Ally…

Mr. Parnell was hidden behind a much taller, much larger customer named Butch. Butch was in construction and had been here faithfully for the last two months while his work crew renovated a building a-block-and-a-half down from the café.

The look in Mr. Parnell’s dark eyes made my heart both plummet and soar at the same time. Soar because I would be finding out more about the job, but it plummeted at the dark and tempestuous look in those very same eyes I could have stared into all day. They were just so beautiful.

He handed an envelope to me after placing his order and I tucked it into my apron pocket, then set to work making his drink. When I went to hand him his coffee, he paused and said, “Be at that address at six pm. If you can’t make that time for whatever reason, please message me. You have my number.”

“Yes, sir,” I said quietly, and he froze for half a second, his eyes drifting shut. He swallowed hard, and I frowned.

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

“Yes. Just continue calling me Mr. Parnell,” he said and I nodded.

“Of course. Thank you again for the opportunity, Mr. Parnell.”

He smiled and inclined his head, and I started in on the next order, smiling at the next customer in line. It was the morning rush, and I spent the next hour too busy to read the card which was burning a hole in my pocket. When I finally did get a moment, it was only long enough for me to read it and thrust it right back into my apron pocket.

Ms. Blaylock,

Meet me in front of the Calvert building.

2246 Newsman Street

We will discuss the rate of payment and expectations upon your arrival.

-Damien Parnell

I nearly sagged with relief when the rush was over and immediately put in my headphones and called Dawnie, my best friend. She answered on the first ring.

“Well?”

“I have to meet him at six.”

“Oh, so you still don’t know anything yet?” she asked.

“Not yet,” I picked up a bus-tub and went around the tables, picking up as we talked. “I told you, as soon as I know, you will know everything, I promise!”

“Girl, you better not hold out on me. I live vicariously through you.” She gave a long-suffering sigh, and I felt for her. Dawnie had gone blind in a car accident when we were fourteen. Her dad had been drunk-driving and had nearly killed her. Her mom had never let him see Dawnie again. It’d been a brutal adjustment for her. She lived with her mom and stepdad and they were a happy family, but it was a hard-won happy.

Me? I had stuck by my friend, had never given up, even when she pushed me away. We were sisters, had been sisters since the first grade. You didn’t give up on things like that, no matter how bad it got.

“So do you at least know how much you’re getting paid?” she asked and I laughed.

“I don’t know anything yet, other than I have to cancel on you so I can go to this meetup and find out and I feel really bad about –“

“Don’t!” she cried. “Seriously, Ally. I understand. You can’t do this all by yourself, and I will always be here. I mean, seriously, best friends forever means forever.”

“I love you,” I said, feeling more guilty, not less.

“I love you, too. Find out the details and call me immediately. I want to know everything.”

“I’ll tell you what I can,” I promised.

“Like, all the gory details, Ally!”

I laughed, “Okay, like what could be gory about the DA office's best attorney?” I asked.

“I don’t know; maybe he leaves skid marks in his underwear.”

“Dawnie!”

“Oh, that’s a thing. I mean what kind of underwear does he wear?”

“Dawnetta Marie! I am not telling you what kind of underwear my boss wears.” I hissed and glanced around the café to make sure no one had heard me. Millie was laughing at me behind the counter, but the rest of the shop was empty.

She put on her best Yoda voice and said, “Mmm? Oh, you will; you will…”

“Right, okay, Yoda.”

She nearly had me in stitches and I could hear her smiling when she said, “I’ll see you soon, though?”

“I promise. We have a date at the city’s talking book and braille library. Remember?”

“Yeeeah, I am really liking the talk-to-text feature on the Kindle you got me for Christmas. It’s just a bitch I have to have somebody start it for me.”

“I know, you would think they would have worked up something for the blind by now.”

“Meh, a big company like that doesn’t care about us,” she declared, and I sighed.

We chatted for a little while longer and I managed to have the café cleaned up just in time for the lunch rush to start trickling in.

“I’ve got to go, Dawnie.”

“Fine!” she declared, following a melodramatic sigh.

I pulled my headphones out of my ears and shoved them into my apron pocket, greeting the customer who had come in. “Hello! What can I get for you?”

* * *

“See you tomorrow!” Millie called, and I waved over my shoulder as I went out the door. I had looked up where the Calvert building was, surprised to find it on the nicer edge of Old Town, across the city. It would take three buses to get there, and I needed to leave from the café and go straight there. It was only two-thirty, and barring any catastrophes changing buses, it should only take forty-five minutes or so to get there.

Still, I would much rather be early than late. I didn’t think Mr. Parnell would appreciate late.