Since Last Summer by Joanna Philbin
An image of Evan flickered across her mind. No, she wanted to say. I don’t.
But this was her boyfriend, who was finally back with her, finally paying attention to her. She owed it to him, and to herself, to do whatever she could to make this work.
“Sure,” she said. “But just for a little while. I have work tomorrow.”
He picked up his bag and took her by the hand. “I really did miss you, Ror,” he said, with more earnest feeling than she’d seen from him in weeks.
“I missed you, too,” she said, and in that moment, she believed it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Now, where do you think the Rules would rather sit?” Nina asked, pointing at the seating chart on her desk. “We could put them at Alec Baldwin’s table, which will also have the director of the festival, an editor from Vanity Fair, and the society columnist from Dan’s Papers, or…”
Rory politely covered a yawn with her hand and wondered when she’d become the Rules’ social director. Nina apparently seemed to think their seating at the opening night gala to be a matter of supreme importance. This was their third conversation about it.
“I think wherever you want to put them is fine,” Rory said. “I’m sure they’ll have a good time either way.”
“But would you say they’d rather sit with celebrities or with more artistic people?”
Neither, Rory wanted to say. “Artistic people,” she said.
“Great,” Nina said. “I’ll put them with Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson,” she said. “They know who they are, right?”
Rory knew that they probably didn’t, but she nodded anyway. “Before I go, can I ask you if there’s anything else I can do? All the rejection letters have gone out. Was there anything else you want me to do right now?”
“No, no,” Nina said, still studying the seating charts. “I’ll let you know. Maybe I’ll ask you about the Rules’ dietary restrictions at some point. But for right now, we’re okay.”
Rory walked out of her office, muttering, “Can’t wait.”
“What was that about?” Amelia asked when Rory returned to her desk. She was busy making laminated ID tags. In the past few days she’d gone from being completely ignored to receiving constant tasks from Luis.
“Nina wanted me to look at the seating chart again,” Rory said.
“For your boyfriend’s parents?” Amelia asked, smirking.
“Yup.”
“Wow. She must have called you in four other times.”
“Two, actually,” Rory said. “And it’s not like I’m enjoying it.”
“She must be expecting quite a windfall out of them,” Amelia said. “I don’t think they’re paying that much attention to anyone else coming.”
“It’s kind of gross, if you ask me,” Rory said.
“Well, that’s the Hamptons,” Amelia said. “It’s all about over-the-top butt kissing for money.”
Rory felt a prickle of irritation. Amelia had little to complain about. At least she was getting something out of this whole situation. And she wasn’t being asked her opinion constantly on how to make the Rules happy.
Suddenly her phone beeped in her bag, and she reached down to pull it out. It was a text from a 203 number.
Hey, I’m off today. Meet for lunch? EVAN
Isabel must have given him her cell number. She wondered if Isabel knew he’d be asking her to have lunch. But if she’d given Evan the number, would she really care?
Sounds good, she wrote. Where?
When she got to Main Beach, Evan was waiting for her in the agreed-upon place, in the shady veranda in front of the snack bar. He was dressed in board shorts and a Quiksilver T-shirt, and even though his clothes looked slightly out of place on him—he didn’t have the kind of frame that really showed off beachwear, like Connor did—he still looked extremely cute. As she walked from the crowded parking lot, waving at him, she felt her stomach churn.
“How ’bout I treat you to a cheeseburger?” he said. “It’s the least I can do for you coming to meet me so last minute.”
“Great.”
Once they got their food, they sat down on one of the long benches on the snack bar veranda. The beach was scattered with young moms and nannies shepherding their kids to the water and back.
“It’s nice to have the day off,” Evan said, unwrapping his burger. “I don’t think I’ve been in the water more than a couple times since I got here.”
“That’s too bad. That’s the whole point of coming out here.”
Evan chuckled. “Well, depends on who you are, I guess. Not everyone gets to go to the beach every day.”
“That’s true.”
“I guess you do,” Evan said. “Seeing as you’re staying in a house on the beach.”
“You’d be surprised,” Rory said. “Sometimes days go by when I don’t get down there. And last summer I didn’t spend that much time on the beach, either. But that was a different situation.”
“What was last summer?” he asked.
Chewing her burger, she realized that Evan still didn’t know the backstory of her and the Rules. “I worked for Isabel’s family last year,” she said.
“Oh yeah?” Evan said. “Doing what?”
“Whatever needed to be done. Mostly errands and groceries and picking up people from the train, that kind of thing.” She wiped her fingers with a napkin. “That’s how Isabel and I became friends. But you want to know the weird thing? I almost miss those days. Because now it’s like I’m part of this family, and that’s even harder. At least last summer I knew who I was. Now they’ve let me in, but I still don’t belong.”
Evan sat very still, seemingly hanging on every word she was saying.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” she murmured.
“No, it makes sense. Not belonging is never a lot of fun.” He fixed his eyes on the beach and the churning Atlantic beyond. “I feel like that with Isabel sometimes. On one hand, it’s great. I know she likes me and wants to be with me. But then I can feel like an alien half the time, too.”
“As far as I can tell, you’re not an alien.”
“I know, but I can still feel like one. And it’s not like the waitress thing changes much. She might think she can slum it at the restaurant, but she’s got Ralph Lauren radiating out of her pores. In the best way.”
“I know,” Rory said. “In the very best way.”
“And that’s great, and she’s such a nice person, but half the time I’m wondering what the hell she’s doing with me.”
Rory scratched a mosquito bite on her knee. “Sure,” she said, unsure of where this conversation was headed.
“And what she’s doing at the restaurant. Everyone likes her; don’t get me wrong. But we all know she’s not really one of us. Jeff calls her the Preppy Princess. Luckily I haven’t been inside her house yet. Then I’m sure I’d really freak out.”
“But does that matter to you?” Rory asked, edging closer to him. “What she comes from? Because believe me, she wishes she didn’t come from it. I know that.”
“I think that’s the reason we get along,” he said. “I’ve wanted to get out of Wilton since I was, like, two. But now I know that East Hampton isn’t necessarily any better.” They were sitting so close now that his elbow almost tapped the side of her arm. “You know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do,” she said. She was quiet for a moment, lulled into silence by the waves and the gulls overhead and the sun beating down. She thought about how eager she’d been to leave Stillwater and come back here. There wasn’t any pressure to say anything more.
“How much more time do you have?” Evan finally asked. “You want to go down to the water for a minute? Dip our feet in?”
“Sure.”
They threw away their burger wrappers and napkins and, still sipping their drinks, walked across the beach. At the shore, a wave traveled up the sand and covered both her feet. It was numbingly, but wonderfully, cold.
“That feels good,” Evan said.
/>
“I know,” Rory said.
Another wave kissed her toes. The wind made her wet feet feel even colder. A larger wave came charging up the sand and spilled over her feet, her calves, and up to her knees. She howled with the force of the cold and reached for his arm to steady herself. “Aaaaah!” she yelled.
Evan put his arm around her waist to keep her upright. “Stay with it!” he cried.
“It’s too cold!” she yelled.
She leaned against him, laughing, and turned to look up at him. She caught a view of his green eyes and his golden lashes, and then before she knew it, he leaned down to kiss her.
She knew the right thing to do was to pull away, but she couldn’t. As soon as his lips touched hers, she was kissing him right back. It felt completely natural. Expected, almost. When the wave pulled away, she remembered to do the same.
“Whoa,” Evan said. “I’m sorry. Oh man, I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “I should probably go. I mean, we should probably go.”
“Yeah,” Evan said.
She walked ahead of him across the sand toward the parking lot. There was no way that she could look him in the eye right now. If she was lucky, she’d manage to say good-bye to him and get back in her car without having to do it at all.
“Rory, hey,” he said, trotting up behind her. “Hey, I really am sorry. I don’t know what happened. I felt something, but maybe it was just me.”
“It wasn’t just you,” she said, barely meeting his eye. “But we can’t do this. We really can’t do this.”
“I’m not a player.”
“I know you’re not,” she said. “And I’m not, either.”
“Right,” he said. “I sort of got that already.”
They were almost at the snack bar. She didn’t slow down her pace. She wanted to go straight to her car, get inside, and peel out of the parking lot like Danica Patrick.
“So we’ll never mention this again,” she said, still barely looking at him. “It’ll be like it never happened.”
“Agreed,” he said.
“It’ll be our weird, awful little secret.”
“Fine.”
She slipped on the flip-flops she’d left buried in the sand near the snack bar and walked into the parking lot.
“Rory, can you stop for a second?” he asked.
She turned around.
“It was a mistake, but I don’t regret it, if that makes any sense.” He looked unsteady on his feet, as if he wasn’t quite ready to say good-bye.
She needed a sip of water. Her head was starting to feel swimmy. “Evan, please don’t say anything,” she said. “Except see you later. That’s really the only appropriate thing to say.”
“Okay. See you later.”
“Bye.”
She turned and marched across the sunbaked asphalt to her car. She’d think about this later, when she had the calmness—and the distance—to analyze and obsess about it. But not now. Now she just needed to get out of here.
She got into the hot car and shut the door. No, she thought. I’m going to obsess about this now. I’m a terrible friend. A. Terrible. Friend.
She put the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot. She would have to pretend that it hadn’t happened. That was the only answer. And she could do that. She’d done that with a lot of things in her life. True, most of them had had to do with her mom’s behavior and not her own, but at least she had practice.
The Honda jerked a little as she touched the gas. Maybe, she thought, this was a sign that she and Connor really could work things out; maybe she just needed to try a little bit harder, like she’d had to do this year in AP Calculus. Yes, that was the only way to put this out of her mind. Focus on Connor. And pretend that this had never happened.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“What do you recommend for a salad? The Shinnecock Tossed or the Apaquogue Apple and Brie?”
“Definitely the apple and Brie,” Isabel said. “But not with the raspberry vinaigrette. Go for the regular balsamic.”
The customer, a cherubic-faced young mom with a baby strapped to her chest, smiled with gratitude. “That’s what I’ll have, then,” she said, and handed Isabel her menu. “And an iced tea.”
Isabel took the menu, not bothering to write down the order. “Great, coming right up,” she said, and walked back to the kitchen.
Anytime Evan wasn’t at work the day felt slower. Nicole and Sadie were way too efficient and focused to goof off with her. And Bill, the manager, was definitely not a barrel of laughs. It was going to be a long afternoon.
She went to the computer and typed in the apple and Brie salad and iced tea. In her peripheral vision, she noticed the front door of the restaurant open. She glanced at her watch. It was one thirty. They served lunch for another hour. Please, God, she thought. Don’t let there be any more customers. Make this one be the last.
She glanced up to see who had the audacity to sit themselves down in her section, and nearly dropped the menu on the floor. Mike sat at the table in the corner, across from an older man. Marcus the busboy stood over them, pouring them glasses of ice water. It was all perfectly normal, except Mike had invaded her work space. And now she was going to have to speak to him again.
Chin up, shoulders back, she strode over to their table with as much poise and professionalism as she could muster. All she needed to do was act completely natural. If he was here on purpose, to see her, then she would deal with that as best as she knew how.
“Hi, Mike,” she said, coming to stand at their table. She smoothed her ponytail back over her shoulder and bravely looked Mike in the eye.
“Isabel?” Mike asked. He looked slightly incredulous.
“What can I get you?” she asked, in as dignified a way as she could.
“So this is where you’re working?” he asked.
“And I’m supposed to believe this is a coincidence?” she replied. Mike looked across the table at his friend as if trying to communicate his surprise, and then back at her. “This is my cousin Tony.”
“Hi,” said the older man. He faintly resembled Mike with his shaggy dark hair and cleft chin.
“Hello there,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “Okay, what’d you like?”
“A Miller Lite,” Tony said.
“A Miller Lite, sure,” she said. This time she needed her pad. She scribbled down the drink order. “And for you?” she asked Mike.
“Uh… a Diet Coke.”
“Diet… Coke,” she repeated, scribbling that down as well. “Got it. I’ll be right back.”
“How’s the boyfriend?” Mike asked.
She checked to see if he was being sarcastic, but he seemed completely serious.
“He’s fine,” she said. “He’s not here today, but—”
“Oh, so he works here. That’s cool.”
Isabel narrowed her eyes. Was there any subtext to that? She couldn’t tell. “Yeah, it is cool. It’s a lot of fun to work with the person you’re going out with.”
Mike laughed. “Yeah, well, Tony wouldn’t necessarily agree to that, now would you?” he said.
His cousin laughed.
Isabel stayed rooted to the spot, on guard for any innuendo or hints of jealousy. But there didn’t seem to be any at all. In fact, Mike seemed entirely neutral about her, as if she were simply an old friend. It was kind of annoying.
“Do you guys know what you’d like?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah, I’ll have the Reuben,” Mike said.
“I’ll go with the tuna melt,” said his cousin.
She wrote down the orders, and they handed her the menus. Isabel watched to see if Mike tried to touch her fingers or her hands as he handed her his menu, but he didn’t. He could have been any other customer ordering lunch.
“Anything else?” she asked, looking at Mike.
“Nope, I think that’s it for now,” he said. He looked at her more closely. “Is there something else we should get?”
>
“No, no. I’ll be right back.”
She walked back to the kitchen, feeling a little self-conscious. The last time she’d seen Mike he’d practically professed his love to her. Now he was acting like she was some ancient acquaintance, or worse, a regular waitress. It didn’t make any sense.
At the computer, Sadie sidled up beside Isabel. “Who is that?” she asked, nodding in the direction of Mike. “He is hot.”
“You want his table? It’s all yours,” Isabel said, putting in his order.
“No, you take him,” Sadie said. “You seem like you could use a fling.”
Isabel was about to tell Sadie that she was already dating someone—someone Sadie knew pretty well—but she decided against it. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.
When she brought out their orders, Mike and his cousin were deep in conversation.
“Oh, that looks good,” said Mike as she placed the Reuben in front of him.
“It’s one of our specialties,” she said brightly.
She placed the tuna melt in front of his cousin. “Anything else?”
“I think we’re okay,” Mike said.
She turned to leave.
“Oh, Isabel,” Mike said.
She turned around, eager to hear what he had to say.
“Can I have some extra Russian dressing?” he asked.
This had to be a joke, she thought. But from the dead-serious look on Mike’s face, it apparently wasn’t. “No problem,” she said.
Where was his passion? she thought, stomping back to the pass-through. Where was his ardor? What had happened to him thinking about her? Wanting her? Missing her? Thinking that he would do better, if given a second chance? That had only been a couple of weeks ago. Now he was asking her for Russian dressing like she was nobody.
She grabbed the bottle of dressing, glug-glugged some into a small ramekin, and brought it back to the table. “Here,” she said, setting it down with a thud. “Here’s your dressing.”
“What’s wrong?” Mike asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Why should there be anything wrong?”
Tony and Mike exchanged a wary glance.
She went back to the computer and printed out their bill. As soon as Marcus cleared their plates, she placed it on the table. “Whenever you’re ready,” she said with gritted teeth.
But this was her boyfriend, who was finally back with her, finally paying attention to her. She owed it to him, and to herself, to do whatever she could to make this work.
“Sure,” she said. “But just for a little while. I have work tomorrow.”
He picked up his bag and took her by the hand. “I really did miss you, Ror,” he said, with more earnest feeling than she’d seen from him in weeks.
“I missed you, too,” she said, and in that moment, she believed it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Now, where do you think the Rules would rather sit?” Nina asked, pointing at the seating chart on her desk. “We could put them at Alec Baldwin’s table, which will also have the director of the festival, an editor from Vanity Fair, and the society columnist from Dan’s Papers, or…”
Rory politely covered a yawn with her hand and wondered when she’d become the Rules’ social director. Nina apparently seemed to think their seating at the opening night gala to be a matter of supreme importance. This was their third conversation about it.
“I think wherever you want to put them is fine,” Rory said. “I’m sure they’ll have a good time either way.”
“But would you say they’d rather sit with celebrities or with more artistic people?”
Neither, Rory wanted to say. “Artistic people,” she said.
“Great,” Nina said. “I’ll put them with Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson,” she said. “They know who they are, right?”
Rory knew that they probably didn’t, but she nodded anyway. “Before I go, can I ask you if there’s anything else I can do? All the rejection letters have gone out. Was there anything else you want me to do right now?”
“No, no,” Nina said, still studying the seating charts. “I’ll let you know. Maybe I’ll ask you about the Rules’ dietary restrictions at some point. But for right now, we’re okay.”
Rory walked out of her office, muttering, “Can’t wait.”
“What was that about?” Amelia asked when Rory returned to her desk. She was busy making laminated ID tags. In the past few days she’d gone from being completely ignored to receiving constant tasks from Luis.
“Nina wanted me to look at the seating chart again,” Rory said.
“For your boyfriend’s parents?” Amelia asked, smirking.
“Yup.”
“Wow. She must have called you in four other times.”
“Two, actually,” Rory said. “And it’s not like I’m enjoying it.”
“She must be expecting quite a windfall out of them,” Amelia said. “I don’t think they’re paying that much attention to anyone else coming.”
“It’s kind of gross, if you ask me,” Rory said.
“Well, that’s the Hamptons,” Amelia said. “It’s all about over-the-top butt kissing for money.”
Rory felt a prickle of irritation. Amelia had little to complain about. At least she was getting something out of this whole situation. And she wasn’t being asked her opinion constantly on how to make the Rules happy.
Suddenly her phone beeped in her bag, and she reached down to pull it out. It was a text from a 203 number.
Hey, I’m off today. Meet for lunch? EVAN
Isabel must have given him her cell number. She wondered if Isabel knew he’d be asking her to have lunch. But if she’d given Evan the number, would she really care?
Sounds good, she wrote. Where?
When she got to Main Beach, Evan was waiting for her in the agreed-upon place, in the shady veranda in front of the snack bar. He was dressed in board shorts and a Quiksilver T-shirt, and even though his clothes looked slightly out of place on him—he didn’t have the kind of frame that really showed off beachwear, like Connor did—he still looked extremely cute. As she walked from the crowded parking lot, waving at him, she felt her stomach churn.
“How ’bout I treat you to a cheeseburger?” he said. “It’s the least I can do for you coming to meet me so last minute.”
“Great.”
Once they got their food, they sat down on one of the long benches on the snack bar veranda. The beach was scattered with young moms and nannies shepherding their kids to the water and back.
“It’s nice to have the day off,” Evan said, unwrapping his burger. “I don’t think I’ve been in the water more than a couple times since I got here.”
“That’s too bad. That’s the whole point of coming out here.”
Evan chuckled. “Well, depends on who you are, I guess. Not everyone gets to go to the beach every day.”
“That’s true.”
“I guess you do,” Evan said. “Seeing as you’re staying in a house on the beach.”
“You’d be surprised,” Rory said. “Sometimes days go by when I don’t get down there. And last summer I didn’t spend that much time on the beach, either. But that was a different situation.”
“What was last summer?” he asked.
Chewing her burger, she realized that Evan still didn’t know the backstory of her and the Rules. “I worked for Isabel’s family last year,” she said.
“Oh yeah?” Evan said. “Doing what?”
“Whatever needed to be done. Mostly errands and groceries and picking up people from the train, that kind of thing.” She wiped her fingers with a napkin. “That’s how Isabel and I became friends. But you want to know the weird thing? I almost miss those days. Because now it’s like I’m part of this family, and that’s even harder. At least last summer I knew who I was. Now they’ve let me in, but I still don’t belong.”
Evan sat very still, seemingly hanging on every word she was saying.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” she murmured.
“No, it makes sense. Not belonging is never a lot of fun.” He fixed his eyes on the beach and the churning Atlantic beyond. “I feel like that with Isabel sometimes. On one hand, it’s great. I know she likes me and wants to be with me. But then I can feel like an alien half the time, too.”
“As far as I can tell, you’re not an alien.”
“I know, but I can still feel like one. And it’s not like the waitress thing changes much. She might think she can slum it at the restaurant, but she’s got Ralph Lauren radiating out of her pores. In the best way.”
“I know,” Rory said. “In the very best way.”
“And that’s great, and she’s such a nice person, but half the time I’m wondering what the hell she’s doing with me.”
Rory scratched a mosquito bite on her knee. “Sure,” she said, unsure of where this conversation was headed.
“And what she’s doing at the restaurant. Everyone likes her; don’t get me wrong. But we all know she’s not really one of us. Jeff calls her the Preppy Princess. Luckily I haven’t been inside her house yet. Then I’m sure I’d really freak out.”
“But does that matter to you?” Rory asked, edging closer to him. “What she comes from? Because believe me, she wishes she didn’t come from it. I know that.”
“I think that’s the reason we get along,” he said. “I’ve wanted to get out of Wilton since I was, like, two. But now I know that East Hampton isn’t necessarily any better.” They were sitting so close now that his elbow almost tapped the side of her arm. “You know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do,” she said. She was quiet for a moment, lulled into silence by the waves and the gulls overhead and the sun beating down. She thought about how eager she’d been to leave Stillwater and come back here. There wasn’t any pressure to say anything more.
“How much more time do you have?” Evan finally asked. “You want to go down to the water for a minute? Dip our feet in?”
“Sure.”
They threw away their burger wrappers and napkins and, still sipping their drinks, walked across the beach. At the shore, a wave traveled up the sand and covered both her feet. It was numbingly, but wonderfully, cold.
“That feels good,” Evan said.
“I know,” Rory said.
Another wave kissed her toes. The wind made her wet feet feel even colder. A larger wave came charging up the sand and spilled over her feet, her calves, and up to her knees. She howled with the force of the cold and reached for his arm to steady herself. “Aaaaah!” she yelled.
Evan put his arm around her waist to keep her upright. “Stay with it!” he cried.
“It’s too cold!” she yelled.
She leaned against him, laughing, and turned to look up at him. She caught a view of his green eyes and his golden lashes, and then before she knew it, he leaned down to kiss her.
She knew the right thing to do was to pull away, but she couldn’t. As soon as his lips touched hers, she was kissing him right back. It felt completely natural. Expected, almost. When the wave pulled away, she remembered to do the same.
“Whoa,” Evan said. “I’m sorry. Oh man, I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “I should probably go. I mean, we should probably go.”
“Yeah,” Evan said.
She walked ahead of him across the sand toward the parking lot. There was no way that she could look him in the eye right now. If she was lucky, she’d manage to say good-bye to him and get back in her car without having to do it at all.
“Rory, hey,” he said, trotting up behind her. “Hey, I really am sorry. I don’t know what happened. I felt something, but maybe it was just me.”
“It wasn’t just you,” she said, barely meeting his eye. “But we can’t do this. We really can’t do this.”
“I’m not a player.”
“I know you’re not,” she said. “And I’m not, either.”
“Right,” he said. “I sort of got that already.”
They were almost at the snack bar. She didn’t slow down her pace. She wanted to go straight to her car, get inside, and peel out of the parking lot like Danica Patrick.
“So we’ll never mention this again,” she said, still barely looking at him. “It’ll be like it never happened.”
“Agreed,” he said.
“It’ll be our weird, awful little secret.”
“Fine.”
She slipped on the flip-flops she’d left buried in the sand near the snack bar and walked into the parking lot.
“Rory, can you stop for a second?” he asked.
She turned around.
“It was a mistake, but I don’t regret it, if that makes any sense.” He looked unsteady on his feet, as if he wasn’t quite ready to say good-bye.
She needed a sip of water. Her head was starting to feel swimmy. “Evan, please don’t say anything,” she said. “Except see you later. That’s really the only appropriate thing to say.”
“Okay. See you later.”
“Bye.”
She turned and marched across the sunbaked asphalt to her car. She’d think about this later, when she had the calmness—and the distance—to analyze and obsess about it. But not now. Now she just needed to get out of here.
She got into the hot car and shut the door. No, she thought. I’m going to obsess about this now. I’m a terrible friend. A. Terrible. Friend.
She put the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot. She would have to pretend that it hadn’t happened. That was the only answer. And she could do that. She’d done that with a lot of things in her life. True, most of them had had to do with her mom’s behavior and not her own, but at least she had practice.
The Honda jerked a little as she touched the gas. Maybe, she thought, this was a sign that she and Connor really could work things out; maybe she just needed to try a little bit harder, like she’d had to do this year in AP Calculus. Yes, that was the only way to put this out of her mind. Focus on Connor. And pretend that this had never happened.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“What do you recommend for a salad? The Shinnecock Tossed or the Apaquogue Apple and Brie?”
“Definitely the apple and Brie,” Isabel said. “But not with the raspberry vinaigrette. Go for the regular balsamic.”
The customer, a cherubic-faced young mom with a baby strapped to her chest, smiled with gratitude. “That’s what I’ll have, then,” she said, and handed Isabel her menu. “And an iced tea.”
Isabel took the menu, not bothering to write down the order. “Great, coming right up,” she said, and walked back to the kitchen.
Anytime Evan wasn’t at work the day felt slower. Nicole and Sadie were way too efficient and focused to goof off with her. And Bill, the manager, was definitely not a barrel of laughs. It was going to be a long afternoon.
She went to the computer and typed in the apple and Brie salad and iced tea. In her peripheral vision, she noticed the front door of the restaurant open. She glanced at her watch. It was one thirty. They served lunch for another hour. Please, God, she thought. Don’t let there be any more customers. Make this one be the last.
She glanced up to see who had the audacity to sit themselves down in her section, and nearly dropped the menu on the floor. Mike sat at the table in the corner, across from an older man. Marcus the busboy stood over them, pouring them glasses of ice water. It was all perfectly normal, except Mike had invaded her work space. And now she was going to have to speak to him again.
Chin up, shoulders back, she strode over to their table with as much poise and professionalism as she could muster. All she needed to do was act completely natural. If he was here on purpose, to see her, then she would deal with that as best as she knew how.
“Hi, Mike,” she said, coming to stand at their table. She smoothed her ponytail back over her shoulder and bravely looked Mike in the eye.
“Isabel?” Mike asked. He looked slightly incredulous.
“What can I get you?” she asked, in as dignified a way as she could.
“So this is where you’re working?” he asked.
“And I’m supposed to believe this is a coincidence?” she replied. Mike looked across the table at his friend as if trying to communicate his surprise, and then back at her. “This is my cousin Tony.”
“Hi,” said the older man. He faintly resembled Mike with his shaggy dark hair and cleft chin.
“Hello there,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “Okay, what’d you like?”
“A Miller Lite,” Tony said.
“A Miller Lite, sure,” she said. This time she needed her pad. She scribbled down the drink order. “And for you?” she asked Mike.
“Uh… a Diet Coke.”
“Diet… Coke,” she repeated, scribbling that down as well. “Got it. I’ll be right back.”
“How’s the boyfriend?” Mike asked.
She checked to see if he was being sarcastic, but he seemed completely serious.
“He’s fine,” she said. “He’s not here today, but—”
“Oh, so he works here. That’s cool.”
Isabel narrowed her eyes. Was there any subtext to that? She couldn’t tell. “Yeah, it is cool. It’s a lot of fun to work with the person you’re going out with.”
Mike laughed. “Yeah, well, Tony wouldn’t necessarily agree to that, now would you?” he said.
His cousin laughed.
Isabel stayed rooted to the spot, on guard for any innuendo or hints of jealousy. But there didn’t seem to be any at all. In fact, Mike seemed entirely neutral about her, as if she were simply an old friend. It was kind of annoying.
“Do you guys know what you’d like?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah, I’ll have the Reuben,” Mike said.
“I’ll go with the tuna melt,” said his cousin.
She wrote down the orders, and they handed her the menus. Isabel watched to see if Mike tried to touch her fingers or her hands as he handed her his menu, but he didn’t. He could have been any other customer ordering lunch.
“Anything else?” she asked, looking at Mike.
“Nope, I think that’s it for now,” he said. He looked at her more closely. “Is there something else we should get?”
“No, no. I’ll be right back.”
She walked back to the kitchen, feeling a little self-conscious. The last time she’d seen Mike he’d practically professed his love to her. Now he was acting like she was some ancient acquaintance, or worse, a regular waitress. It didn’t make any sense.
At the computer, Sadie sidled up beside Isabel. “Who is that?” she asked, nodding in the direction of Mike. “He is hot.”
“You want his table? It’s all yours,” Isabel said, putting in his order.
“No, you take him,” Sadie said. “You seem like you could use a fling.”
Isabel was about to tell Sadie that she was already dating someone—someone Sadie knew pretty well—but she decided against it. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.
When she brought out their orders, Mike and his cousin were deep in conversation.
“Oh, that looks good,” said Mike as she placed the Reuben in front of him.
“It’s one of our specialties,” she said brightly.
She placed the tuna melt in front of his cousin. “Anything else?”
“I think we’re okay,” Mike said.
She turned to leave.
“Oh, Isabel,” Mike said.
She turned around, eager to hear what he had to say.
“Can I have some extra Russian dressing?” he asked.
This had to be a joke, she thought. But from the dead-serious look on Mike’s face, it apparently wasn’t. “No problem,” she said.
Where was his passion? she thought, stomping back to the pass-through. Where was his ardor? What had happened to him thinking about her? Wanting her? Missing her? Thinking that he would do better, if given a second chance? That had only been a couple of weeks ago. Now he was asking her for Russian dressing like she was nobody.
She grabbed the bottle of dressing, glug-glugged some into a small ramekin, and brought it back to the table. “Here,” she said, setting it down with a thud. “Here’s your dressing.”
“What’s wrong?” Mike asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Why should there be anything wrong?”
Tony and Mike exchanged a wary glance.
She went back to the computer and printed out their bill. As soon as Marcus cleared their plates, she placed it on the table. “Whenever you’re ready,” she said with gritted teeth.