Chapter 19
NINETEEN
Love is my mom taking me to get my favorite food or drink when I’ve had a bad day.
By the time February slid into March, we’d developed a routine of sorts. Mainly avoidance but, hey, it worked.
The first Friday in March, Oliver had a half day of school and stayed at the café with me until it closed.
Oliver was basically the café mascot at this point.
The old men who hung out in the back corner had already taught him to play chess.
When we got busy, he knew how to wipe down tables or hand out menus.
He enjoyed helping. He made good tips, too.
Already had a pretty hefty college fund started.
I was continuing a time-honored tradition of unpaid child labor.
My dad had been a contractor my whole life.
When I was a kid, it wasn’t unusual to find us loading up his truck with supplies.
Mom often took calls for him and did his books.
Chris was wrangled into working in the summers when he wasn’t in one football camp or another.
We’d all complain about having to give up a Saturday afternoon to help with something but, secretly, I’d loved it.
Using my hands, moving my body, creating things, those things had always come more naturally to me than sitting at a desk studying.
That was reflected in my subpar grades unless I was excited about the topic.
If that were the case, I’d read everything I could get my hands on.
I’d enjoyed chemistry and creative writing. I hated geometry.
It had taken me three tries to pass that class.
Pythagoras’ Theorem had haunted my dreams. Despite what every math teacher told me, no, I had not used that theorem once in my adult life.
Figuring out the least amount of money the electric company would take to keep the lights on?
Calculating how many tips I needed to make in one night to get all the rent money? Now those were useful equations.
Mom and Dad tried to help. They got me tutors and spent hours upon hours with me doing homework, encouraging me, and sometimes bribing me to get through one more test. For my brother and sisters, school had been easy, but for me, it mostly felt like torture.
Looking back, I could see how having undiagnosed ADHD made school a challenge.
How many phone calls home had my parents received about my daydreaming in class?
Answer: A lot.
How many times had I gotten a ding on my report card for my messy, disorganized desk in elementary school?
Answer: A lot.
How many times had I felt a bit different from everyone else?
Answer: A lot.
But the first time I took a theater class in middle school, something clicked.
I loved everything about it. The silly warm-ups, the improv lessons, the scenes we’d perform.
Costume and makeup. The audience and the lights.
I’d found my people too. The drama kids were different, like me, creative but not in the way our teachers wanted us to be.
Because it was the first place I’d found where I fit, I knew in my soul I was meant to be an actress.
But sometimes your first love isn’t your forever love.
Sometimes, there are things you can’t possibly imagine, better things, that are meant for you.
Going to LA had been a teenager’s dream; coming here to Two Harts and working at the Sit-n-Eat, this was my grown-up dream.
To think, I never would have known that without going through all the hard times.
It was half an hour before close and only a few straggling customers remained.
Oliver had escaped into the office to play.
Gil sat at the counter, texting and eating his lunch.
Bits of food and grease stains were splattered on his green polo which made him look like he’d been on the losing end of a monster food fight.
He’d been on dish duty today. Despite the apron he’d worn, he still managed to get more water on himself and the floor than the dishes. Mentally, I crossed that job off the list of things he could do around here.
Next, we’d try refilling the napkin holders.
That seemed less damaging to his wardrobe.
I grinned. It was terrible of me, I know, but he seemed like a capable guy, someone who could take care of business.
Unless the business was doing dishes. Or making pancakes (Jorge said never again).
Or remembering who needed a drink refill.
Those things were second nature to me; I was good at this. Gil wasn’t.
“Oliver, you want a cookie?” I yelled. That was another bonus he’d discovered about hanging out with me at the café. Extra cookies.
He ran into the room, carting his dinosaur encyclopedia. “Mommy, guess what?”
“What?”
“I found a new dinosaur.” He held up the enormous book we’d checked out from the library and pointed at a shape on a page. “It had feathers on it and eated plants and look how big the claws are. How do you say the name?”
Confession: I have no idea how to pronounce dinosaur names.
They were at least twenty letters long and the letters were not in any order that made sense.
It was like trying to read a different language.
The day Oliver realized I was basically making up the names as we went along was going to be a sad day for us all.
“That’s a T and then a H.” His tongue stuck out as he studied the word.
I took a deep breath and took the book from his hands, acutely aware Gil was sitting across the counter listening to all of this and not bothering to hide it. “That’s good, kiddo. T and H together say thhh. And the e and the r say er so ther…”
Look at that. Only fifteen more letters to go.
“Therizinosaurus,” Gilbert said in a clear voice.
Oliver’s head whipped around to stare at Gil. “Say it again.” Gil repeated it. Oliver bounced on the balls of his feet in excitement. “Do you like dinosaurs?”
Gil nodded solemnly. “I sure do.”
“Wow,” Oliver said in a voice he reserved only for my brother, dinosaurs, and the reptile hut at the zoo.
Gil leaned a little closer and pointed at another dinosaur on the page. “The deinocheirus is cool, too. They had a duck bill instead of big teeth and it was even bigger than a T-rex.”
“Whoa.” Oliver stared at Gil in pure, unadulterated hero worship. It was inevitable. Oliver had already asked a million questions about Gil when he lived in a tent in the backyard. Now that he’d moved into the house, his curiosity was unending.
Oliver set the book in front of Gil. He ran around the counter and climbed up on the stool next to him. Now that he’d discovered Gil knew dinosaurs, it would be impossible to keep the kid away.
Oliver pointed at a dinosaur in the book. “What’s that one called?”
“Okay, Oliver, how about we let Mr. Dalton get back to his lunch.” I tried to slide the book from the counter, but Gil stopped me.
“It’s okay. I don’t mind.” And then Gil Dalton, the same guy who had a resting frown face, smiled. At me. It was an adorable smile, a little crooked and unsure. My heart thumped hard, just once.
“If you’re sure.” I hesitated, watching the two of them together, before I took myself into the kitchen to work on a couple of batches of magic cookie bars for tomorrow.
Gil’s low murmur and Oliver’s giggles were my background music. Occasionally, I’d peek through into the dining area to see the two of them side by side, two dark heads bent over that encyclopedia.
They stayed like that until I closed for the day. “Time to go. Go get your backpack.”
“Mom,” he said, making the word about fifteen seconds long.
I gently pushed him. “Backpack. Now. Let’s go.”
Oliver trudged back to the office while Gil went back to eating his (cold) soup.
“What was that?” I asked.
“What was what?”
“That.” I waved a hand in Oliver’s general direction. “You were so…so…sweet to him.”
“He’s a kid.”
“But he’s not your kid. You weren’t just nice, you were…likable.”
His spoon clinked when he dropped it in the bowl. “I can be likable.”
I pressed my lips together in response.
“I am.”
“You’re kind of…stern. Like a principal on lunch duty. Just waiting to give detention to someone.”
Leaning back, he crossed his arms, a fierce frown marring his face. “That’s not true.”
“Sure.” I grabbed my purse from under the counter.
“It’s not.”
Oliver ran back into the room, his dinosaur backpack thudding with each step. “Ready.” He waved at Gil. “Bye, Mr. Dalton.”
“You can call me Gilbert.”
“Okay, Mr. Gilbert. Can we talk about dinosaurs later?”
“You got it.” Then he smiled and made sure to look right at me when he did it.