Killian
No sooner have we walked through the door of the restaurant than the fat, balding man starts screaming. The restaurant is empty. It’s just before the lunch rush. It’s desolate apart from the fat man, a waitress with a rake-thin body and a makeup-covered face, and me and Hope. At first I assume he’s shouting at the waitress.
“Where the hell have you been?” he roars. He stands behind the bar, gripping two beer spouts, face shaking with rage. “What the hell time do you call this? What the hell is wrong with you? What do you think I am running here? Do you think this is some kind of charity? Do you think this is some kind of social club and you can roll up any time you feel like it?”
The makeup-faced waitress looks down, ignoring him. And then Hope walks a few steps forward and my breath catches. “It is my day off, Lucca,” she says. “Surely you know it’s my day off—I . . . I wanted to come here to use the kitchen, to cook my friend a meal.”
“You. Are. Joking.” He growls the words. “Maybe it is your day off; maybe it’s not. But now you have the—the gall to tell me you want to use the restaurant to cook your friend—whatever that means—a meal? What are you, some kind of slut? I’ve never heard of someone so—”
I pace up to him. As I pace, he watches me with a dumb, open mouth. I notice that the light from outside shines off his scalp, the worse comb over I’ve ever seen, and that his cheeks are red. But his expression is that of a bemused king’s. That’s it, I realize. He sees himself as the king of this place. He thinks nothing can happen to him here.
Ha.
“What are you doing?” the man sighs. He doesn’t sound scared, which is a damned mistake.
I leap over the bar and in one movement grip the back of his neck, digging my fingers in just enough to cause pain, but not hard enough to cause any lasting damage. He writhes under my grip, squirms, lets out a long, childish moan of pain. Then he breathes: “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, why?”
“Why?” I chuckle. “You’re a funny man. Lucca, is it? Yeah, you must be Lucca. Hope’s told me a lot about you.”
I squeeze his neck harder, causing him to writhe like a worm plucked between forefinger and thumb from the dirt. Hope walks across the restaurant and stands just opposite the bar. She doesn’t yell at me to let him go; she doesn’t plead with me that he’s had enough. No, her eyes are wide and her lips are crooked and she licks her lips, slowly, as she watches. She looks at me with more affection than any woman ever has. What shocks me is that I’m able to identify it. True affection is usually difficult to identify for men like me. But not with Hope.
“Time to apologize, Lucca,” I say casually.
“I have nothing to apologize for—” Spit flies from his gritted teeth with each strained word.
I close my hand tougher around his neck, until he lets out another wail of pain. “I disagree,” I say. “I think you have a lot to apologize for. Now, don’t make me ask again.”
I release his neck just enough to allow him to talk. “Fine, I’m sorry, Hope. Okay? I’m sorry.”
“Good boy.” On a chopping board just under the bar lie two carrots: one half-chopped, the other intact. I pick up the intact carrot—a thick baton-like specimen—and smack Lucca across the back of the head with it. The carrot snaps in two. He screams and tumbles forward, bracing himself on the bar, and sobbing softly under his breath.
I lean into him, my lips close to his ear. “If you ever talk like that to Hope again, you’ll get much, much worse than a carrot. Now, Hope’s going to use your kitchen to cook me a meal, okay? We’re celebrating. Don’t be so damned rude.”
“Uh, sure, yeah,” Lucca mutters, rubbing the back of his head. “Of course. Whatever you want.”
I clap my hands together and face Hope. “Let’s do it then!” I smile.
She smiles back, and now it’s not just affection in her eyes. It’s lust. I have no trouble identifying that.
I stand at the kitchen door and watch as Hope makes my meal. She has a girlish grin on her face, making it look more elfish than ever. She smiles as wide as I did when I got my first motorbike. As she chops the vegetables, her lips are fixed into a rictus grin. As she boils and grills her lips are spread so wide I’m surprised they don’t stretch off the sides of her face.
“This is amazing,” she says, spinning around to face me.
Lucca is still at the bar. He can hear every word we’re saying, but that doesn’t matter. Let him listen. What’s he going to do? Try and harass her when I’m here? Try and play the big man? No, he’s stupid, but not that stupid.
“You’re happy, then?” I ask.
“Happy?” She giggles. She sounds too cute when she giggles. “Of course I’m happy! I’ve got all this . . .” She lowers her voice. “All this money from my art. And now I’m cooking. It’s like all my dreams have come true in the same day.”
I tip an imaginary hat. “All in a day’s work, ma’am.”
“Don’t make light of it,” she says. “It’s not something to make light of. This is serious, Killian. Really serious. You’ve changed my life quicker than I thought was even possible.”
“Don’t get soppy, pretty lady,” I grin. “It’s nothing, really, just a man doing what he ought to do for a woman as pretty as you.”
She dances right up to me, so that I can smell the meat and vegetables which cling to her apron. Her voice is very low now, low enough so that Lucca can’t hear. “You can act all tough about it if you want,” she says. “You can act like the toughest man who’s ever lived, but we both know there’s something else in there.”
I reach out, touch her face, stroke her cheek. “Maybe there is,” I say. “But standing here in a stolen kitchen isn’t the place to tear open my heart, is it?”
She laughs. “I suppose not.” And then dances back to the meal.
I sit in a booth, cutlery laid out before me, waiting for my meal. After about half an hour, Hope emerges from the kitchen holding two plates. She skips over to the table deftly, the plates not once becoming imbalanced, and then places one plate in front of me, and one plate in her place. I look down at a meal unlike any I’d ever cook for myself, or even order for myself. It’s steak, carrot, potato, and gravy. So simple—and yet Hope presents it as though it is a work of art. Everything is neatly arranged and there is a piece of parsley curling atop the steak, medium-rare, with just a hint of blood.
“I assumed you liked it bloody,” she says, as she lays down two glasses of coca cola.
“Then you assumed right,” I reply.
I pick up my knife and fork and cut into the steak. Blood oozes around it. I cut myself a big chunk and bring it to my mouth. When I begin to chew it, taste explodes between my teeth, on my tongue. It’s steak, but it’s something more, too. I swallow quickly. “Damn, Hope,” I say, quickly cutting myself another chunk. “What the hell did you do to this?”
“You like it?”
I reply by stuffing another chunk in my mouth. Hope doesn’t touch her meal, just watches me with a fascinated expression.
I wolf down the meal. Maybe I should eat it all fancy, because it’s a fancy meal, but I’ve never had much self-restraint. The steak is beautiful and the vegetables are different, too.
“What’s the secret?” I say.
Hope taps her nose. “A good magician, Killian . . .”
I shake my head, and then stop talking so I can finish the rest of the meal. I drain it all with coca cola and then push the plate away, leaning back in the chair.
“You’re a woman of many talents, Hope.”
She inclines her head. “And you’re a man of many talents.”
I look at the clock which hangs above the door. It’s almost four o’clock.
“We should get back. We need to check on Dawn and Patrick.”
“Okay,” Hope says, pushing up from the table.
I stand up and face the bar, where Lucca stands, seething. “Clear the table will you, my good man?” I call.
Then I hook my arm around Hope and lead her out of the restaurant.