When Rachel arrived at the restaurant, five minutes early, Darcy wasn’t there yet. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. She took a seat at the bar. Her shoulders felt tense, tight. In fact, her entire body did. There were some laminated menus already laid out, and she picked one up and surveyed it to distract herself. Darcy had asked her to choose the venue and she had selected a popular, mid-priced Mexican restaurant, reasoning that Darcy was unlikely to be able to afford anywhere fancier on what she was paying him （though she fully intended to pay her own way）。 She wondered, not for the first time, how he supported himself. According to the agency she’d used to find him, he’d been unemployed for a couple of years. And though he was now working for her, he was only doing the occasional job; he wasn’t earning anything like a living wage. Rachel had never cared that much about money, but one did need a certain amount to live. Maybe Darcy had another source of income? As a drug dealer, perhaps? It was yet another thing she needed to find out about him.
There was a mirror opposite her and she used it to check her appearance. She wasn’t horrified by what she saw. She was wearing a black dress and a denim jacket and sandals. Her hair was tied back in a low ponytail, as usual. Rachel knew she was attractive, and carrying a few extra kilos did nothing to change this fact. And yet, she felt an intense hatred for . . . not the kilos, but what they represented. Who they connected her to.
‘Hello, hello,’ Darcy said, appearing behind her. ‘You beat me!’
‘I was starting to think you were a no-show,’ she said with a calm she didn’t feel.
‘As if.’ Darcy sat on the stool beside her. ‘Muffin compares to you.’
Rachel couldn’t help it; she snorted.
‘Good one, right?’ he said, grinning.
‘Do you have a special interest in baking jokes,’ Rachel asked, ‘or do you simply have a perfect joke for every specialty industry?’
‘I brushed up on my cake jokes recently,’ he said. ‘Like any good employee.’
‘For the customers?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I wasted them all on the boss.’
Rachel laughed. She felt her shoulders loosen a little.
‘Can I get you a couple of margaritas?’ the waiter asked, appearing at the end of the bar. He wore a sombrero and a stuck-on handlebar moustache and he had a broad Australian accent.
‘Sure,’ Rachel said. ‘And we’d also like to order food.’
She looked at Darcy, perhaps daring him to object. But he was nodding.
‘Good call,’ he said. ‘Let’s get that out of the way so we can relax.’
And with that, Rachel found that she did relax. She ordered nachos with the lot, followed by fajitas, guacamole and shredded beef empanadas. Then, on a whim, she added a few more mains, a few more sides. As the waiter prepared to leave, she grabbed his forearm. ‘Sorry. Can we add the Mexican corn?’
They didn’t need the corn. The table would be groaning under what she’d already ordered. But there was something about ordering food, being surrounded by it, that calmed her.
After the waiter left, she waited for the inevitable commentary from Darcy. Wow, that was a big order, or, I like a girl with a big appetite. But Darcy didn’t say either of those things. Instead, he lifted his hand in one half of a high five. ‘Good call on the corn,’ he said.
You’re too good to be true, Rachel thought. But she must have said it out loud because Darcy replied, ‘I know.’
She burst out laughing. ‘Seriously! What is wrong with you?’
‘Well,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I do have five kids.’
‘Really?’
‘No! But I am married.’
‘You are?’
He laughed. ‘Of course not!’
Rachel rolled her eyes.
‘Okay, listen – I live in a granny flat at the back of my mum’s place.’
Rachel watched him, waiting for the punchline.
‘That one is true,’ he admitted.
‘Oh,’ Rachel said. ‘Well . . . there’s no shame in that.’
‘Come on. There’s a little shame.’ He grinned. ‘The thing is, it’s been a funny couple of years. I’ve been unemployed, as you know, but I used to run a cafe in the city called Everything’s Better Toasted.’
‘Good name,’ Rachel said.
He looked pleased. ‘It is, isn’t it? I came up with it. We had a terrific spot, right near Flinders Street Station and we did a great trade. Two years after the first cafe, I opened a second one a few streets away. I had plans for two more stores but then . . . COVID happened. The city emptied out overnight, and so did my clientele. We made it through the first lockdown, just. But when Melbourne had to lock down again and again, the businesses went under. I lost everything.’