Page 288 of Falling Backwards
“Yeah?”I ask.Then I joke, “Ronald must not be here, then.”
“No, he’s not.”Her voice drops to a whisper.“Luke, hegot fired.”
My eyebrows shoot up and my jaw falls open.
Leaning in the last bit possible, I lower my voice too.“What?Are you fucking serious?”
Her excitement doesn’t waver, but she still chides me, “Don’t cussaround—”
“Baby, if a guest in another area of the restaurant can hear me say‘fuck’this quietly, we’ve got a superhero with hearing powers on our hands, which makes things even more awesome than they already were.”
She tries to give me a look like that’s some nonsense, but she can’t fight a grin.
I wink at her, then say, “Tell me what happened with Ronald!”
She takes a moment to glance around us and make sure nothing needs attending to.I check the time on my phone to make sure I’m not late.All is well, so she starts explaining.
“Well, before I clocked in earlier, I decided I’d mention to Mr.Polk how Ronald has been acting towards me.I was tense about it continuing today and I realized it didn’t make sense not to go ahead and tell the boss that his second-in-command is picking on me because I made him mad.”
I nod.“Agreed.Good job.”
She nods too.“I thought you’d think so.So I went to talk to him.I said,‘I’m sorry, but I’d like to voice another concern about Ronald,’and he told me I was welcome to do it but that Ronald had been let go and wouldn’t be a problem anymore.I wasn’t expecting that at all, obviously, and before I could figure out if I should ask why, he told me.”Her eyes seem to brighten even more.“He said he should’ve done it the other day when everything with Marcus got sorted out, and he didn’t because he wanted time to find someone to take Ronald’s place first.But then as the days passed, he started feeling more and more uncomfortable with keeping an employee like him.An employee who is fine to break important rules and who isn’t fair to or supportive of his own staff.And Mr.Polk said he thought to himself,‘I’d rather be without an assistant manager for a little while than keep a terrible one.’”
My jaw has gone slack once again.“Oh,hellyeah.That’s the play right there.”
“I know!”She unclasps her hands and puts them around mine.“Luke.”
“Yeah?”
The second after it leaves my mouth, I register that there was something different in the way she said my name—she was still excited and happy, but there was an undercurrent of something else.I play it back but can’t discern what it was, though I know it wasn’t bad.
Then….
Actually,whyisshe buzzing with this much excitement and happiness?Ronald being fired is great news and a relief, but her mood speaks to something even greater, something deeper.It wasn’t on this level even when everything with Kyle got resolved, and that was way more important.
I absorb anew the shine of her expression…and how it kind of looks like she’s waiting for me to say something else, even thoughI’vebeen waiting forherto say something else.
“What is it?”I ask.
Her eyes soften and move over my face like an affectionate caress of her fingertips.
“You should go for that job.”
Surprise spikes through me, jerks my head back an inch.I stare at her to see if she’s kidding at all, but I find no hint of that.
Whispering interest comes up in me now, even as I let out a huff of a laugh and ask, “You—you’re serious?”
“Of course I am.If you think you’d like to, that is.”
The interest grows, feeding on what I remember saying the other day about how I could do Ronald’s job better than he could.
I know she remembers, too, as she starts saying, “In the breakroom the other day, you—”
“Yeah, but that was….I mean, I meant the stuff I said, but I….”
She nods.“I couldtellyou meant it.”After a beat: “I guess I could’ve read you wrong beyond that, but I really didn’t think so.Even though you were ranting about Ronald, you felt genuine about how much better you’d be than he was.It felt like you wished you could have a go at it.And you said some time ago that you don’t know what you’d be good at besides bartending, but this?It felt like youdobelieve in yourself for this.”Tilting her head, she looks at me with sincere curiosity now.“Areyou interested in it at all?Or did I really get the wrong idea?”
I’m saying, “No, you didn’t,” before I can stop myself or think it through.
