Nena waited for the rest of the girl’s party to waltz right in after her, but there was no one. The girl couldn’t have been local. If she was, she would have known Jake’s was about to close for the night. Nena took a moment to study her, her slight build, no more than five feet four, the way she looked around the diner with wide-set eyes against a creamy-brown complexion, taking in the red-and-white decor and the checkered floor. If Nena had to guess, she was thirteen, maybe a year older.
The girl considered where to sit, her gaze sweeping over Nena. Their eyes met briefly, and Nena’s head cocked to the side, transmitting a silent question: Why was the girl here, and where were her people? The girl blinked, still wide eyed, and chose a stool at the counter.
Nena resumed perusing her iPhone, still wondering what the girl was doing there alone. She had an inkling that maybe she should stay, but all she really wanted was to go home. She remembered the Cadillac parked outside. Surely there would be no problems. The girl had likely passed the car without incident. If there had been something, she and Cheryl would have heard it.
Nena was deep in her thoughts when the girl’s dinner arrived just as quickly as hers had. No doubt Cheryl and Jake, who manned the kitchen, wanted to close the grill and get home. Nena checked her text messages. One was from Elin, complaining about Mum being too nosy about her love life. No surprise there. Another was from Mum, asking if Nena could explain why Elin was so hardheaded and to talk some sense into her sister. Probably not a good idea to tell Mum that she and Elin were more alike than they’d care to know. Nena sighed at the irony. The killer of the family was also the one who kept the peace. While their powerful dad ran from the line of fire as much as possible.
She was reading a Twitter rant by a well-known author when the door chimes sounded again. The wind gusted in, as if out of a bad movie. Nena glanced up, expecting that the girl had left, but instead, she saw a young man, a member of the Royal Flushes, sauntering in.
He ambled toward the counter, not looking Nena’s way. His demeanor read pompous, and Nena labeled him one of the soldiers of the gang, not a leader. Curious, she took a long sip of her milkshake.
“Let me get a couple cheeseburgers,” he demanded, pounding his fist three times on the counter as if Cheryl weren’t standing right in front of him.
Cheryl pointed at the red-and-white Coca-Cola clock on the wall. It read 10:05. “We’re closed,” she said flatly.
“Fuck that, you still got two bitches up in here. You open,” he said. “Now get my motherfucking order if you know what’s good.”
Nena assumed he was counting her as one of the bitches. The slur didn’t rattle her. But the fact he’d disparaged the girl shrinking away from him rankled Nena. He was going from zero to a hundred quickly, and it didn’t bode well. She slipped her phone into her rucksack.
Cheryl left quickly, likely going to find Jake. While she was gone, the Flush took a long look at the girl, slithering onto the stool next to her. The girl tried to ignore him and focus on the Cherry Coke in front of her, but he was persistent.
His voice rang through the room as if he were sitting right next to Nena. “Do you know who the fuck I am? Who you’re fucking with?” he asked the girl. “You know what set I rep?”
The girl was on the edge of the stool, one leg on the floor as if she were preparing to run. Not a bad idea, Nena thought. Jake appeared from the kitchen, catching the tail end of the Flush’s big talk.
“We’re closed, man,” Jake said behind a thick, mostly gray mustache. “Catch us tomorrow during hours. We’ll get you right. Now leave the girl be and get on.”
The Flush wasn’t hearing any of that, and the two of them had a go at each other for a few seconds, the young man becoming more incensed with Jake’s unflappable calm. What if the Flush drew a gun on him? People had been hurt for lesser offenses, and Nena weighed intervening. If she did, there would be questions. Too many questions and too many witnesses she wasn’t sure would keep quiet.
The Flush hopped off the stool, pulling his sagging white jeans over his nonexistent hips. “All right then,” he said to the room. He walked to the door; all the while Nena watched for him to make a move for a piece hidden on his body. He didn’t, opening the door to the chime of the bell.
“All right then,” he repeated as if making a last stand. “That payback, though . . .”
Is a bitch, is what he didn’t finish. He sucked his teeth, casting one long, menacing glare around the room, before backing through the doorway and slinking off into the night like some tacky villain.