Chapter 9: Rainy Lunch Day
878 Words
Rain tapped softly against the glass, turning the city outside into a blur of silver streaks and shifting lights. Inside the restaurant, warm yellow lamps glowed, the air was rich with the scent of coffee and something sweet baking in the kitchen.
Amelia slipped inside the restaurant, shaking droplets from her hair.
The restaurant was Viv's idea.
A small Cuban place three blocks from Henderson capital. It had no website,no reservation system. Just a handwriting menu on a chalkboard that changed depending on what the owner felt like making that day.
Viv ordered without looking at the board.
“She already knows what I want," Viv said to Amelia,nodding towards the woman behind the counter who was already writing.
" I've been coming here since my first month. The ropa vieja will change your life and I need you to trust me on that.”
“I do trust you," Amelia said.
" You should. My food recommendation are the most reliable thing about me”
They took the table by the window,with a view of the street and the rainy Miami that made everything look warmer than it already was.
Amelia set her bag on the floor and unwrapped her straw and looked at Viv across the table for the first time since starting henderson capital like she was somewhere that didn't require her to be professional.
" You didn't reply to his message,” Viv said.
" How did you know that?”
“Because if you had replied, you'd look different right now” Viv rested her chin on her hand.
" You look like someone who made a decision and pretended it was easy. I know,I know. You were about to say. How do you look" Viv chuckled, same with Amelia.
“It was easy," Amelia said.
" Mm” Viv's mouth moved curved.
“What did the message say again?" Viv asked.
" Viv..” Amelia called out.
" I'm just asking," Viv said.
Amelia rolled her eyes, “goodnight" she said flatly.
Viv stared at her.
" Chad Henderson?” she said slowly.
“Send you a message, saying goodnight?"
" It was nothing,”Amelia said plainly.
" Amelia." Viv sat forward. “That man conducts an entire board meeting in three words. He once sent Marcus Webb a performance review that was two sentences long."
“It was nothing,really," Amelia said again.
Viv looked at her with those warm,brown eyes.
" Okay.” she said.
" Don't okay me,” Amelia said.
“I said okay…”
“You said it like that"
" Like what?” Viv asked.
" Like you have opinion you are choosing not to share”
" I always have opinions I'm choosing not to share,” Viv said. “That's called being professional functional” she leaned back as the food arrived. Two plates,the smell of it hitting the table.
Amelia looked at her plate. Then she picked up her fork and took a bite and understood immediately what Viv had meant about the ropa vieja.
" I told you,” Viv said without looking up.
" You told me,” Amelia agreed.
They ate unhurriedly,had a good conversation.
Viv talked about her mother in Hialeah who called every Sunday morning. Viv has an extended family that she had stopped being able to keep track of at approximately age fourteen.
Amelia talked about Elena. About the little Havana house and the way it smelled the same every time she walked in. Smelled like garlic,old wood and a specific soap her mother had been buying from the same store for thirty years.
“She sounds like my mother," Viv said.
" How so?”
“My grandmother passed away four years ago and my mother still buys her brand of tea. She has a whole shelf of it.” She paused. "I think some people love by continuing,by refusing to let the shape of things change just because the person is gone"
Amelia looked at her plate.
She thought about her father's photograph on the kitchen shelf.
“Yes," she said. “I think that is exactly right"
Viv smiled.
Amelia was glad she found Viv here at Henderson capital.
She was also at the back of her mind, in the place she kept the things she wasn't ready to examine yet.
She was aware Viv knew something,she had been trying to tell her something since the supply room corridor.
At the moment,they were talking about nothing important,Viv was mid sentence about a junior analyst on the fourteenth floor who had apparently been wearing the same blazer to every client meeting for three years and had recently been photographed in it at a company event which Viv had discovered and found deeply offensive.
They walked back to the building together in drizzling rain, Viv was talking about the foundation gala that's coming up.
Something about the dress code specification. Amelia walked beside her and listened and watched the Henderson capital building getting closer.
They reached the Henderson capital building,Viv turned to Amelia.
“ Friday,”she said. "Not my apartment tho”
" There's a park in the coconut grove. The peacock park. The bench by the water,I'll tell you everything,no interruptions this time”
- Writer
