Page 10 of Glass Half Full
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Don’t say stupid things.
Speaking with him is like talking to my own past, like the phone lines have connected us to a conversation from years ago, and it’s messing with my sense of what I should say. My mouth goes dry, and I can feel the shaking in my hands starting up.
Focus on something you can touch. Describe it. The shape. The colour. The texture.
It’s one of the first coping strategies my therapist shared with me, and it’s the one I always come back to.
Focus on something you can touch.
I grip the table beside me hard enough to turn my knuckles white.
Dense, dark-stained wood. A few little scratches in the glossy lacquer.
I run my finger along the biggest scratch as Dylan keeps talking, reminding myself that I’m here, right here. I’m not spinning. I’m floating. I’m not falling. I’m here.
“It is weird, isn’t it?” He chuckles into the phone. “Hey, can I tell you something?”
Despite the freak show going on in my head, I’m still grinning at his laugh in my ear.
“Sure.”
He clears his throat. “So, uh, as your boss, I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I totally forgot to read your resume before the interview. I was looking it over right before you came in, and I’d literally just realized it was you when you walked in the door.It kind of freaked me out.”
“I freaked you out?”
“Oh shit, that was a bad way to put it. Also I guess I just answered your question about whether you can say ‘shit’ around me.”
We both laugh at that.
“I mean, I was happy to see you,” he continues. “So happy. I...It was good—really good to see you.”
Something about the way he hesitates makes my chest tighten. I blame it on narrowly escaping a freak out just a moment ago. Chest tightening has been part of my daily routine for a while now.
“Really good?” I can’t resist playing up the sarcasm as I break the silence. “You sure you don’t need a thesaurus? I hear they’re very useful tools.”
“Touché, Renee, touché. You’re going to fit right in at Taverne Toulouse.”
Right. The job. We should be talking about the job.
“I hope so,” I reply. “When do I start?”
“Monroe wants you trained up as soon as possible. We’re gearing up for our grand reopening, and we’re going to need as much help as we can get. She was really impressed with you, by the way. She said we’d be insane not to hire you. I was impressed too, obviously.”
My heart skips a beat when he pauses.
“I’m not sure exactly how your training is going to work,” he continues. “You’ll probably spend your first few shifts shadowing one of our bartenders. You’ll learn the POS system and all that at the same time too.”
“That sounds good,” I offer. “Although if it’s the girl with the pink hair who trains me, you may find yourself running low on tequila. She did seem serious about those shots.”
Dylan groans. “It probablywillbe DeeDee, and she probably will try to get you to do shots. She’s a very...enthusiastic person.”
“Really?” I joke. “I couldn’t tell.”
“Again with the sarcasm, Renee. You’re brutal.” I’m certain he’s shaking his head. “Seriously, though, she may be a little unorthodox, but DeeDee’s got a heart of gold. When it comes down to it, she’s one of the best employees I’ve ever worked with. Everyone at Taverne Toulouse is. It’s a really special place. It sounds cheesy, but I mean it when I say we’re like family. I don’t know what it is about that place, but every time I walk in those doors, I just feel...”
He trails off, but I understand what he’s trying to say. I’ve only been there once, but I knew walking through the doors of Taverne Toulouse meant I was stepping into something I didn’t even know I needed.
I want to tell him I feel it, that I can’t wait to be a part of it, that it’s the first time I’ve felt my heart race in a good way after months of going cold with fear every time my pulse started to pick up.
