t actually work. And I know it’ll make being home even more unbearable.
“Your usual?” Greta asks.
“Please,” my father says, in a strange echo of Mama Roseland.
My fingers are crossed that he takes his coffee and leaves without asking to see me. My stomach turns cold when I hear him ask for me, though. But it’s not a surprise, because it’s very rare that he stops in and doesn’t.
“My son out back?”
“He is,” Shelton says. A beat passes before Shelton asks, “Do you need to see him?”
We often reflect on why my dad stops in as often as he does. Is he just making sure I’m where I say I am? Does he know I don’t actually work here and he’s trying to catch me in a lie?
My father doesn’t answer right away and I think, for one blessed minute, that he’s going to say no and leave. But the angels aren’t on my side today.
“I would,” he says.
“Just a minute,” Shelton says. A second later, he’s poking his head into the back room and giving me an apologetic smile. “Oren, your father’s here,” he says, just to keep up the act that I didn’t know.
I take a second to catch my breath and force the unease deep into my chest to settle. Nodding, I get up, grab one of the boxes and follow Shelton out.
My father and I look nothing alike. I’m short at five-foot-eight with brown hair and slate-blue eyes. I’m lean, having always maintained a slim appearance. My father? Complete and total opposite.
Meeting my dad’s eyes I step into the café, I don’t offer him a smile. Just something that could pass as one. “Hi,” I say.
He nods, his gaze moving over me as if he’s looking for a lie. When he doesn’t see one, he just nods. “You’re out at six?”
I nod. I used the excuse last night that I had to stay late and help unpack a late shipment. Which means tonight, I need to go home. “Yes.”
“Taking the bus?”
Glancing beyond him to the window, I find the sun shining brightly as if it’s a perfect day. So I shake my head. “It’s nice out. I’ll walk.”
He grunts. “Fine. I’ll see you for dinner.”
I nod again. My father inclines his head to Greta and then Shelton before turning his back on us and walking out the door. The bell above it chimes merrily even though it feels like a rain cloud just walked out.
“It’s frightening how he can be entirely polite, and I can still feel his loud disapproval,” Shelton says, frowning.
I sigh and turn to grab my box, returning it to the back with me.