Her eyes widen. “You’re making that up!”
“No. I’m not.” His voice is flat, leaving no room for argument. “She saved your life. You’d be dead if not for her. You should thank her.”
The old woman looks between the two of us, the wrinkles in her face darkening. “Oh, I get it. The two of you are in cahoots!”
The man turns to the waitress. “There was no attack. You don’t need to call the police.”
It suddenly occurs to me the man is quite nice looking—and not just because he’s standing up for me. He has a thick head of chestnut hair, vivid green eyes, and also, he fills out that suit pretty nicely. I don’t usually notice things like that, but it’s hard not to notice.
“I was attacked!” the old woman says, although there’s less conviction in her words this time.
The waitress looks like she’s barely stifling a yawn. She clearly wants this ordeal to be over with so she can get off her feet. “Do you want me to call an ambulance or…？”
“Don’t bother!” the old woman snaps.
In spite of her alleged punctured lung, she stomps out of the diner with her giant pink purse, nearly getting floored by a taxi cab as she rushes across the street. As far as I can see, she hasn’t bothered to pay her check. The waitress sighs and picks up her half-empty plate from the table, as well as the piece of sausage that nearly killed her.
“Hey,” the man says to the waitress. “What did that woman owe you?”
The waitress glances down at the plate in her hand. “About seven dollars with tax.”
The man hands her a twenty. “Keep the change.“
The waitress smiles for the first time since I walked in here twenty minutes earlier. She pockets the money, then glances up at me. Her eyes drop to my shirt. “Bathroom is in the back, honey.“
Bathroom?
As the waitress disappears into the kitchen, I look down at my clothing. This morning I had put on a clean, freshly ironed pink button-down top and gray pencil skirt because I’ve got my first job interview since I was laid off two weeks ago. It’s nothing great, just bartending, but I need it—bad.
But when that woman threw her coffee at me, she got me square in the chest. There’s a dark brown stain soaking into the fabric of my shirt. I can’t go to an interview like this. I look like a slob. My only real option is to go home and change. Except my interview is in…
Fifteen minutes. Damn.
I’m new at this saving people’s lives business. Does it always end up so crappily? Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. Everything going wrong unexpectedly seems to be a pattern in my life.
The man is looking at me with his eyebrows bunched together. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” I look down at my ruined interview outfit. “Totally fine. Absolutely, completely fine.”
He just looks at me. I don’t know what it is about this guy, but something about the way he’s looking at me makes me want to pour my heart out to him.
Or rip my clothes off. A little of that too. He is pretty hot. And it’s been a while for me. A long while. I think there was a different president in office at the time. Kevin Spacey was still a respected actor. Brad and Angelina were a happy couple. You get the idea.
“I have a job interview,” I admit. I tug at my coffee-soaked shirt. “Had a job interview. I don’t think it’s going to go well. In fact, I think I should just call it off.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You’re looking for a job?”
I shrug. “Yeah. Sort of.”
Desperately, actually. My landlord informed me yesterday that if I don’t have the rent by Friday, there’s going to be an eviction notice on my door by Saturday. And then I’ll have to live in a cardboard box on the street, because that’s my last option.
“What kind of job was it?”
“Well, this one was bartending.” At a seedy bar that would have paid minimum-wage. “But… I mean, that’s what’s available. At this point…”
I stop talking before I let on how desperate I am. This man is a stranger, after all. He doesn’t want to hear my depressing life story.
He flashes an infectious grin that reveals a row of straight, white teeth. My parents couldn’t afford braces, so I’ve got two crooked incisors that I’m self-conscious about. My dream, if I ever have enough money, is to get them fixed. But that’s not going to happen, short of winning the lottery. And I can’t even afford a ticket.