CHAPTER ONE
Caitlyn
Sundays were pretty lazy days compared to the rest of the week, when I juggled my jobs at the community arts center and Ma’s Diner, took care of my grandma, and worked on various paintings.
On Sunday mornings, I took my gran to brunch in town where she always ordered the same thing — pancakes with strawberries, black coffee, and a glass of water. She’d eat exactly one and one-half pancakes and all the strawberries, slathered in syrup and whipped cream.
These days were great because, apart from being together and doing stuff that didn’t include pill cutters and measuring spoons, we were rebels. If her doctor knew how much sugar she ate on Sundays, he would kill her. Or me. Probably both of us.
Sundays were “FU” doctor and “screw you” mortality days. We used to go to church, but Gran got kicked out for disagreeing with the minister… loudly. She was a feisty, kindhearted eighty-seven-year old.
After brunch, we visited some of her friends at Whispering Pines Home for the Aged. She’d bring flowers and scandalous romance novels, sugar-coated contraband, and her loud, effusive personality. Everyone knew when Eula Darning was in the house. Once, she even started a food fight. I thought we’d be forever forbidden entrance to the hallowed halls of the aged, but it was the most fun any of them’d had in years. In fact, Marcie Grandiere, the meanest of the meanies, died a week later, swearing it was the best time of her life.
My least favorite person at Whispering Pines was Ed, whose dementia was pitiful but also made him a bit scary to be around. Eula and Ed had been an item once when they were in their fifties, but it didn’t last long. He never remembered who we were when we came and always showed us his ass, then called Gran a whore… which made us laugh. His obscenity never offended Gran because she was a hoot and actually loved the raunch. She wasn’t your typical retiring old lady with outdated morals. She had a little black book full of lovelorn suitors who she had laid to waste in the wake of her “livelier days.”
“Honey,” she would say, her fists planted on her hips as her gray-blue eyes twinkled, “I’m not a whore. I was never paid a dime.”
I honestly never knew exactly what to say to that. She was the one who encouraged my painting and pursuit of the arts, even though my teachers thought it a waste of intellect.
I moved in with Gran the day my mom was murdered by my dad. I was five. I couldn’t remember many details other than stark images from that day, so I went mostly by what I was told and the haunting dreamlike memories that randomly poked me in my sleep. A shrink helped me make peace with the horror that often invaded my psyche. Painting helped, and Gran kept me doing things that were batshit crazy. She’d get these ideas in her head, like “wouldn’t it be great if we gave peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the homeless,” which we did. She once ran for mayor, for the hell of it. She campaigned seriously for about a week then gave it up to plant a survival garden in laundry buckets on her screen porch in case of a zombie apocalypse. She also liked to shop QVC. I was constantly sneaking into her QVC account and canceling orders she thought she’d gotten away with purchasing behind my back. She would buy the most random and useless stuff. She had actually become a post office conspiracy theorist because so much of her mail had been “stolen.” She kept me busy, and, my life constantly teetered between mundanity and insanity.
My artwork was all over Gran’s modest ranch style home. I hated to use the word cluttered, but she insisted on displaying all my “masterpieces,” as she would call them. The few she didn’t have mounted on every visible inch of wall space were the ones I happened to sell at the small art gallery in town. While she was slowing down in her old age, her sharp mind had never dulled. She always managed to mention something profound about at least one of the paintings each day.
“Now, this one reminds me of 1939, when my mom took me to the circus. I was afraid of the clowns.” She shivered, the movement causing her short, wispy white hair to flutter around her face. “Who isn’t afraid of those evil little bastards, but I loved the elephants. They seemed so sad and majestic. This reminds me of the elephants at the circus.”
“It’s a waterfall, Gran,” I would gently say, so as not to ruin her moment.
“It’s like the elephant’s sad face,” she would add kindly, making me look at the painting again. Sure enough, you could see an elephant’s face in the flow of blue, gray, and white colors composing the water.
Damn, Gran was a genius at times.
When we returned home from our jaunt around town, she and I would hunker down on the porch and read our respective books, noting this and that about something we read from time to time. After an early dinner, I left her with her Hulu — usually old horror movies — and headed into my late-night shift at the diner.
Most Sundays were slow. We had our usual truckers coming from or going to their destinations, a few drunks who needed to eat off their liquid Sunday barbeque binges, and the odd college student pulling an all-nighter on a coffee drip.
Sometimes, Sunday nights were depressing because, if I looked at my life and was honest, it often felt unfulfilled. Sunday would roll into Monday, and nothing ever changed… the grind just kept grindin’. I didn’t have a boyfriend, nor did I want one. I was working two jobs in order to pay for Parson’s School of Design in New York, which I hoped to attend one day. But after Gran’s medical bills and our living expenses were paid, it never seemed like enough money was left over to make that dream a reality.
I didn’t dwell on this worry, but it crept in sometimes. I told myself that I was doing good for the kids at the center, who needed someone to teach them a way to express the pent-up shit they held inside. Since most were neglected, they craved loving interactions and fundamental caring, which I also tried to provide. I felt like I was making a difference.
As for Ma Johnson, who ran the diner where I worked nights, I figured I was doing my part there as well. Despite her rough exterior, I tried to bring a much needed burst of joy into the otherwise gloomy diner off I-95, the route that traversed from Connecticut to New York City. So, while my dreams seemed a world away, I did my best to make my life as fulfilling as I could. And if I had my moments of disappointment… who didn’t?
This particular Sunday evening started out no differently than the others. I got into work, put on my uniform, and smoothed my hair back into a ponytail. The ponytail wasn’t really my favorite look because I preferred my wild auburn curls to be left free, but that wasn’t the best style for an eating establishment.
Waving hello to Linda Green, as I did every Sunday — mostly just to piss her off cause I knew she hated it — I got a grunt in return, which wasn’t surprising. In her late forties or early fifties, Linda was a lifer at Ma’s Diner. She started working there in her teens and would be there till her death… or so she would say. Then, every other sentence she uttered was how she was gonna get out of there and marry rich. She had married about six men, but I guessed none of them were rich enough to keep around. She smoked a pack of Marlboro Reds a day, had a teenage son who liked shooting things up and was a relatively unpleasant person. She was my partner on Sunday nights.
Ma worked twenty-four-seven, a salty woman in her late seventies. She didn’t do much at the diner but sit around, talk to the customers, and bark orders, yet she was always there. Gran thought she was a vampire or a zombie. I loved Gran for being such a horror fan, strange little woman that she was.
I was pouring coffee refills at one of the two occupied tables when a shiny black Bentley pulled into the parking lot around midnight. Linda immediately lost her mind.
“What in hell’s fury is driving into our parking lot?” she inquired, peeking out of the rusted metal blinds and peering into the dark. “Look at that car, will ya?”
Ma took an immediate interest.
“Well, that’s quite a ride,” she said, gluttonously impressed, then pointed a finger at me. “Quick, Caity, start wiping down the tables.”
I did as she asked because I didn’t like being on Ma’s bad side, but who cared if a Bentley pulled up? They probably just needed the bathroom or directions. There wasn’t much else open at this time of night. But Linda and Ma apparently cared because they were glued to the windows while I frantically squirted and wiped.
After a few minutes, the front door opened, and an extremely well dressed, dashingly handsome man in his early thirties walked in looking confused and disgruntled.
Yep, lost.
“Welcome to Ma’s,” Ma gushed in the kindest manner she knew, which still sounded gruff and choppy. “Let me get you a table.”
The man made a grunting sound, which wasn’t exactly impolite, as he eyed the place. This was comic. Ma’s small, hunched frame lumbered slowly to a table in the corner as she handed him a menu.
“I’ll have someone come take your order in two shakes,” she barked.
Linda inflated with excitement. “This is it, pumpkin, my chariot has come,” she whispered as she fixed her hair, straightened her apron, and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her uniform. Ma ambled back to her seat.
“Caitlyn’s gonna take it,” she crowed.
“What?” Linda went from sexy to steaming in an instant. “That’s my table!”
“And this is my restaurant,” she announced crudely. “Caitlyn’s got a better face.”
I nearly crumbled.
Sorry, I mouthed to Linda, who looked like she wanted to scratch out my eyes.
“Ma, let Linda take it,” I whispered, pleading.
I could care less if I waited on a man with money. I found most extraordinarily wealthy people to be super rude and super stingy with their tips. I didn’t need that in my life right now.
“No,” was Ma’s only response on the matter. “Now git over there.”
I nudged the now fuming Linda. “I promise to share the tip, okay?”
She gave me a half-hearted smile and seemed appeased for the moment. The rich gentleman looked uncomfortable stuffed inside the booth wearing his Armani suit and good shoes. A million scenarios explaining why he was in the diner at this time of night filtered through my brain, but none of them made any sense, and most were dastardly.
“Welcome to Ma’s Diner. I’m Caitlyn, I’ll be your server,” I said, using my most pleasant voice.
He never looked up from the menu. His face was twisted as his green eyes scanned down the choices. I wasn’t a mind reader, but he clearly found his choices lacking. What did he expect from our famous one-star establishment anyway? He huffed with annoyance.
“Nothing looks appetizing, do you serve anything remotely edible?” he asked, his voice dripping disdain.
There it was, the asshole-ish rudeness I was expecting.
“What are you looking for exactly?” I asked as nicely as I could.
He snorted. “Anything that isn’t deep fried, pan fried, or made with grease?”
“Salad,” I answered in a monotone, keeping my face carefully neutral.
He glanced up for the first time, probably to see who had the nerve to be snarky with him. Our eyes met, and his expression changed fractionally, softened, but I was so irritated that even his dashing good looks couldn’t counter his nasty attitude. He stared through me for a beat, then continued to be offensive.
“Do… you… have… anything… other… than… salad?” He spoke as if I were in kindergarten.
“We… have… seared… catfish,” I answered, mocking him before I could catch myself.
To my surprise, we both laughed, and a weird sort of electricity sparked to life between us, causing something low in my stomach to twist. His eyes fell to my lips, then he recovered quickly, resorting back to Mr. Asshole in a flash. He snapped his menu shut and handed it to me. “I’ll have that and a glass of red wine, preferably Pinot Noir,” he said without acknowledging me again.
When I chuckled this time, I tried really hard not to laugh out loud. He lifted an are you insane eyebrow at me.
“I’m sorry, sir, we don’t have wine. Um, we have juice… orange juice, apple juice, pineapple, or cranberry, coffee, milk, and water.” I felt accomplished being able to rattle off the beverage choices without laughing in his face again. He huffed another disdainful exhale.
“Coffee, black,” he growled.
“Got it,” I confirmed and darted away, wanting to spend as little time as I had to near the guy.
I rolled my eyes as I passed the kitchen to put in the order.
“Real Prince Charming,” I scoffed to Linda, who was still fuming from my overthrow of her table.
By then, the few other customers in the restaurant were starting to gawk and gossip about our strange gentleman, and the kitchen staff was laughing loudly. Generally, the mood was odd and uncomfortable. I almost felt sorry for the guy… but not really.
When I brought him his food, he whipped out his phone and took a picture of it, then his thumbs flew over the screen. I thought that was strange. Why would he be doing a social media check-in at Ma’s when he so clearly didn’t even want to be there.
Probably just making fun, I fumed.
“Do you need anything else?” I asked, forcing a smile onto my face, trying to defuse the weird vibe.
With the gossipy tables talking in hushed whispers while pointing fingers, and the kitchen staff having the time of their lives at his expense, the diner had a surreal circus feel to it. Add Ma’s scrutiny and Linda’s brooding, and you had a nice mix of late-night insanity. I felt like I was this guy’s only port in the storm, so I stood there waiting for him to acknowledge me. He took a few bites of his fish, and his face softened some.
“Hmmm. This is much better than I was expecting,” he said with a lilt in his voice, finally sounding more human.
He then looked at me, and I’ll never forget the way he stared. It was as if his soul was burrowing into mine. I felt transfixed. It was unsettling, but I didn’t make a move to leave. I had asked if he needed anything and was obligated to wait for the answer.
“Yes, you can help me with something,” he stated, still in a lilting voice that seemed more like mockery at this point. “I’m curious.”
“Yes, sir,” I answered politely.
“Are you happy?”
The question threw me off.
I licked my lips. “Yes, I’m… happy.” It was the truth. I was mostly happy. I added a smile to punctuate the sentiment.
His eyes explored mine as if trying to discover all my secrets. “What makes you happy?”
The night had just gotten that much more bizarre. Who asks questions like these to complete strangers?
“Um… well, my Gran and my friends,” I answered, trying to hurry the interrogation along.
“And besides that?” he pressed.
I lifted a shoulder. “You mean existential happiness? The secret to life kinda stuff?”
“I guess.” He continued to stare at me in that almost hypnotizing way.
“Love.” The answer just jumped out of me, and I found myself backtracking. “I mean, like for your family, friends, and humanity… not just…” I licked my dry lips again.
His eyes dropped to my mouth, his nostrils flaring a bit. “Fucking?” he said, finishing my sentence.
“Yeah,” I breathed, the word barely audible. Now, I was really uncomfortable.
Maybe this guy was with the mob, or a human trafficker, or some other sort of deviant character.
He wiped his hands and put his credit card on the bill holder, signaling me to take it, but Ma rushed in.
“I’ll get that,” she barked, leaving me to stand with this weirdo for a few more minutes until he could pay for his barely eaten meal.
His eyes smoldered as he undressed every inch of me. “I like fucking.”
I felt the heat of his stare and wanted to smack him in the face, but I had a choice — cower and retreat or stand up to the jerk.
“Good for you,” I answered, giving him an I don’t give a fuck what you like to do sort of stare.
“You look like the kind of girl who could use—”
“No, I don’t,” I interrupted, staring at him dead on. “You might have a lot of money, sir, but you can’t come in here and proposition people like they were put on this earth only for your entertainment. I don’t appreciate what you were about to insinuate. Money obviously doesn’t buy manners.”
I finished my scolding just as Ma brought him his bill. She caught part of what I said, but I didn’t care. I was done with the guy, so I ducked into the back and let myself cool down. From the corner of the curtained off office/break area, I watched a driver pop out of the front of his fancy car and open the door for him.
As they drove off, I felt a wave of relief, and strangely, a tinge of loss. Why? I explored the question. If I was being honest with myself, the rich asshole was sexy as hell. Despite my wanting it otherwise, I was attracted to him. His off-color remark was so inappropriate but… titillating.
I hadn’t been with anyone in years. My last boyfriend only lasted a year, and I think Dwayne and I broke up because I just couldn’t let down my walls — they were tall and thick, and I knew when the first bricks were laid down.
Nineteen years ago, my dad bludgeoned my mom with a tire iron. He hit her sixty-four times, at least that’s what the newspaper reported when I read it years later.
He thought she was cheating on him, and from all accounts whispered behind partially closed doors, she was. At least that was what I thought I heard them say. I would sneak around the house after everyone thought I was in bed and listen, trying to fit the pieces together.
I remembered them arguing in the car, me in the back seat. My hands were over my ears, my eyes tightly closed as they screamed at each other. In a fit of drunken rage, he drove us to a remote spot, killed her with the tire iron, then shot himself.
I remembered the gun. The small, cold piece of steel pointing at me. My heart leaped into my throat, and I wanted to scream, but I didn’t. I just started to cry.
“Please, Daddy,” was all I could get out.
He turned the gun on himself, and I don’t remember anything else, just waking up in my gran’s lap. I didn’t even know where we were.
Men… I didn’t really trust them, even nice ones like my ex. I think Dwayne just gave up and moved on.
“Caitlyn!” Ma shouted.
I groaned. Great, I was going to get a reprimand for being rude to the rich guy who was about to proposition me. She was waving his bill in her hand, trembling.
“Whatever you did….” She couldn’t finish her words, just slapped the bill in my hand and looked at me expectantly.
I glanced down to his signed check. Felt my knees go weak and the world around me turn dark as I read the note written on the top of the bill.
Caitlyn, you look like a girl who could use… a little extra cash. Use it to change your life, have fun, whatever - KP
Next to the “tip” line, he’d written $15,000.