CHAPTER 6: KERRY
“Kerry?”
I turned around to find my colleague behind me, two plates of breakfast in his hand.
“Yes?” I asked. I blinked, trying to look awake. It was eight in the morning and I had barely slept.
“You know where these are meant to be? I thought table four!” He sounded worried and alarmed. He inclined his head in the direction of the table, where two women in business dress were happily eating our famous granola. Not for them, evidently. I closed my eyes in frustration and looked around.
“That a burrito?” I asked.
“Looks like it,” he said.
“Ha, ha,” I said dryly. “Well, I have an order for burrito for table seven. Try there.”
“Whew! Thanks, K.” He smiled. “I knew you’d save me.”
I shot him a look—one of my best fed-up looks. He laughed. I headed into the kitchen and tried to not feel annoyed. Everything grated on me this morning.
“Kerry?” Chef called cheerfully. He was frying mushrooms, his hat at an angle, sweat on his face.
“What?” I said. I was trying to arrange toast neatly on a plate and trying to turn off my brain.
No matter how hard I tried, images of Brett kept on coming back to me. Brett on the bed, his smile lighting the darkness. Brett with that knowing smirk. Brett kissing me.
“Hell, I was just going to say something,” Harry said, sounding hurt. “No need to shout at me.”
I closed my eyes. “Sorry, Harry,” I said. “I was just lost in thought.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “These mushrooms are going out to table six, yes?”
“Mm,” I agreed. I finished plating up the scrambled eggs and toast and put them on the tray, heading out.
In the front of house, I watched Braden taking orders, the wry grin on his face cutting into my heart. Why was everyone so damnably cheerful? I was fed up.
I had texted Brett three days ago, and he hadn’t said anything. It was almost Friday, and I still had no idea as to whether or not he would be eating with me on Saturday night.
It wasn’t just the inconvenience of not knowing, of course. Or of not really even looking forward to the weekend and my day off on Sunday. It was the fact that I really wanted to hear from him. I had just met him after five years, and the least he could do was say something in reply to my text! I mean, it felt to me as if our connection was real. And intact. And huge. Like old times. But what if that was my head?
What if he really didn’t care that much about me, like I did?
I sighed.
“Excuse me?” Someone said from under my nose.
“Yes?” I said, turning my attention to a man who had gone slightly red in the face, an annoyed expression on his face. I sighed. It was the business breakfast crowd. They tended to get impatient.
“I want to order a coffee. And my friend here wants to order something to eat. If that’s not too hard?”
I heard the irony dripping from his voice and I had to contain my temper.
“Your orders?” I asked.
While they placed them, I mentally counted to ten. I smiled and went into the kitchen. Then I handed the paper to Chef and went outside. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. I wanted to cry.
Dammit, Brett. Why was he doing this to me?
I stood outside and breathed in fresh morning air. In, and out. In, and out. I tried hard not to feel frustrated. Or hurt. Or sad. I was almost succeeding, when a voice spoke from behind me, saying, “You okay, Kerry?”
I sighed.
“I’m fine,” I said. It was Braden. “Just a rough day.” My voice was dry.
He nodded. “Sure.” He rested a hand on my shoulder, gently. “Anything I can do, just tell me, okay? Always ready to help.”
“Thanks,” I whispered. My throat was too tight for my words to come out properly. I was crying, but I didn’t want him to see. I looked away.
“Anytime.”
I went in, trying not to look up. Chef passed me the plates and I made them neater, then headed out into the front room to deliver them.
I felt as if all the hurt and sorrow from the last five years had filled me up, brimming over, unleashed by Braden’s unexpected caring. I remembered all the sadness about my career, my foot, my pain. My loss of Brett. My feeling like I had let everyone down. My feeling like a failure.
“Here we go,” Harry said, passing me the bits and pieces for the breakfast roll. “Will you put it all together?” he asked. “You make them look better than I do!”
I laughed and smiled at his blunt, kind smile. “Thanks, Harry,” I said.
As I worked, I tried, valiantly, not to cry. My colleagues were so sweet to me here! I wondered, sometimes, why I missed the dance world. I had loved it and it was my life, but here in this smaller, more ordinary world, I felt safe. I felt cared about.
I might have been a fire-bird there, but fires burn.
In this safe, ordinary place, here in the Hill View restaurant, I was happy. Not the dazzling, wild heights of amazement my dance career had welled up in me, but a safe, contained sort of happiness, like a campfire compared to the sun. It was sustainable. I would never know if my career would have been.
I probably wasn’t that good anyway, I thought.
“Hey,” Braden called cheerfully. “Pancakes for table one. We got syrup?”
“I’ll check!” Harry yelled back. “If not, you know who can go fetch some, right?”
Braden laughed. “Maybe…”
I was smiling again when I went out with the plate.
This time, when I took the breakfast to the two businessmen, they seemed quite friendly.
“You local?” The other man—not the more-impatient one of the two—asked me.
“Not exactly,” I said. “Been here two years. Why?”
“Oh. Just wondering if you can recommend anything to see ‘round here?”
I made a short list for him of local sightseeing opportunities and they both grinned and thanked me. I went in feeling much better.
I had almost gotten over my sadness about Brett when work ended. The day was too busy to think much about anything. It was when I sat down in my car and looked at my phone that I remembered.
Still nothing.
I thrust it into my purse.
Dammit, Brett. If he disappeared once, what’s going to stop him from disappearing again?
I drove back home again, feeling confused.
It isn’t just him, I thought sadly. It was, I realized slowly, that seeing him again had done more than reawaken my feeling about him. It had reawakened my heart. Reminded me of who I had been.
And that was painful.
I had managed to come to terms with my transformation. The change from principal dancer to waitress in a small restaurant. Or, at least, as much to terms as it was possible to come. I had really thought the dancer-me was dead, that there was no chance of me ever going back. That the door had well and truly closed and separated me from the dazzling, bright fire-bird who was Kerry-that-was.
Now, he had reawakened me to who I had been. And the frustration of that was damaging me all over again.
“Dammit, Kerry,” I swore at myself in the mirror. “You could be that again.”
I knew my ankle would never actually take me to that level of professionalism again. But I had only been ordered a year out of the lifestyle. I could have gone back years ago. I might never have shone like I did, but I had the talent and the training and I could have made something of it.
I just hadn’t.
I realized now that I hadn’t, because I had given up on myself.
I looked at my reflection. I was still pretty much as I ever had been, with that long red hair, the broad shoulders that came from years of training, the posture. But I was also so changed. I had shrunk, somehow, become smaller and more tatty. The same way, I realized, that Brett had changed.
I sighed.
I suddenly felt so sad. What had happened to me, to him? And why was he ignoring me? Had he come to the same conclusion that I had, all those years ago? That the fire-bird had been a dazzling illusion, and that inside her was plain, ordinary pigeon Kerry, who could never sustain such a splendid appearance for long?
I started to cry.
Damn Brett, I thought miserably. Damn my foot. Damn me.
I let myself cry for a minute or two and then I went back inside again.
“Hey,” Harry said. He frowned at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine really. Just feeling under the weather.”
“You sure you should be here today?” Harry asked. “I mean, are you sick?” He sounded genuinely concerned.
I sniffed. Maybe I wasn’t so useless and unlovable after all.
Maybe Brett was just being difficult.
I felt a little better after that self-reassurance.
I smiled at Harry. “It’s okay,” I said gently. “I’m fine. Really.”
He smiled. I looked into his caring eyes, and he flushed, blinking, and looked down.
“Uh… sorry,” he murmured. “I need to check the cake in the oven.” He walked over to the stove, fussed around with it.
I looked at the wall, trying not to make him feel awkward. I felt my heart settle down a bit.
“How’s it looking?” I asked, amazed by how level my voice sounded.
“Good,” Harry said. “I can take it out in a minute or two, I bet. How are you?”
I smiled. “I’m okay. I guess I just get a bit down sometimes.”
“You should talk to someone,” Harry said sincerely. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be me, or anything,” he added. He looked shy again.
“I would like to talk,” I said gently. “I really appreciate it. But,” I sighed softly, “it’d probably be helpful if I waited till I understand what the heck is going on myself, before I talk.”
“You don’t have to wait,” Harry said. “But, if you want, that’s great. Whenever you want to talk, remember I’m here.”
“Thanks,” I said sincerely. I meant it. It would be great to have someone to talk to. I looked at Harry surreptitiously from the corner of my eye as he went to the stove to get out the ingredients for the frosting. I really had no idea he cared.
He laid the ingredients out on the counter, and then looked up at me. He smiled. I smiled back.
“Okay, guys,” Braden said, walking in briskly. “We need two orders of coffee and a cream cake at table six. Let’s go.”
He looked from me to Harry, slightly confused. I laughed.
“It’s okay, Braden,” I said. “I was just sad. I feel better now.”
“You do? Oh, good,” he said. His handsome face looked genuinely worried.
I smiled in reassurance and got back to work.
“Aw, thanks, you guys,” I said, really meaning it. “You’re so nice to me.”
They both chuckled.
“Of course we are,” Harry said.
“Why wouldn’t we be? You’re nice, Kerry,” Braden said, then blushed. He went off to go and get cups for the coffee.
He’s right. I forgot there were kind people in this world.
As I went to lay out the cream cake on a plate, my hands doing the work on autopilot, I thought about how I’d never realized how much they cared for me.
I had never thought about it before, that people might love me for who I was.
You didn’t need to be famous, I realized, to be loved.
That came from who you were.