Sunday Service
1247 Words
# CHAPTER ELEVEN
My phone rang at two forty-seven.
I know because I had literally just checked the time, done the mental calculation of how many hours of nothing I had left, and closed my eyes. The couch was comfortable. The throw blanket was exactly where it needed to be. My head had gone from a full complaint to a manageable grievance.
Two forty-seven.
Nancy.
I stared at the screen through one eye. It rang again. I answered because not answering Nancy felt like a decision with consequences I didn't have the energy for.
"Yes," I said.
"Zia. Are you available this evening?"
I sat up slowly. "Nancy it's Sunday."
"I'm aware."
"I don't work Sundays."
"One of the staff can't make it tonight. I need someone on the front."
"Nancy—"
"I wouldn't call if it wasn't necessary."
I pressed the heel of my hand against my eye socket. Outside my window Morvaine was doing its quiet Sunday thing, completely unbothered by my situation.
"Which staff," I said.
"Petra."
I waited. Nancy didn't offer anything further, which was Nancy.
"I had a late night," I said. "I only just got home."
"I understand."
I lay back against the cushion and looked at the ceiling for a moment.
"I'm not promising anything," I said finally. "Let me sleep a bit and I'll pass by. We can talk."
"Thank you Zia."
She hung up before I could revise my position.
---
I set an alarm for four thirty and woke up at four twenty-two.
Showered. Changed. Made tea and drank it standing because sitting felt like a commitment. Looked at myself in the mirror by the door.
Acceptable.
I walked to Oswald's telling myself the whole way that I was just passing by. Just talking. Not agreeing to anything.
---
Nancy met me in the corridor.
"Thank you for coming," she said.
"I haven't agreed to anything," I said. "I came to talk."
She led me to the small office. Sat. I didn't.
"What happened to Petra," I said.
Something passed across Nancy's face. Brief. The door-closing thing I had seen before.
"A personal matter," she said.
I looked at her. Nancy's personal matters had a specific texture to them — closed off in a way that was slightly different from regular privacy. I had noticed it before. I filed it again now.
"How long is the shift," I said.
"Full service."
"Nancy—"
"I know."
"I'm hungover."
"You look fine."
"That's not the point."
She looked at me with the flat patience of someone who had already run this conversation in their head before I arrived.
"You will be compensated," she said.
"I need to think about it," I said.
"Of course." She stood. "One moment."
She left.
I stood in the office and had an honest conversation with myself. I was tired. I had plans — horizontal plans, leftover food plans. I had come here to say no in person because that felt more decent than saying it on the phone.
I was already here.
The door opened.
Not Nancy.
He came in the way he always came into spaces — without announcing it, like the room had already accounted for him. Chef's whites. Service in under an hour. He looked at me once and then at the desk.
"She said you might need convincing," he said.
"She was right," I said. "It's my day off."
"I know."
"I had a late night."
"Nancy mentioned."
I crossed my arms. "So."
He was quiet. Not the weighted kind — something else. The quiet of a person trying to find words for something they didn't usually put into words.
"Why me specifically," I said. "You have other staff."
He paused.
Not a thinking pause. A caught one. The kind where the answer already exists and the person is deciding whether to hand it over.
"You know this front," he said.
"I've been here three weeks."
"I know."
"So call someone who's been here three years."
He looked at me then. Properly. That even comprehensive look that gave nothing away and somehow gave everything away at the same time.
He said nothing.
And somehow that nothing was the whole answer.
I looked away first. At the binders. At the window.
"It's always something with your staff," I said. "I don't get it."
Something shifted in the room.
"No," he said quietly. "It's not always something."
The way he said it. Not defensive. Just a correction with enough weight to tell me that whatever had happened with Petra tonight was not something I was going to be told about.
I filed that.
"I'm not coming in Tuesday," I said.
"Fine."
"In writing from Nancy."
"I'll tell her."
"And the compensation—"
"Name it."
I named it. He didn't flinch. Nodded once.
"Ten minutes. Eat something."
"I was going to."
"There's a place two doors—"
"I know the place," I said.
I picked up my bag.
"Scarlett."
I stopped.
Something landed quietly somewhere I didn't examine.
"Ten minutes," he said.
I walked out.
---
The service ran the way Sunday services ran — quieter, more room to breathe.
I worked the floor alongside Sera and the rest of the team. Moving between tables, managing the room, doing what needed doing. It was different from my usual position — more fluid, less fixed — and I found the rhythm of it quickly the way I found the rhythm of most things.
Sera passed me at some point mid service.
"Glad you came," she said, not stopping.
"Don't tell Nancy that," I said.
She laughed quietly and kept moving.
Around nine o'clock I went to retrieve a coat from the staff room. The corridor passed alongside the thin wall of Nancy's office and I was halfway past it when the voices came through.
I wasn't trying to listen.
*"You were sweet with that girl."*
Nancy's voice. Low and precise the way it always was.
A pause.
*"Define sweet."*
His. Flat. Exactly the way he said everything.
I stood very still for approximately two seconds.
Then I kept walking. Retrieved the coat. Went back to the floor and handed it to the woman at table six and smiled when she thanked me and went back to work.
I did not think about it.
---
The last table cleared at ten forty.
End of evening checks. Goodnight to Hendricks. Coat on. I left.
---
I texted Bree from the street.
*You awake*
*Yes. You okay?*
*Fine. Something happened. Weird.*
*Weird how*
*I was walking past Nancy's office tonight and I heard her talking to him through the wall. She said — and I'm quoting — you were sweet with that girl.*
*Okay*
*And he said define sweet.*
*…*
*What girl do you think she meant*, I sent.
*Zia*
*Because it could be anyone. I'm not the only woman working there Bree.*
*You're not*, she sent.
*Exactly. So.*
*So*
*So it's probably nothing. And also what are the actual chances. I'm not even supposed to be there today and of all the moments I walk past that office—*
*Zia.*
*It's a coincidence.*
*Sure.*
*It is.*
*Okay.*
*Bree.*
*Goodnight Zia.*
*Goodnight.*
I put my phone in my pocket and walked home through the cold Sunday city and *define sweet* sat exactly where I had left it and I did not look at it and it was a coincidence and that was the end of it.
---
*End of Chapter Eleven
- Writer
