“What does that mean? What will we do?”
“Nothing in the middle of a gallery. And neither will he. It’s safe.”
“I don’t want to see him, though.” Mara shudders.
“We can’t avoid him in this city. Besides, I want him to see that you’re living with me, if he doesn’t already know. I want him to see you under my protection. If we talk to him, I’ll make him believe there’s a truce. That I’ll leave him alone as long as he stays away from you.”
“Will you?” Mara asks, her fog-gray eyes fixed on my face.
“Never.”
Shaw is a threat. There’s no fucking way I’ll ever relax enough for him to put a knife in my back, or Mara’s.
It’s then that I realize Mara is wearing her old clothes—jeans and her favorite battered boots.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I demand.
“Sweet Maple,” Mara says.
“The fuck you are.”
“I’m working this morning, and you’re not stopping me,” she says, jaw set. “You can come along if you like, but I’m doing the full brunch shift.”
“What the hell are you talking about? You don’t need a side job anymore.”
“I’m not doing it for the money. I owe it to Arthur.”
“He can find another waitress,” I say dismissively.
Mara crosses her arms over her chest, refusing to back down.
“My last year of high school, I applied to the Academy of Art. I spent that entire year working on my portfolio. The week I was supposed to submit it, my mother threw it in the tub and soaked it in bleach. Then she cleaned out the $1200 I had hidden inside a book in my room. She thought I couldn’t leave if I had no money and no scholarship. I left anyway, the day I turned eighteen. I bounced around a few couches, halfway to homeless. When I showed up at Sweet Maple, I had a backpack of clothes and six dollars to my name. No resume. Hadn’t taken a shower in a week. My sneakers had holes big enough for my toes to poke through. Arthur hired me anyway. He gave me two hundred dollars up front so I could buy some better shoes. I bought these boots.” Mara sticks out one foot, showing the boots that look like they’ve been through a war. “He didn’t know me. Didn’t know if I’d take the money and never show up for a shift. He helped me anyway. So I’m not ever quitting that job, until Arthur doesn’t need me anymore.”
“Alright, alright,” I say, holding up my hands. “I’ll drive you over.”
Flushed with victory, Mara grins at me.
“Can I drive?”
7
Mara
It feels good to be back at Sweet Maple. This place has been my anchor through some of the most chaotic times in my life.
So has Arthur. He might be the only man who’s ever done something kind for me without trying to put his hand on my ass afterward.
“There she is,” Arthur says, chucking my apron directly into my face. “You know you’re in the paper this morning?”
“I am?”
He tosses that at me too, already helpfully folded back at the right page.
It’s an article in the Chronicle, in the arts section. Just two columns on the bottom of a page, but it includes a large color photograph of The Mercy of Men, and a smaller picture of me, lifted off my Instagram.
This is Cole’s doing, I’m sure.
He’s constantly working behind the scenes, pushing me into the spotlight. He seems to get more pleasure out of grabbing attention for me than for himself.
I try to catch his eye, where he’s seated himself at the furthest corner table, but true to his word, he’s not distracting me and is only quietly taking out his laptop like any normal business-bruncher. Assuming that person just so happened to look like an off-duty supermodel in a cashmere button-down.
Arthur raises one thick, grizzled eyebrow at me.
“Isn’t that your other boss over there?”
“Yes.”
“I could be wrong but … didn’t you drive into work together? Quite early in the morning?”
I can feel my face flaming while I try to maintain a dignified expression.
“Yes, that’s right. I’ve been staying with him.”
“What!?” Arthur cries with mock surprise. “How did that happen? When you weren’t even trying to date him …”
I take back everything nice I said before. Arthur is the fucking worst.
I scowl at him.
“We’re not dating. It’s … complicated.”