Crap.I’d forgotten to pay? Terrific. Had someone told Ms. Patty? No one mentioned it today when Aunt Mona and I came in, but then again, a new girl was working the booths. In a panic, I imagined my Polaroid being taped behind the diner register, on the board for banned customers, where it said in black Sharpie:Do not serve these assholes.
“Ye-a-a-a-ah, so I took care of it,” he said, nervously tapping his fingers on the edge of the counter. “And then you were long gone.”
My cheeks were getting warm again. “Um, I can—how much? I’ll pay you back. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a quick shake of his head. “I was more concerned about you running off.” He looked around the lobby and leaned over the desk. “Did you see my ad?”
Ad?
“My listing.” He blinked several times and scratched his temple. “Of course not. I thought maybe you saw it and...” He was talking more to himself than to me. “When we met, you said you’d just interviewed...”
“For a different job. At the library. I didn’t get it,” I said. “And I didn’t realize you worked here, or I wouldn’t have applied.”
His brow tightened. “You wouldn’t have?”
“I didn’t mean... I meant that I wasn’t stalking you, or anything. In case that’s what you thought. It was just a weird coincidence.”
“Oh. Guess that whole small-world thing really is true, huh?”
Did he realize I’d said that already? I couldn’t tell, and this threw me off... made me feel as thoughIwere missing half of the conversation. How could I not have picked up on his hearing issue at the diner? That was the type of detail I usually didn’t miss.
“Let’s just forget it and move on,” I suggested.
“I regret it for sure,” he said.
Wait: he regretted it too? Why? I mean, I know why I regretted it.
“Maybe it was a mistake, but I thought we had a connection. Our chemistry... I mean, Christ. In the diner? When we first got into the car? It wassothere.” He paused. “At least, I thought so.”
Fresh panic rolled through me. Heseemedsincere, but the detective in me was distrustful, and maybe that’s because something was still niggling me from our earlier reintroduction outside the hotel’s entrance. “Oh, really? Is that why you told Joseph about us?”
“I didn’t!” he protested before giving me a shy look. “Not everything, anyway.”
“But enough,” I said.
“It’s not like I gave him a play-by-play, Christ. Joseph and I are friends. I’ve known him since high school. He couldn’t care less about what we did or didn’t do.”
“Did you tell that Chuck guy too?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t tell Chuck the hotel was burning down. He’s a jackass. I didn’t tell anyone but Joseph, Scout’s honor.” He leans over the counter and speaks in a lower voice. “What happened between me and you was... not something that happens to me every day. Joseph’s the one who suggested I do the classified ad.”
What ad?
“Anyway, Joseph was just surprised when he saw you.Iwas surprised.”
We were all surprised, apparently.
“He’s embarrassed now,” Daniel insisted.
He wasn’t the only one. “Look, I should get back to work,” I said, self-conscious and embarrassed. “This job is important to me, and I can’t afford to lose it.” I needed to prove to myself that I could be independent after my grandmother’s isolating rules and restrictions. I needed to earn my own money that I could spend however I chose. I needed to be around people who weren’t from Bainbridge Island. People who didn’t know me as Birdie, the weird kid who was homeschooled. Or Birdie, the kid whose high-school-dropout mother died. Or Birdie, the kid who now lives alone with her grandfather while everyone else her age is graduating and getting ready to go to college and I was still trying to figure out how to be independent.
Maybe that was why I was attracted to Daniel in the first place. He didn’t know me. Maybe if he did, he would wonder what he ever saw in me that afternoon.
“Let’s just please put all of this in the past,” I suggested to Daniel. “And pretend it never happened.”
“You’re serious?” An exasperated noise burred in the back of his throat. “I can’t just... I mean, why would you...?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Can’t we just talk about it? Not here. Outside of work. We could meet up somewhere. Uh, maybe not the diner. That might be a little weird. What about after work? Before? Name the time and place, and I’ll be there.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. There’s nothing to say.”
