Page 7 of Tempting Wyatt
There are no specialty coffee shops from what I can see, but there is a diner-style café on the corner across the street from where I’ve stopped. After I freshen up and fill my gas tank, I make my way over to it.
A bell chimes overhead as I walk through the door. Well-worn leather booths bracketing weathered wooden tables fill the space while the scent of stale coffee and greasy French fries mingle in the air. It’s familiar in the way diners have always been due to my mother having been a waitress most of my life.
Spying an open stool at the counter between two older gentlemen, I step up and wait for the waitress, who appears to be about my age, to make her way to me. She smiles as she pours coffee for the locals. For a moment, I wish I belonged here—that I knew her name, that I had a usual table, that she knew my order by heart.
The craving for a sense of belonging is nothing new to me.
Growing up, we moved around a lot. Apartment landlords would raise the rent or refuse to repair the plumbing or deal with pest control issues, and we’d have to find something else. Whenever anyone asked, I would say I was from Bakersfield because that was where my mom worked the longest at a travel center truck stop diner. The truth was, I attended at least eight different schools over the years and finally got my GED at sixteen to stop the insanity of starting over.
My mother is tough. She was raised by her harsh aunt Rose and had me at seventeen. Not interested in another mouth to feed, her aunt—whom I’ve thankfully never met—kicked my mom out of the house when she refused to abort me or give me up for adoption.
She was put into the foster care system and had a bad experience—which she’s never shared the details of—before moving in with a friend until she could work enough to get a cheap apartment.
The first of many.
I love my mother, even when our relationship is strained—which it always has been. I was in the way a lot as a kid—my mere existence keeping her from the career she wanted or a man she was interested in who didn’t want kids.
When I moved to LA after winning a screenwriting contest at eighteen, she practically saidgood riddanceto my face.
I check in occasionally, but she’s married to a banker named Bruce and seems to be happy. She’s never been warm and fuzzy, and I’ve accepted that she gave me what she could. No matter how little we communicate, I’ll always be grateful for all she sacrificed to raise me.
As much as I try to put my childhood behind me, as an adult, I still long for a real home. A place to belong, a place where I’m wanted. Maybe that was why I moved in with Malcolm so quickly when he suggested it. Even though I can admit to myself now that I never felt at home at his place.
He liked things “just so,” and anytime I disrupted his space, he ranted about how his home was his sanctuary, and he needed it a certain way. Cold. Pristine. Mostly empty, except for some stark white leather furniture.
The waitress reaches me just before I fall down a Malcolm-memory shame spiral.
“Need a menu, hon?” She offers me one with a kind smile.
“Just a coffee, please.” I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the specialty lattes of my favorite café in LA, but I know better than to order something that would be considered pretentious in a place like this.
She pours me a cup and nods to the containers of various sweeteners and creamers. “Let me know if I can get you anything else.”
“Actually, could you tell me where Triple Creek Ranch is? My GPS can’t seem to locate it.”
The man to my right chuckles. “That’s because it’s nearly twenty thousand acres.”
That wasn’t mentioned in the listing.
The waitress seems satisfied that this man will answer my question and moves on down the counter.
Stirring some sugar and cream into my coffee, I blow on it gently. “Any idea where the best entrance to it is? I’m renting a cabin there, and the address appears to be in the middle of the woods.”
Standing, he places a few bills and his ticket on the counter. “Keep going west on the highway until you get to thenext exit. Follow the signs to the nature preserve. When you see a large wooden sign telling you it’s ten or so miles further, you’ll see a dirt road on your right. Take it to the fork and make another right. There will be a gate with an iron sign above it. You’ll have to hit a button on the post for them to let you in.”
I thank him and repeat the instructions to keep them fresh in my tired brain. I’ve already been in the car for hours since leaving the hotel outside of Salt Lake. I’m hoping the coffee will perk me up.
Once I freshen up a little more in the diner restroom, I’m back in my car with the windows open, feeling optimistic. This is the perfect place to find inspiration. I wrote my first screenplay in a matter of weeks—I can do it again. I just need to relax and let the story come to me.
Before I get back on the road, I text my agent and let her know I need a two-week extension on the screenplay submission. She doesn’t respond, but notifications fill the screen.
Malcolm has sent a dozen hateful, threatening texts and tried to call me as many times.
I’ll have to talk to him at some point. Besides being in possession of the rest of my belongings, he’s the executive producer ofCaptive, and we’re supposed to have casting finalized this week. I feel sick just thinking about it.
Whenever an unpleasant event from my childhood comes up, my mom says, “There’s a reason the past is past. Leave it behind you, where it belongs.”
It used to hurt my feelings that she refused to acknowledge the pain her actions had caused, but in this case, it’s excellent advice.
