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I lean in. “You’ve been staring at that for ten minutes straight, looking the whole time like you’re someplace else entirely. You not hungry?”

She seems to think for a moment before replying wearily, “I genuinely don’t know what I feel anymore.”

The exhaustion in her voice pulls at something I my chest.

“Laurel,” Ashby says gently, “you should eat something.”

“I had toast earlier.”

Briggs looks horrified. “We’ve had this conversation before, Laurel. Toast isn’t a meal.”

“I disagree,” she says dully. “It’s the perfect meal when life loses meaning.”

“That’s actually our restaurant slogan,” Devon puts in, pencil poised over his pad.

Laurel jumps as if waking from a dream, fumbling with the menu, looking so startled that Lucy giggles.

Interesting.

First real laugh from the kid all evening.

I see Devon notices too but pretends not too, leaning slightly toward Lucy instead. “You creating mutant sea life over there?”

“It’s an octopus.”

“Ah.” He studies the page critically. “Interesting color choices. I respect that.”

“It’s camouflage,” the little girl explains, scribbling a violent shade of green over the top of purple, black, blue, and yellow.

“All those colors for one octopus?” Devon inquires a little doubtfully.

Lucy’s mouth twitches as she crayons harder. “Yes. There’s no wrong color for octopuses.”

Devon places one hand dramatically over his heart. “Finally. Somebody brave enough to say it. Now, what would you like, young lady?”

She doesn’t need to be asked twice. “Pancakes with ice cream. And strawberry milkshake,” she announces, glancing at Laurel, adding a circumspect, “Please.”

“Go ahead,” Laurel tells her, raising something approaching an encouraging smile.

Devon writes it down, then looks inquiringly at Laurel. “And for the lady?”

Laurel looks at him as though he’s speaking ancient Greek.

“She’ll have the salmon with a side of fries,” I say, waiting for the protest that never comes. “And I’ll have the ribs with all the trimmings.”

“Of course, you will,” Devon says, disappearing toward the kitchen.

“He’s weird,” Lucy mutters when he’s gone, exchanging the green crayon for an orange one.

“Devon is a renowned art critic and the soul of discretion,” Ashby says.

Briggs nods once. “Ideal employee.”

“He’s still weird,” Lucy maintains, doubling down on the octopus.

The table settles briefly into a lull. Laurel seems more with it, but now she can’t seem to stop checking her phone. She looks at, puts it down, then five minutes later it’s in her hand again.

Waiting affects people. Especially when they don’t know what they’re waiting for.