Chapter 9

9

DEREK

I t was Friday and I was in the process of filling out the rest of the menu to complement the star dish and give some kind of theme to the evening when the back door burst open. It made my head pop up, and I turned to see Jodi leaning against the door, her back against it and two bags clutched tightly to her chest. Her hair was wild and stringy and in her face, and she was gulping deep breaths like she had been running.

Knocking over the stool I was sitting on, I jumped up and ran to her, gently taking the bags from her fingers, where she had clung to them so hard her flesh bore the marks. I placed the bags down beside the door and took one of her elbows, gently but firmly guiding her to the waitstaff office.

“Deep breaths,” Jodi muttered to herself. “I’ve got to… take… deep breaths.”

“Do you need water? Here. Let me get you some water,” I said, jogging back to the cooler where I kept several cases of bottled water along with the rotating meat that stayed chilled but not frozen. I pulled a bottle out and brought it to her, cracking the seal in front of her and putting it in her hands. She took very small sips. She was shaking, but she seemed weirdly in control. Like she knew how to calm down when panicked, she just needed to go through the steps.

Suddenly I wanted to know how many times she had to calm herself like this, how many times she had been on the run from something or someone. I had ideas, but none of them were good. None of them were the type of thing you assume about someone without some kind of evidence. I wasn’t going to jump the gun.

“When you are ready, no rush,” I said, my palms out to soothe her and let her know I had no intention of pushing her, “would you be able to tell me what you are running from? I want to help you figure it out, okay? But I can’t really do that if I don’t know what I am up against or helping you hide from.”

She nodded, slowly, and kept sipping the water.

Jodi was beginning to calm down. She had gotten down about half the bottle, and I was tempted to go grab another one just in case, but I didn’t want to leave her alone either. Her hands were no longer shaking so badly that I thought she might spill water on herself, nor was she breathing so deeply that I was worried she would pass out.

Tipping back the bottle, Jodi took a few deep gulps and got the rest of it down quickly.

I reached out my hand and took the bottle from suddenly steady hands.

“Do you want another one?” I asked. “I have a bunch in the cooler.”

“No, thank you,” she said. I noticed she was still taking deep breaths, but they were calmer now, much more focused. She was regulating.

“Okay, well, if you change your mind, you know where to find them.”

She nodded again and pulled her head back, letting her hair fall backward so she could tie it up into a tight knot on the back of her head. Within seconds of brushing off running makeup with a paper towel I handed her, she was composed, put together even.

“My brother is here,” she said.

I waited for more, and nothing came. I cocked my head to one side and narrowed my eyes.

“Your brother?”

She nodded, and I could see that it scared her even to admit it.

What the hell could make her so scared of her brother? Every time I learned something about this enigma of a girl, some other mystery took its place. I had grown up with my brothers being the very bedrock of my sanity, my knowledge that the world wouldn’t just be able to run me over. I would always have them; even when our parents passed and our grandparents had taken us on, I’d always had my brothers to look out for me.

The idea that she had a brother but that he wasn’t someone she could depend on to help her both saddened me and made me a bit angry for her. How terribly alone it must feel to not have anyone, including your brother, to look out for you. It must have been torturous.

“Why are you so scared of your brother?” I asked gently.

There was a brief moment where it looked like she would tell me, like she would open up and let me know what it was that had spawned this apparently high-stakes evasion of her family. But as soon as it appeared, it disappeared. She shook her head, looking down at her shoes for a moment and then back to me.

“I can’t,” she said. “Not now.”

“That’s fine. Like I said, I don’t want to push. I just need to know enough to help.”

“I understand,” she said. “I just can’t right this second. I need to do something else. Can I work?”

“Work?” I asked. “You want to go clock in?”

“Yes. It will help me focus and block out everything else. Besides, I don’t know that he would even come close to thinking to look here. I’m safe.”

I nodded. “Yes, you are. Sure, you can go work,” I said. “You can roll silverware back here with me until Charlotte gets here if you want.

“Thank you,” she said, her head still down and sounding sheepish. I stood up, unblocking the door, and held my hand out to offer her space to walk by me. She did, and in spite of everything, I caught a whiff of her perfume, and my knees weakened a little.

Jodi made her way across the kitchen to the rack of silverware and stack of fresh, clean linen. One by one, she rolled them up perfectly and stuck them in a bucket to go out to the floor. I watched her for a while and then went back to what I was doing. I flipped on the TV to give some sound to the room, and it made Jodi’s shoulders unclench a little. She was calming, bit by bit.

I went back to work and gave her space to feel safe.