She’d earned sixty-one dollars tonight. Suddenly it didn’t matter that her feet hurt, her hands ached, and she had cramps. She was rich. A few more nights like this and she’d have all her application money.
She took off her apron and headed for the kitchen. She was halfway there when the swinging door burst open.
Livvy walked out first. Mira was right behind her. Though they looked nothing alike, there was no doubt they were sisters. Their gestures mirrored each other. They both had the same husky laugh as Angie. From another room, it was hard to tell their voices apart.
A sound clicked through the restaurant. The rich, velvety voice of Frank Sinatra snapped off.
Mira and Livvy stopped in tandem, cocked their heads.
Another song started. Loud. The sound of it was so unexpected it took Lauren a second to recognize it.
Bruce Springsteen.
“Glory Days.”
I had a friend was a big baseball player
back in high school
Livvy let out a whoop and pushed her hands high in the air. She immediately started to dance with Mira, who moved awkwardly, as if she were getting electroshock treatments.
“I haven’t danced since … jeez, I can’t remember the last time I danced,” Mira yelled to her sister over the music.
Livvy laughed. “That’s obvious, big sister. You look like Elaine in that Seinfeld episode. You have got to get out more.”
Mira bumped her sister, hip to hip.
Lauren watched in awe. These two sisters who had barely spoken all night were like different people now.
Younger. Freer.
Connected.
The door burst open again. Angie came dancing out with her mother behind her, holding her. “Conga line,” someone yelled.
Livvy and Mira fell in behind, holding on to one another. The four of them danced around the empty tables, pausing now and then to kick out their heels or throw back their heads.
It was incredibly dorky. Like something off some old people’s TV show.
And heartbreakingly cool.
Lauren’s stomach tightened. She didn’t know how to react. All she knew was that she didn’t belong here. She was an employee.
This was family.
She started to back away, edge toward the door.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Angie cried out.
Lauren stopped in her tracks, looked up. The conga line had broken up.
Mira and Livvy were dancing together. Maria stood in the corner, watching her daughters with a smile.
Angie rushed toward Lauren. “You can’t leave yet. It’s a party.”
“I don’t—”
Angie grabbed her hand, grinned at her.
The word—belong—was lost.
The music changed. “Crocodile Rock” blared through the speakers.
“Elton!” Livvy yelled. “We saw him at the Tacoma Dome, remember?”
And the dancing started again.
“Dance,” Angie said, and before Lauren knew it she was in the middle of the crowd of women, dancing. By the third song—Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl”—Lauren was laughing as loudly as the rest of them.
For the next half an hour or so, she was enfolded in the warm raucousness of a loving family. They laughed, they danced, they talked endlessly about how busy the restaurant had been. Lauren loved every minute of it, and when the party broke up near midnight, she honestly hated to go home.
But there was no choice, of course. She offered to take the bus—an offer that was rejected almost instantly. Angie ushered her out to the car. They talked all the way and laughed often, but finally Lauren was home.
She trudged up the gloomy stairs toward her apartment, shifting her heavy backpack from one tired shoulder to the other.
The door to the apartment was open.
Inside, gray smoke hung in strands along the stained acoustical tile ceiling. Cigarette butts lay heaped in ashtrays on the coffee table and scattered here and there across the floor. An empty bottle of gin rolled slowly back and forth on the wobbly dining table, finally clunking onto the linoleum floor.
Lauren recognized the signs: two kinds of butts, and beer bottles on the kitchen counter. It didn’t take a forensic team to analyze the crime scene. It was familiar territory.
Mom had picked up some loser (they were all losers) from the tavern and brought him home.
They were in her mother’s bedroom now. She recognized the thumping rhythm of her mother’s old Hollywood bed frame. Clang-clang-thump. Clang-clang-thump.
She hurried into her bedroom and closed the door. Moving quietly, not wanting anyone to know she was home, she grabbed her day planner and flipped it open. On today’s date she wrote: DeSaria Party. She didn’t ever want to forget it. She wanted to be able to look down at those two words and remember how tonight had felt.
She went into the bathroom and got ready for bed in record speed. The last thing she wanted was to bump into Him in the hallway.
She ran back to her room and slammed the door shut. Crawling into bed, she pulled the covers to her chin and stared up at the ceiling.
Memories of tonight filled her mind. A strange emotion came with the images; part happiness, part loss. She couldn’t untangle it.
It was just a restaurant, she reminded herself. A place of employment.
Angie was her boss, not her—