Page 9 (2/2)

She handed him her ticket and Ricky pinned it up on the wheel and then located one of her orders She carried the order back to her section and dropped it off at a table

Ivan's was a local institution, a restaurant that had been in business for al there, she'd coulars, and as she crossed the restaurant floor her eyes traveled over the, other couples ignoring each other Families No one see for her, but there were still tian to shake, and even now she slept with a light on

Her short hair was chestnut brown; she'd been dyeing it in the kitchen sink of the tiny cottage she rented She wore no makeup and knew her face would pick up a bit of color, maybe toorent and utilities on the cottage, there wasn't much left for luxuries Even sunscreen was a stretch Ivan's was a good job and she was glad to have it, but the food was inexpensive, which reat On her steady diet of rice and beans, pasta and oatht in the past four months She could feel her ribs beneath her shirt, and until a feeeks ago, she'd had dark circles under her eyes that she thought would never go away

"I think those guys are checking you out," Melody said, nodding toward the table with the four men from the movie studio "Especially the brown-haired one The cute one"

"Oh," Katie said She started another pot of coffee Anything she said to Melody was sure to get passed around, so Katie usually said very little to her

"What? You don't think he's cute?"

"I didn't really notice"

"How can you not notice when a guy is cute?" Melody stared at her in disbelief

"I don't know," Katie answered

Like Ricky, Melody was a couple of years younger than Katie, reen-eyed uy named Steve who made deliveries for the home improvement store on the other side of town Like everyone else in the restaurant, she'd grown up in Southport, which she described as being a paradise for children, families, and the elderly, but the le people At least once a week, she told Katie that she was planning to ton, which had bars and clubs and a lotabout everybody Gossip, Katie soht, was Melody's real profession

"I heard Ricky asked you out," she said, changing the subject, "but you said no"

"I don't like to date people at work" Katie pretended to be absorbed in organizing the silverware trays

"We could double-date Ricky and Steve go fishing together"

Katie wondered if Ricky had put her up to it or whether it was Melody's idea Maybe both In the evenings, after the restaurant closed,over a couple of beers Aside from Katie, everyone had worked at Ivan's for years

"I don't think that's a good idea," Katie demurred

"Why not?"

"I had a bad experience once," Katie said "Dating a guy from work, I ain"

Melody rolled her eyes before hurrying off to one of her tables Katie dropped off two checks and cleared e to be efficient and invisible She kept her head down and o by faster She didn't flirt with the guy from the studio, and when he left he didn't look back

Katie worked both the lunch and dinner shift As day faded into night, she loved watching the sky turning froe and yellow at the western rim of the world At sunset, the water sparkled and sailboats heeled in the breeze The needles on the pine trees seemed to shimmer As soon as the sun dropped below the horizon, Ivan turned on the propane gas heaters and the coils began to glow like jack-o'-lanterns Katie's face had gotten slightly sunburned, and the waves of radiant heat

Abby and Big Dave replaced Melody and Ricky in the evening Abby was a high school senior who giggled a lot, and Big Dave had been cooking dinners at Ivan's for nearly twenty years He was married with two kids and had a tattoo of a scorpion on his right forearhed close to three hundred pounds and in the kitchen his face was always shiny He had nicknames for everyone and called her Katie Kat

The dinner rush lasted until nine When it began to clear out, Katie cleaned and closed up the wait station She helped the busboys carry plates to the dishwasher while her final tables finished up At one of theers as they held hands across the table They were attractive and happy, and she felt a sense of deja vu She had been like theht, because she learned the moment was only an illusion Katie turned away fro that she could erase her ain

2

The next , Katie stepped onto the porch with a cup of coffee, the floorboards creaking beneath her bare feet, and leaned against the railing Lilies sprouted arass in what once was a flower bed, and she raised the cup, savoring the aroma as she took a sip

She liked it here Southport was different from Boston or Philadelphia or Atlantic City, with their endless sounds of traffic and s the sidewalks, and it was the first time in her life that she had a place to call her own The cottage wasn't h It was one of two identical structures located at the end of a gravel lane, forainst a grove of oak and pine trees at the edge of a forest that stretched to the coast The living room and kitchen were se was furnished, including rockers on the front porch, and the rent was a bargain The place wasn't decaying, but it was dusty frolect, and the landlord offered to buy the supplies if Katie illing to spruce it up Since she'd moved in, she'd spenton chairs, doing exactly that She scrubbed the bathroo with a daar and spent hours on her hands and knees, trying her best to rerime from the linoleum in the kitchen She'd filled holes in the walls with Spackle and then sanded the Spackle until it was smooth She'd painted the walls in the kitchen a cheery yellow and put glossy white paint on the cabinets Her bedrooe, and last week, she'd put a new

slipcover on the couch, which ain

With most of the work now behind her, she liked to sit on the front porch in the afternoons and read books she'd checked out froence She didn't have a television, a radio, a cell phone, or a s in a single bag She enty-seven years old, a for-haired blond with no real friends She'd , and months later she still had little She saved half of her tips and every night she folded the money into a coffee can she kept hidden in the crawl space beneath the porch She kept that ry than touch it Sie that it was there made her breathe easier because the past was always around her andfor her, and she kneas growing angrier at every passing day

"Good hts "You must be Katie"

Katie turned On the sagging porch of the cottage next door, she sao at her She looked to be in her mid-thirties and wore jeans and a button-up shirt she'd rolled to her elbows A pair of sunglasses nested in tangled curls on her head She was holding a s whether or not to shake it before finally tossing it aside and starting toward Katie's She ularly

"Irv Benson told hbors"

The landlord, Katie thought "I didn't realize anyone wasin"

"I don't think he did, either He about fell out of his chair when I said I'd take the place" By then, she'd reached Katie's porch and she held out her hand "My friends call me Jo," she said

"Hi," Katie said, taking it

"Can you believe this weather? It's gorgeous, isn't it?"

"It's a beautifulfrom one foot to the other "When did you move in?"

"Yesterday afternoon And then, joy of joys, I prettyI think Benson collected as much dust as he possibly could and stored it at my place You wouldn't believe what it's like in there"

Katie nodded toward the door "My place was the same way"