Chapter 1 – Sloppy Lettuce.
Dear Logan,
How are you? How’s your mom? Family well?
Too sweet!
Dear Logan,
How you holding up champ?
Nope! Scratch that—younearly killed him.
Dear Logan,
Just writing to say FUCK YOU for blocking me! Now I’m writing to you like a FUCKING PSYCHO!
Up Yours,
Hallie, XoXo
No. Jesus, Hallie.What’s wrong with you?
Who writes letters these days, anyway? Chances, he will read it. My bet’s zero.
Okay, just calm theeffdown, woman. Logan’s fine, this is fine. Just put pen to paper, Hallie, and write from the heart! Easy, right? You got this.
******
3 weeks before . . .
“Another glorious dayatwork, I feel freaking sick,” I shout as I swing open the door to my Aunt Agnes’s place.
It’s the middle of August, and New York City is bustling with life. The summer is in full bloom, and tourists have welland trulytaken over Central Park. Oh, wait, plus every other café, and we cannot forget slowing up the sidewalks by snapping photos of all the landmarks around.
Impatient people are rushing and grunting through crowds to get to work, and you can spot a born-and-bred New Yorker a mile away. They areeithersuited and booted for a day in the office or dressed like they are about to walk in the next New York Fashion Week with a would-you-watch-it attitude.
If you’re unfortunate—or fortunate, depending on your thing—you’ll need tohold your nose in some areas because the smell of weed, mainly around Times Square, can be a little overpoweringfrom time to time.
Traffic is almost always atstandstill, and yellow cab horns blasting—which is illegal in the city,but the bastards do it anyway, angry cabdriver’s shoutscan be heard all around. Let’s face it. It’s fucking dog crap here. But I love it. It’s New freaking York!
“Someone got out of the wrong side of the bed and woke up in the wrong season this morning,” my aunt shouts from the kitchen. Withamop of long blonde hair and bright blue eyes, she peeks around the kitchen doorframe, beaming a Julia Roberts smile.
“Who, me?Never,” I say rolling my eyes. “I’mHocusPocus’dand ready to focus, babe.”
It’s 10:00 a.m., and breakfast rush has passed. Every evening, I promise to be here first thing in the morning to help my aunt, uncle, and the otherwaitressesout, but I’m not so much of an early bird.
Okay, fine, I despise early mornings.I’m more of a night-owl kind of girl.
My aunt’s diner sits inMidtownon 9thAvenue. It’s a retro-chic American diner with black-and-whitecheckeredflooring, small booths with bright-red leather seats that linethe large windows and look out to the busystreet, juke boxes are placed on every table, and neon-red lightshangfrom the ceiling.
I have always loved coming here. Something about this place grounds me. Maybe it’s the photo of my grandpa hanging behind the counter grinning from ear to ear in the place he built from scratch. And knowing every special family moment was made here: my first steps, my first words, every birthday celebration, all the important memories I hold dear are right here. Orit’s the free milkshakeI pour myself? Who knows.
Whata man he was. Salt-and-pepper hair and mischievous glints in his eyes;we always got up to no good. He,Granny, Agnes, and Harold raised me from the day I was born. I never met my mom. Apparently, she popped me out right here in the diner.Granny saidMomwas a troubled one and ran off for good a few days after I was born.I never asked why she didn’tcome back;suppose I was too scared of the answer. Growingup, it bothered me: Whydid she leave?Whydid no one help her? Clearly, she was in a bad place, she’d not long turnednineteen whenshe had me, butthen again,I never felt like I needed to know those answers, to know that part of me. Granny,Grandpa, and Aunt Agnes loved and cared for me so deeply in their own waysthatit was enough for me. Oh, and I cannot forget my childhood best friend, Maxine, or Max as we all call her. She’s been there from the start too.
“Soowhat did you get up to last night, Pudding,” Harold, Agnes’s husband, asks while wiping dry glasses behind the bar area.
“You know me, nothing big, just went out partying with some random people off the streets, smoked some weed, popped a few pills, started a bar fight, got arrested, ended up in county jail,aaandwas released abouttwentyminutes ago, which is why I’m late into work,” I fire off with a huge grin growing on my face, wagging my eyebrows at him.
It’s a lie, he knows it, but he plays along to wind my aunt up.
“Oh, yeah, another bar fight, hey?” he shouts loud enough for Agnes to hear with a shit-eating grin on his face.“Youwin?”
“Harold,” myauntbellows from the kitchen, warning him to behave. I quietly chuckle.The poor guy may wear the pants but it’s my auntwhopicks them. If you get what I mean.
“Yep.” I pop the p for maximum effect. “I sure did. Youare right, I started a fight and pulled a guy, and what a sight he was, Harold. Gorgeousbrown mop of hair, thatfiveo’clock shadow thing going on, you know, really a remarkable sight. Just as I was about to take my winnings and kiss him, the lights flickered on,and the cuffs went on my wrists.”
“And to think he might have been the one,” my uncletuts-while shaking his head, voice laced with fake sympathy.
“Maybe, but I’ll never know now.” I wink at my uncle as Agnes comes into the bar area.
“So, what did you do? You aren’t getting any younger, baby,” my aunt says.
Here we go again. The daily you-need-a-man talk.
“You’re still young, you should go out more, have fun for real, spread your legs and find yo’ man,”she says, nudging me.
“Aunt Agnes!”I shout while laughing.“You’rethe lady of the diner, that’s no way to talk.”
She barks out a laugh while my uncle sprays his drink all over the countertop, hejustwiped clean.
“Listen, Hallie, youwon’tfind him here. You need to go out more,” shesays, this time with pity in her voice.
“Okay, Aggie.”Callingher that always gets the best reactions. Harold, Max, and Istarted callingher that years ago, and she hates it, but if she didn’t nag us so much, we wouldstop.
Smiling at her eye roll and huff, I carry on. “Fine, I’ll call Max and go out! But, for the record, I might find him here,” I say, looking around the diner, silently praying for an Adonis to be sitting inone of the booths. Shit out of luck there, it’s just Joe and his burger in booth 4. He picks that exact moment to slow-motion turn around in his seat to look over at us.
Ugh, God, he has some sloppy lettuce hanging out his mouth.Hesmiles and waves his mustard-covered fingers at us. I wave back, grimacingto myself.
I turn back to my aunt and unclesmiling at me. “I’ll callMax,” I say again, hoping this is the end of the conversation for the day.