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CASSIE
AFTER MY MEETING with Matilda, I was bone-weary, but I knew Dell was probably a walking corpse
by now, having closed the Café the night before and opened it today. So instead of crawling into bed,
I showered, changed and took the long way to work to check up on Will.
His truck wasn’t at his place in Bywater or parked in front of or behind the Café, and he wasn’t
answering his phone, so I assumed he had taken a drive somewhere to clear his head—or to cry
openly, for longer than he was able to with me.
The restaurant was empty. Claire burst out of the kitchen in an artfully placed hairnet that did little
to contain her blond dreadlocks, her hands coated in oil and bits of kale. I liked her open, guileless
face, and how a few weeks living at Will’s had removed her sullenness, turning her into a full-blown
chatty teen. She was growing on Dell too, who taught her food prep right away, something that had
taken her months to show me.
“Where’s that disinfectant hand soap? The pink stuff Dell uses.”
“I’ll show you,” I said. “Are you by yourself?”
“Yeah. Dell was of no use to me after the lunch rush and went home.”
For seventeen, she was mature beyond her years, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing, I decided.
Sure I was sexually stunted (well into my thirties), but Claire and her new friends from school were
unsettlingly accelerated. They scared me a little when they came into the Café with their smoking and
piercings, their seductive “selfies” and their casual “sexting.”
A week ago I had asked Claire how she could be a vegan and smoke.
“For the same reason you can be nosy and nice,” she teased.
I felt around on the shelf above the sink, found the bottle of pink disinfectant soap lying on its side
and squirted some on her hands.
“Has Will been by?”
“Haven’t seen him,” she said, drying her hands on her legs and immediately checking her vibrating
phone.
Will let her carry it around in her waitress pouch. His reasoning was that she didn’t talk on it, only
checked texts, so it wasn’t as rude. I told him if she worked upstairs that wouldn’t be allowed.
“Nor the piercings,” I said to him.
“Fine, you’ll be the boss. You’ll make the rules,” he had said.
Still, Claire was a hard worker, so I didn’t complain. And she was a natural in the kitchen.
“I got a head-start on salad prep,” she said. “Kale’s done. I’ll tackle the carrots next.”
“Thanks. I can probably handle the floor on my own tonight,” I said.
“Oh good. I want to go see the baby.”
I almost blurted out everything that had happened at the hospital between her uncle and her almostaunt,
but this was officially now a family issue, something she’d have to navigate with Will.
While helping Claire prep and blanche the carrots, I thought about Dauphine and Mark, probably
passed out somewhere, arms and legs entwined. I envied their seeming certainty, Dauphine’s
decisiveness to just grab this man and go with it. But sometimes people just know; it’s in their nature.