“Sorry about that,” she said, righting herself, knowing her cheeks were flushed, hoping it came off under the guise of hard work. “You guys chose the one table that’s a troublemaker.”
“Do you have coffee?” the woman who looked to be somewhere between mid-thirties and mid-forties asked. In New York, so many women kept such good care of themselves that guessing their age was akin to throwing a dart at a bull’s-eye with a blindfold on. This woman had immaculately highlighted blonde hair, a soft pink manicure and skin that screamed expensive night cream, and even though she was probably just a few years younger than Betty’s own mom would have been now, Betty could find nothing superficially alike in the two women: This woman seemed like a mom who packed her kids’ lunches and used fabric softener on their sheets and bought brand-name Halloween candy for neighborhood kids. Betty’s family didn’t even celebrate Halloween. The woman must have felt Betty’s gaze linger, so she smiled kindly at her, like she was sorry to be asking about the coffee, as if it weren’t Betty’s job.
“No, not for me,” the older Black man said. “I’m off coffee. I would just love an ice water. And if you do a fruit salad? Or something fresh. Just nothing with sodium, please.”
“You’re off coffee?” the woman asked. “To help with the insomnia? I should do that, too, but honestly, I’m not about to cut one of the few pleasures of my life.”
“You haven’t tried ours yet,” Betty said. “Don’t set your expectations too high.”
At this, Zeke Rodriguez threw his head back and howled, and Betty felt a bubble of pride rise up from her belly. She’dgotten good at identifying what turned people on in the four years she’d been on her own. She stowed this away in case he became a regular.
“What do you recommend for food?” the woman asked. She’d put on reading glasses and was examining the plastic menu with a scrutiny better reserved for a legal brief. “Or, Julian, you suggested this place, you’ve eaten here?”
Julian was lost in a thought and didn’t seem to hear her.
“Okay, well, then I’ll take an order of pancakes,” the woman said. “I probably shouldn’t be eating in the middle of the night given the state of my own midlife metabolism, but oh well.” She handed the menu back.
“How’d you end up on the night shift?” Julian asked, reengaged. Betty wasn’t wild about his penetrating gaze, but her fight-or-flight response was well honed, and she suspected he was harmless. Just an inquisitive dad who probably saw his own kids in her.
“I’ve always been a night owl,” she said. “I can’t ever remember sleeping. Thought I may as well take advantage of that, you know? Though the tips are lousy, it gives me more time in the day, actually.”
Zeke clapped his hands together. “A fellow insomniac! What are the chances?” Then he thrust out his hand that wasn’t in a cast. “I’m Zeke. And none of us ever sleep anymore. Welcome to our club.”
“This is a club?” Betty said. She very intentionally didn’t do clubs.
“I’m Sybil,” the woman said. “I have two kids about your age,” she added as if they were going around and saying a fun fact about themselves. “And this is Julian…actually, I don’t really know much about you.”
Julian pressed his lips together like he wasn’t all thatinterested in revealing cute details about their lives to the graveyard-shift waitress. “I own a candy store,” he said.
“Ooh,” Sybil said. “Now that sounds fun.”
“Really just a small business like any other.”
“Okay, but favorite candy?” Sybil said. “I love Good & Plentys. I could literally live off them if I had to.”
“Chocolate,” Zeke said. “All day every day. Though I can’t really do a ton of sugar when I’m training.”
“Oh, and Ilovemarzipan,” Sybil added, looking to Betty as if she would nearly bathe in it if she could.
“I’m actually not much for sugar either,” Julian said. “Again, it’s just work.”
Sybil deflated like her Willy Wonka bubblegum dreams had been pricked with a sewing needle. She tried to stitch herself back up.
“This is actually the first time we’ve met in person,” Sybil said to Betty. “The three of us met online.” She paused. “That sounds creepier than I meant. This is not, like, a sex cult.”
Betty nodded passively like the mere mention ofcultsdidn’t spike her cortisol levels.
“We met online when we couldn’t sleep,” Zeke clarified. “And now there are four of us who are up all night. So sit. Have some pancakes with us.”
“Oh, I don’t think I can sit, but let me put the order in,” she said. “I have to wake up the line cook. So give it a few minutes.” What she didn’t say was that she also needed a few minutes to google Zeke, to see if she could google the others. How common was the name Sybil? She could probably find her in less than two minutes. Julian who owned a candy store? Easier than shoplifting a Hershey bar.
“The fruit plate,” Julian said. “Don’t forget.”
Betty didn’t have the heart to tell him that it would becantaloupe too pale to be edible and some canned peaches. Maybe a sliver of pineapple if there were any left over from the dinner shift. He was still glaring at her, so it was easiest to say nothing anyway.
“And some coffee for me,” Zeke added. “I have physical therapy in five hours, so I may as well just power through.”
“And when you come back,” Sybil said warmly, as if she needed a child to mother and maybe Betty was her surrogate, “you’ll sit?”
