I notice the second I walk through the door because the bar is being run by someone I haven't seen before. A woman in her forties with short hair and quick hands who handles the bottles with competence but none of the ease Javi has. Grace is working the floor alone. The restaurant is half-full, a Wednesday night, quieter than the weekends. I sit at four.
She brings coffee without asking. She sets it down and her fingers are right there, and I want to close the gap so badly my left hand grips my thigh under the table.
"Pork shoulder?"
"Yes."
She nods and walks away, bringing my plate back half an hour later. I eat and she works under my watchful eye. The evening passes by, my plate is cleared, my coffee half empty, but instead of leaving, I stay. It's just me and her and twenty strangers who are going to leave.
By nine thirty, the restaurant is emptying. By ten, there are three tables left. By ten fifteen, two. I'm the last customer in the room at ten twenty-eight.
Grace is clearing the table by the window. She stacks plates and wipes the surface and glances at me and then away.
"We're closing soon," she says from across the room.
I pick up my coffee. It's cold, but I drink it anyway.
She finishes the window table and moves to the two-top by the bar to clear it. The woman running the bar starts closing out the register. The kitchen is quiet — Marco left an hour ago, and the clatter of Devon cleaning the line has stopped. The dishwasher hums behind the wall.
Grace comes to my table with the coffee pot.
"Refill? Last one."
"Yes."
She pours. The pot is almost empty, and she tilts it to get the last of it and her body leans toward me, her hip against the edge of the table, her arm extended, and she's close. So close I can smell the mix of sweat and deodorant coming off her skin.
"You're not usually here this late," she says. She puts the pot down on the table and doesn't step back.
"Yes."
"Why?"
She's standing with one hand on the coffee pot, the other hand at her side and her index finger is tapping her thigh, fast. Her shoulders are loose. Her breathing is even. The tapping isn’t anxiety this time.
"I wanted to," I say.
She almost smiles. The corner of her mouth moves a fraction and holds there. "Right… but you usually leave before closing."
"I like the quiet."
"It's not quiet during service."
"It's quiet after."
She smiles, and in the dim light Grace's face is shadowed, but her eyes are gray-blue and I’m getting lost in the patterns.
"I'm Grace," she says.
She already told me this, weeks ago, in the transactional way servers introduce themselves. But this is different. She's telling me her name the way you tell someone your name when you want them to know it.
"Carmelo," I say.
"Carmelo." She says it back and the sound of my name in her mouth makes my heart pick up a few beats.
"Is that Italian?" she asks.
"Yes."
