Page 67 of Insatiable Hunger

“She’s here, just not working.”

My face must reflect my confusion, because she tips her chin, gaze looking past me, and when I follow her line of sight, I see Val sitting in one of the booths all by herself, a drink in front of her.

“She’s drinking?” My brows lift as I turn back to Trish.

“Yeah. I don’t know. Something’s going on with her, but she won’t talk to me.”

“Do me a favor,” I mutter as I raise off the stool. “Bring me another one of these.” Finishing off the drink, I set it on the bar before walking over to the booth.

“Fancy seeing you here,” I muse, sliding into the seat in front of her.

Val glances up, meeting my gaze, her eyes glossy and red-rimmed, and I have a feeling it’s not just from the drink in her hand. “Oh, hi, Zeke.” She clears her throat. “What are you doing here so early in the week?”

Smiling, I reply, “Wanted to see my favorite girl.”

Valerie has always been a solid listening ear since the moment she started working here. She has this innate way of getting me to spill my troubles. I’ve never been one to open up about how I’m feeling or talk about shit weighing on me. It’s just not who I am. If I have a bad day, I deal with it. Bottle up the feelings and move forward.

I grew up dirt poor in one of the most run-down parts of Havana. Crime rates were as high as the poverty rates, and most days, I wasn’t sure we’d even get dinner.

My father was a mean, abusive man; one with a gambling addiction and an affliction for liquor. He’d blow what little money we had, drink himself into a rage, and take his frustrations out on all of us. He’d take turns. Some nights, he’d bloody Mom’s lip a bit, shove her around; the next night, he’d pick one of us kids as his punching bag. We’d get the pleasure of going to school the next week with a black and blue eye that everybody knew exactly where it came from, but nobody spoke up.

One night, good ole Pops went off the deep end after he drowned his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle of tequila, and fractured my little brother, Rafael’s, femur. It was Mom’s last straw. Before the injury even had a chance to fully heal, we were gone. I don’t know where she got the money or the courage, but she packed up all four of us in the middle of the night when Dad was passed out drunk and we left. Moved to Miami. I have no idea how she did it or how she did it so fast, but I wasn’t in the business of asking questions back then.

Coming from a home where violence trumped affection, you quickly learn your feelings don’t mean shit. It stuck with me long after we left.

Valerie is the first person I’ve met who I never felt was judging me. Maybe it’s part of her job, and she does it for everyone, but I doubt it. She listens on the rare occasions I want to talk, just like I do when she wants to talk.

She’s the only person I told when I found out my sister was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year.

“What’s got you looking so down?” I ask softly, taking a sip of the fresh drink Trish dropped off.

“Well, my son comes home for break in a couple weeks.” She smiles, but it doesn’t meet her eyes. There’s a sadness in them.

Val is a single mom. Her only son attends college at Duke, and while I’ve never met him, I feel like I have with how often she talks about him. It’s clear to anybody within a twenty-mile radius that she’s proud of him. She—like me—is no stranger to the painful realities of lower class living. I know seeing him go off to a prestigious school was a big feat for her.

“That’s a good thing, right? Why do you look so sad?”

“No, it is a good thing,” she says, downing the rest of her drink. “It’s just everything else that’s shit.”

Tonight, I came here to drown my sorrows at the unfairness that is life. My sister isn’t getting any better, and I fear her time is coming. Elena has been more of a mom to me than my own mother was and watching her wilt away has been nothing short of agonizing.

Coming to Miami should have been the fresh start to a new life the four of us needed. It, unfortunately, was only the start of a new cycle for Mom. The money she got from Lord knows where before leaving Cuba only lasted us so long. She had to get a job somewhere, and with no real job experience, her options were limited. But it was Miami, after all, so she was able to find work in a skeevy night club serving cocktails to the gang members and drug lords of the city.

With the job came a new string of bad-news boyfriends and a brand-new drug addiction. When I was barely a teenager, Mom and Rafael were killed in a drug deal gone wrong. Murdered in cold blood, leaving Elena and me on our own. El was barely an adult when it happened, but she, without question, stepped up and raised me until I was old enough to be on my own. She sacrificed so much for me.

I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to repay her for her kindness. I’ve helped her out with money, had her live with me when I was still living in Miami when she lost her job and couldn’t find work for several months. There’s one thing she’s always wanted for me that I’ve never been able to give her, and probably will never be able to give her, and that’s a family.

Elena has always, always wanted me to fall in love and get married, have babies of my own, and give them the life we were never able to have as kids. Now, she’s dying, and the one thing she wanted to see the most, I failed to give her.

So, while I came here with the full intention of drowning my own sorrows, being here for my friend—who very clearly needs it—feels like a better way to spend my night.

“Talk to me, Val,” I mutter quietly, reaching over and covering her hand with my own. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, Zeke.” Her eyes fill to the brim with unshed tears. “Everything, just everything, is falling apart. No matter what I do, I can’t seem to get ahead. I’m drowning, and I can’t keep doing this.”

In the time I’ve known Valerie since she started working here, I’ve never seen her be anything other than bubbly, warm, and full of light. Seeing her breaking down like this is jarring, and it sets off a need inside me to fix whatever it is that’s upsetting her.

“Talk it out with me,” I urge.

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