Daphne and I are in a booth with brown faux-leather seats beneath an ancient photograph of a sports team that apparently won some kind of championship in the fifties. The photo and frame itself almost feel older than the time it was taken.
The other diners are at a white-topped table that clearly has something wrong with its legs, because there’s athumpevery time one of them leans on it.
The lighting is dim, which fits with the rainclouds that have come up again and are sprinkling outside.
I lean toward Daphne. “Are you trying to attract attention?”
She fiddles with a saltshaker and shakes her head. “The first rule of eating at diners after being used to Michelin star restaurants is that you have to be brave with your choices.”
She’s still annoyingly subdued.
So I do what Daphne would do.
I make a snarky comment. “Thank you for explaining that I’m not in Michelin territory anymore. I couldn’t possibly have figured that out on my own.”
“Would you have ordered chicken-fried steak?”
Dammit. She has me there. “Probably not.”
“Chicken-fried steak is to diners what Cod Pieces is to fast food.” She kisses her fingertips. “And I’ll bet you a hundred bucks we get a plate of chicken-fried steak among her top six favorites.”
“You’re betting me my own money.”
“If you’d stopped at my car on our way out of town, I could’ve grabbed my wallet and credit card, but nooooooo, you had to get us four hours down the road before I realized the car was moving.”
I swipe my hand over my mouth.
She truly is funny once I’m not annoyed with her.
The idea that I would’ve grabbed her wallet and ID for her and not kicked her out of the car?—
Her eyes twinkle, and that same feeling that I had in the thunderstorm hits me again.
I’ve lived an incredibly boring existence.
All of the money in the world, every opportunity right at my fingertips, and every choice I’ve made has been safe and convenient and for the good of everyone around me.
It was always easier than figuring out who I wanted to be.
What I wanted to do.
And I don’t have to be that person letting others steer my ship anymore.
I don’twantto be.
I sip from the mason jar of water that our server set down before taking our order. “Protest anything lately?”
She lights up more. It makes my heart thump oddly in my chest again.
“Yes,” she says. “Last week, in fact.”
“Mistreatment of a barn cat?”
“I told you how my best friend’s dad was a chef? He wanted to open a restaurant in this cool old Victorian house in town, but he died about ten years ago—Bea’s mom too, that’s why Bea had to leave college, to move home and finish raising her brothers. So he never got to open his restaurant, but Bea told her ex-boyfriend all about it. While they were dating, I mean. Not after they broke up.”
“As one would assume.”
She wrinkles her nose at me. “So Jake promised Bea they’d open the restaurant together, but he was the one putting down all of the money for everything while Bea was giving him all of the ideas for how to make it great and getting all of the socialsgoing and getting the community excited about it, and then—guess. Guess what happened.”
