“Play it,” I sign.
She looks around the restaurant, eyes widening as she realizes just how many people have arrived. She shoots a look at Violet, who is too busy to notice. “Play it!” I sign again.
She gives me a conspiratorial smile, caresses the flute one more, and places it to her lips.
Chapter 37
Robin
Just one song. I have to. I can’t put it down now that I’ve picked it up.
“Anywhere ya want!” Violet yells over the clatter of the diner. Eight people find booths by the windows and sit down.
I inhale, preparing to play because Carter Paulson laughed for me, and now I have to make music of my own.
“Robin!” says a voice.
I turn to her.
“I can’t,” she says over her shoulder as she punches an order into the computer. I scan the diner again. Six tables total. Five all at once. She’s right—she can’t.
“One minute,” I sign to Carter, and place the flute back in its box.
“Okay,” he signs with a tight-lipped smile. He’s not okay.
I close the lid and run for the stack of menus, slapping them on the two tables without them. Like lightning, I get drink orders and hustle back to the kitchen. “One minute!” I sign again to Carter.
He nods, his face still flushed from the heat of the drive, his water glass drained of water, just ice remaining. One leg jiggles. I fill the drink orders and find one table ready to order, so I hurry back to the computer.
“One minute!”
He’s writing something on his notepad, but I don’t have a chance to see because the other table wants to order. Then an order is up, and refills are needed, and somebody wants a milkshake…
When the ancient milkshake machine stops dousing me in milk, I hear another sound—an engine starting.
I turn to the look at the windows. Carter’s bike. He kicks it into gear and purrs out of the parking lot, waving one gloved hand as he rides away. Slopping the milkshake onto my tray, I’m halfway down the sidewalk, waving, but he’s already gone.
The whole restaurant watches as the bell dings on the door, announcing my reentry. I walk over to the counter and grab a napkin off the counter, dabbing at my eyes before cleaning up spilled milkshake and adding whipped cream. Another table enters after my first two get their meals, so the lunch rush keeps me busy for another hour.
Finally, my double-sat families leave and I’m left with just an older couple who already has their food—spaghetti. Who orders spaghetti at a diner? I catch Fannie and Violet scurrying away from the counter, where Carter left the flute, the glass of now-melted ice, and his little notepad. I chuckle. “It’s okay. You can read what he said—you probably did already anyway.”
“It was her idea,” Fannie says, smacking Violet with the back of one pudgy hand.
Violet looks at me with purple-shadowed eyes. “I just wanted to know how I could best comfort you,” she says, and I can’t hold back a snicker.
I glance at the top sheet: “I’m glad you like the pennywhistle. I’m so sorry I have to leave. Look me up if you’re ever in New York. —Carter.”
So that’s that. I sigh, my shoulders slumping, and dump the dirty dishes I’m carrying into a bus bin. Violet lifts the pennywhistle box and prepares to sweep both the glass and the notebook into her own bus bin.
“I’ll take that!” I say, rescuing the little pad of paper and shoving it into my apron pocket. After settling the pennywhistle with my purse in a cubby under the counter, I wander over to the salad station.
I’m just sprinkling shredded carrots on the last one, about to cover them in plastic wrap, when I hear, “Robin?” Violet’s over my shoulder. “I think your table wants something. They’re looking persnickety.”
The elderly couple who ordered spaghetti.
“Oh… yeah… ,” I put the lid on the carrot bin and shove it back in the cooler.
“You okay, honey? You need me to get anything?”
“No, I’m good,” I say. “Don’t want to ruin my tip.”
Violet cocks her head and leans in. “They’re an old couple. Who ordered spaghetti. Sorry, honey, but your tip is probably gonna suck no matter what.”
“My money’s on a buck fifty!” calls Fannie from the back.
“Thank you for your vote of confidence,” I say. “I’m going to go charm their socks off right now.”
I walk over to my table and ask the couple how everything’s going. The man looks up at me with a question in his eyes.
“Huh?” he says.
“I said, ‘How is everything?’” And before it’s too late, I realize that my hands are moving. I just signed my sentence. Because he couldn’t hear me.
The couple is looking at me, mouths agape.
“I’m not deaf, chickie,” the man spits. “I just didn’t understand your mumbling.”
“I am so sorry,” I sputter. “I just have this friend… um… well, he’s not really a friend. He’s an ex-boyfriend. But that’s not really an accurate picture of our relationship. I mean, he meant a lot to me and, well, what I mean to say is HE was deaf. Is deaf. You know? So I… I’m used to signing. A little. I’m so sorry.”
The man clearly doesn’t get what I’m saying. I almost don’t get what I’m saying.
His wife glares at me. “Everything’s fine, thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” I say. “I mean, good! Good. I’m glad everything’s fine.” I pull their check out of my apron pocket, my hand brushing the notebook. “Here’s your check. If you need anything, just give a holler.”
I turn back to face the kitchen and shake my head at Violet, making my hand into a bomb that lands and then explodes. But then I remember the look on the spaghetti-man’s face, and by the time I get back to the counter, I have to hide in the kitchen so my couple doesn’t see me completely crack up.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I say as I catch my breath. “I just signed to them! And they got so offended! But I don’t really care. I really don’t care.”
“You’ll care when you get your tip,” Fannie says as I lose it again in the kitchen. “Forget my earlier wager. Now it’s fifty cents. Tops.”
She’s right.
I clear the table, collect my fifty cents, and clock out. Sitting at the counter, I reach in my apron to cash out my tips but come up holding the notebook. Right. I flip through it like a flipbook and stop only when I see new handwriting—it’s not me, and it’s not Carter. It’s Barry: “So tell me about Jolene.”
I read their conversation slowly, my heart sinking with each word. What a jerk I was. To jump to conclusions. To sound off like that. To assume he was lying to me when he’s practically incapable of lying. I’m not allowed to be mad that he didn’t tell me his story—I didn’t even give him a chance to try.
Embarrassed, I cradle my head in my hands, a thin sheen of grease covering the counter and my arms. A tear drips down my arm and onto the counter. I can’t let Violet and Fannie see me like this. They’ll ask what’s wrong.
I slide off the stool and grab my purse. I can’t even bear to look at the teak box containing the sweetest gift I never deserved. In my determination to keep from looking at it, my eyes land on the bulletin board. There, stuck between last week’s specials and the number for the pest-control guy, is a list I’d almost forgotten about: “ROBIN’S PERFECT MAN.” I reach out a callused hand and tear it from its pushpin with a satisfying snick. The crying stops. I rip it top to bottom and my frown relaxes as I examine the two halves in my hands. With a smile on my lips, I ball them up and toss them in the trash can, and it’s like I’m throwing the weight from my chest. Nobody’s perfect.