Chapter Two
601 Words
Mia’s POV
Seven years later, Mia stood behind the counter of Duffy's Diner wiping down the same six inches of Formica for the third time in ten minutes, because it gave her hands something to do while her mind did the math it did every single shift.
Rent was six hundred and twenty dollars a month, split four ways, which came out to a hundred and fifty five dollars each, except Renee was always short, which meant Mia usually covered the difference and hoped to get it back before the light bill came due. Tips at Duffy's ran anywhere from forty to seventy dollars a shift depending on the crowd, and she worked five shifts a week if she was lucky, six if someone called out and Duffy needed a body.
"You're doing that thing again," said Carla, the other waitress on shift, leaning against the counter with a coffee pot in one hand.
"What thing."
"The staring-at-nothing-doing-math thing. You've got a face for it. Little furrow right here." Carla tapped her own forehead.
"I don't have a furrow."
"You've got a furrow, baby. Trust me."
Mia laughed despite herself and went back to wiping the counter. The diner was half full, mostly regulars, mostly men in work boots who tipped in crumpled singles and left before their coffee got cold. Nineteen years old and she already knew every one of their orders by heart. Frank always got the meatloaf. Gary always asked if the pie was fresh even though it never was, not really, and always ordered a slice anyway.
"You hear from Brianna today?" Carla asked.
"Not yet. Why?"
"She came in yesterday while you were off. New bag. Real leather, not the fake stuff. New shoes too." Carla said it carefully, the way you say something you're not sure you're supposed to say. "I figured you'd know where that's coming from, seeing as you two are close."
Mia's stomach did something complicated. She'd noticed the same thing herself over the last two months. New clothes on Brianna. New clothes on Tasha. Renee had gotten her nails done somewhere that wasn't the cheap place on Fifth Street, the kind of place that put little gems on the tips.
"They've got some new hustle," Mia said carefully. "Brianna won't really say what it is."
"You ask her?"
"I asked."
"And?"
"She said it's better I don't know the details. Said it's easy money for the right kind of girl." Mia set the rag down and looked at Carla. "I don't know what that means."
Carla's face did something Mia didn't like, a flicker of concern that came and went too fast to hold onto. "You be careful with that. Easy money's got a way of not staying easy."
"It's fine. I'm not doing whatever it is. I've got this." Mia gestured at the diner, at the counter, at her whole small life. "I've got rent handled."
"Barely."
"Barely's still handled."
The bell over the door jingled and a man walked in wearing a suit that looked wrong for Duffy's, too clean, too pressed, like he'd taken a wrong turn somewhere on his way to somewhere important. Mia grabbed a menu automatically and headed toward him, and it was only when he looked up and met her eyes that something in her chest did a strange little stutter, because she knew that face. She'd have known it anywhere.
"Table for one?" she asked, keeping her voice even.
"Table for one," he said, and something in the way he said it, easy and a little tired, told her he remembered her too.
- Writer
