“Yes!”
“Done.” I tossed a twenty on the table and said, “Something came up,” to the server, and we were out of there.
On the street corner, I asked Emerson if she knew of a place. She didn’t, but she pulled out her phone, quickly finding somewhere on Google.
We walked side by side to a dingy pizza place, where we demolished a large pie. I ate of most of it, but she didn’t act like one of those high-society New York chicks who only drank sparkling water and ate lettuce.
We laughed about Trattoria V, and how we wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like that back home. I told her about the farm, milking the cows and picking apples. She listened wide-eyed.
“I’d love to see that one day. Sounds so cool,” she said, and it seemed genuine.
She told me about the beach in the winter, when it was quiet and desolate, almost lonely. Like mine, her high school only had about a hundred students in four grades.
“Then summertime comes, and the place is swarming with people. Restaurants are packed, garbage cans overflowing, and lots of money to be made,” she said. “It’s cool because you get to meet lots of different people from all over, I guess ... that’s what my dad always said.”
We wiped our greasy fingers on paper napkins and guzzled down syrupy fountain sodas until it was way later than we realized.
“Shit, it’s almost eleven,” she said, glancing at her phone. “I have to work a double tomorrow, daylight at the restaurant and nighttime at the bar.”
“I’d like to Uber you home. No expectations. Just want to make sure you’re safe. Is that okay?”
“Sure you do.” She sort of laughed, but I wasn’t sure she was joking.
“Scout’s honor.” I put my right hand up in the air, and she narrowed her eyes at me.
“You’re not walking me up to the door. Just the car ride, and off you go.”
I nodded in agreement, but I was lying. I was kissing her good night at the door. Or maybe in the car.
Emerson
Icouldn’t help it. I woke up the next morning running a finger across my lips like a lovesick fool in a romantic dramedy. Oh, wait, that’s exactly who I was.
Price had stayed true to his word, remaining in the Uber, but he paid the driver to keep the meter running and he kissed me. Right in the back seat of some stranger’s car ... close mouthed, but not one bit tentative. No tongue, yet more sensual than I’d ever been kissed before.
Maybe I was naive, but his kiss had felt full of promise and emotion. A promise I didn’t have to return, yet I gifted myself a few more seconds of reminiscing about his lips on mine.
And then it was over, and I was full speed ahead, starting my day. Coffee, shower, then wait tables.
When I finally finished with the lunch rush, I saw I’d missed a call from Bev.
“What’s up?” I asked when I called her back from the break room.
“What’s up with you?”
“Working. You know, living the great American dream.”
“Yeah, I feel you. Anyway, I was hanging with my mom during one of her treatments, and I told her how much you love Paula’s painting. She has another one in the back of her closet. You want it?”
“Um, how much does she want for it?” I tried to temper the buzz of excitement jolting through my veins.
“It’s for you. Nothing, if you want it.”
“I can’t take it. Your mom probably wants to keep it anyway.”
“Emerson, I said you could have it. Hey, why don’t you come up to the bakery later in the week, and we can go for happy hour?”
“Oh, okay. Thursday?”
