CHAPTER 1: KERRY
“Kerry?”
“Yes?” I called back over my shoulder to the counter. The scents and sounds of the kitchen were all around me. Heat, and bubbling pots, and noise. It was the Hillview restaurant and café, and Monday afternoon service. The kitchen was a bustling, bright place with linoleum flooring, a big stove and Harry, the chef, bent over the counter, sweat glistening on his face as he turned to look at me.
“Potato salad on five. Take it out now.”
“Yes, chef!”
I wove my way back from the door and set the salad onto a tray, adjusted my apron, and went out into the body of the restaurant.
At table five, I set the plate down next to the man in the suit. He glanced my way and then back to the man opposite, carrying on their talk.
“…and I think that we will make a killing with that investment…”
“Yeah, Roy—but what about the devaluation? You know how that’s affected stocks…”
I sighed and turned away. The fact that stocks and shares were of far more importance to these guys than anything I could possibly do shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. Someone waved me to their table and I hurried over.
“The wraps? You have a gluten-free option?” The man asked. He was also a local businessman, or maybe a wealthy farmer, coming up from the ranch for a lunch in town.
I frowned. “Mm…I’ll check.”
“Thanks.”
I hurried off into the kitchen to discuss it with the chef. I twisted out of the way of Braden, our other waiter, and my ankle twisted too, aching.
Dammit, I hissed through my teeth. The thing was stable most days, but a step in the wrong direction and it ached like raw fire for the rest of the day. I hated that ankle sometimes. I hated the way it had changed my life.
“Chef?” I called, leaning on the counter to get the weight off my right foot.
“Yes?” He asked. His big, cheery face turned to me from where he stirred a pot, and kept an eye on the onions.
“You got any of those gluten-free thingies left?”
“The wraps?” he asked.
“Mm.”
“I’ll check.”
“Whoops!” Macy, the assistant chef, almost bumped into me. She was hurrying to the counter with a pot of pasta to drain. She looked fed up. It wasn’t that she told me to get out of her way, but I could feel her impatience spreading off her in waves as she stalked to the sink and poured the water out of the pot. It didn’t occur to me that maybe she was impatient with something else: in my mind there could only be one thing to be impatient with—the same thing that got me impatient. My foot. It either stopped me from doing things or slowed me down immensely. It was terribly annoying.
I winced, then stood up to get out of the way. I knew I was getting underfoot and I hated it. It wasn’t like I enjoyed not being able to walk properly, I wanted to shout. I couldn’t help it!
“Kerry?” a voice said behind me.
“Yes?”
“We got some,” Chef said, coming back from checking the stock. “Just two, though. So we can do one order gluten free. Unless someone can go get more. Braden?” He yelled.
“Yeah?” Braden yelled back, twisting in through the double doors and almost walking into me in his haste to grab the next order.
“You got time to go to the store and get more of these?” Chef called.
“Sure. Kerry?” Braden asked, turning his boyish, good-looking face to me.
“Mm?”
“Take over with tables four and six, hey? I gotta go.”
I sighed. “Fine,” I said lightly.
I headed out into the front of house, armed with my knowledge of gluten-free wraps.
The day wore on. I managed to keep standing for a while—until lunch service ended, in fact. Then, at four o’ clock, I limped out and went into the yard. I had to get off my feet for a while, or the ache in my ankle was going to drive me crazy.
I leaned against the wall, looking out over the street. The day was warm out here, the sun shining down in a pale gold wash that told of approaching autumn. I let the warmth soak into my bones and wash away my worries, just for a moment.
I don’t know why I let it get to me.
I sighed. I might not be Kerry Highgate, dancer, anymore—not on the outside. But on the inside, I was still the same Kerry. I still felt music come alive inside me, even when it was just music in the restaurant, or the radio of a car. I still danced inside. I hadn’t really changed. It wasn’t the stage and the costume that made me be that thing—it was who I was.
When I opened my eyes, I felt at peace with the world.
That was when I saw him.
He was walking along the sidewalk opposite the restaurant and I just saw him over the wall. It was a high wall, but if you stood on the terrace round the back of the kitchen you could see the road beyond the backyard.
I focused on the man opposite. He was dressed in a tatty leather coat and dark jeans, one knee scuffed. The black jacket matched his hair. He was handsome, I thought, feeling my heart tighten at the sight of that clean profile, reminding me how rarely I saw men who really turned me on now. He had big shoulders, though the rest of his body was lean in a way that said he hadn’t eaten properly for a while. He had a bent walk, like he tried to avoid direct contact. All the same, there was something familiar about him.
Something that touched something inside me; something I had thought died long ago.
Some impulse made me drop the book I was holding, a novel I’d bought to distract myself from the worries and stress of my workday. It clattered onto the metal trash bin and made a noise that was enough to drift across the street. The man heard it. he turned around.
Green eyes, with a fine brow, like a hawk’s, and piercing. They stared at me, reached inside me, and made my heart stop.
“Brett?” I said.
It couldn’t be him. But it was. It had to be. It couldn’t be anybody else.
He was staring at me too. I saw a strange look cross his face, one of amazement, and disbelief. Then he turned away and started walking off.
I felt all my breath leave me in a rush. It was Brett. Why didn’t he stop? Maybe it wasn’t him, I told myself harshly. But no. No way that someone could look so exactly like him, complete with hair, shoulders and eyes, and not be Brett! He was older than he had been—so was I—and he was thin, and not dressed in the stylish way he used to dress. But it was him. I was convinced of it.
“Brett?” I called after him.
He didn’t hear me. Didn’t stop.
I sighed. I was being stupid—I shouldn’t expect any different.
“Why’d he want to come and say hello, anyway?”
I made a huff that could have been a laugh, or a sob—even I wasn’t sure which it was. If it really was Brett, and not some fabulous hallucination, what would make him recognize me?
I’m not Kerry Highgate, dancer, anymore. I’m just a waitress having a break round the back of a middle-of-the-range restaurant.
Why would he want to know me?
I shook my head sadly and went inside again.
“Hey!” The chef—known as Harry Lewis when he wasn’t working, greeted me. “There you are! I need your help with something before we open at five?”
“With what?” I asked, trying to dredge up some enthusiasm from my last reserves of it. I was tired, and sad, and down. But it wasn’t Harry’s fault, now was it? I would try and be cheerful until the end of the workday, at least. “What can I do?” I asked.
“While Braden’s out clearing the tables, I was hoping you could help me cut the veg up?” he asked. “I just need to get on with the other preparations. Having an extra set of hands would be great.”
I nodded. “Sure,” I said.
I chopped up potatoes, beans, carrots. I ended with the onions. As I sniffed with the sulfur getting up into my eyes, I realized that at least it was the perfect excuse to cry at work. And I wanted to cry.
Damn this place. Damn my sore foot. Damn him.
The “him” was Brett. If that really was him. And if it really was him, I might as well just forget about him. He had seen me and he hadn’t been interested. That hurt more than anything.
How dare he? I thought, sawing viciously at the onions under the knife. He didn’t care about me at all, then. It was just the status. Just the fame. He wanted a partner who matched him, made him look like the cultured sporty type. I should be so mad at him.
I was mad at him.
I sniffed, feeling tears run down my face. They weren’t the onion, but it helped to cover the pain of it. I didn’t want those memories to come back—those sweet memories of our time together. I had thought I had forgotten them, buried that flame under the sand of cold indifference.
The chef looked over and his eyes widened.
“Hey, Kerry!” he said, worried. “You’re really having a reaction to those. Let me finish. You can mix this marinade, if you like?”
I shook my head, sniffing hesitantly. “It’s okay, chef,” I smiled in what I hoped was a convincing manner. “I’ll manage.”
He frowned at me, clearly concerned. “If you like,” he ventured carefully. “But tell me if it gets too much for you, okay?”
“Okay,” I nodded, sniffing.
We finished the preparations. It was quarter to five and we were about to reopen. I went to the bathroom to splash my face with water. I stared at the woman in the mirror.
With a long oval face, a long nose and big brown eyes, I guess I wasn’t ugly.
Dammit, Kerry, I told myself. You’re not ugly. You’re fine the way you are.
So why had Brett just walked past like that? Why did he only see me as a chance to add to his own mystery? Why not as myself? It hurt to think that all these years, when I had loved him wordlessly, he had been superficially involved compared to my deeper attachment to him.
“Come on, Kerry,” I told myself impatiently. “You’re thinking too much.”
I washed my face, glad the tears hadn’t made it get swollen, dried it carefully, redid my makeup and left.
“Ready to open?” I called to Braden.
He pulled on his jacket, smoothed down his hair where his bike helmet had made an imprint in it. Then he nodded.
“Sure. Kerry? You open up? I’ve just gotta fix this table quickly…”
I nodded, then went to open the blinds and then the front door. I was just checking my uniform in the mirror by the bar when someone came in through the door.
“Um…hello?” a low, hesitant voice said.
I turned around. I stared at him. It was Brett.