No Love Allowed
Kate Evangelista
Love many things,
for therein lies the true strength,
and whosoever loves much performs much,
and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.
—VINCENT VAN GOGH
One
CALEB BARELY STIFLED a grimace.
Across the table from him, Amber burst into tears. He hated how good he had gotten at predicting when the emotional shit would hit the fan. The chin quiver, the reddening of the nose, the welling of the eyes—he had memorized all the signs. What grated most was that the skill came from years of experience. He could teach a Master’s class in Jerkology. In his defense, he thought he had made things clear at the start of senior year. Amber had readily agreed to no-strings-attached fun.
The original plan was to break up with her a week before he left for Europe with his cousin Nathan. Unfortunately for him and his carefully crafted post-summer breakup speech, she had other plans. Yesterday, at her graduation after-party, she invited him out on the dock behind her house and broke his number one rule under the moonlight. If he were less messed up, he would have been happy to have someone like Amber in his life. Beautiful. Well-bred. A girl his father would approve of. Instead he kissed her on the cheek, made some excuse about running an errand, left the party, and then sent her a text asking to meet him at the country club for lunch.
He pushed the starched white napkin on his side toward her. Ignoring it, she opened the small purse she had with her and pulled out a neatly folded square of tissue. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes and sniffed. He suspected crocodile tears from the way her actions seemed so rehearsed. Each sniff and silent sob orchestrated to tug at his heart, or whatever was left inside his chest. As far as he was concerned, the muscle had been buried along with his mother all those years ago.
Tapping the table with his index finger, he admitted to himself that asking her out to lunch to break up with her might not have been the best idea. He definitely shouldn’t have started the speech right after ordering a blue cheese burger and truffle fries for himself and a Caesar salad with croutons, anchovies, and dressing on the side for her. But he’d had to stop this before Amber’s feelings dug in deeper. In his mind, he was doing her a favor.
Heads swiveled their way from curious onlookers. Since it was the weekend, the dining room was packed. Another strike against him. Caleb shut his eyes to keep from rolling them when the women began whispering. Before sundown, news would reach the farthest corners of Dodge Cove. He could see the headline in big, bold letters: FAMOUS LAWYER’S SON BREAKS UP WITH IMPORTANT CLIENT’S DAUGHTER.
“Amber,” he said, his eyebrows coming together. She gasped as if he had lobbed a grenade at her. He sighed and schooled his features into a more charming mask. “Look, I’m sorry.”
“But . . . but . . . you and me . . .” Her shoulders hitched up with every word she attempted to say. Hiccups prevented her from continuing. Thank God for small miracles. This situation was painful enough without her having to justify why they were perfect for each other.
No longer interested in Amber’s hysterics, Caleb waved one of the waitstaff over. A girl about his age shuffled toward him. He paused.
Her eyes startled him—warm brown with specks of gold. Yet there was no light behind her remarkable irises. It was like she looked past him. Her brown hair fell in a messy braid over her shoulder as if she hadn’t bothered running a comb through the strands before weaving them together. Her skin stood out despite the blandness of the country club’s uniform of tan slacks and button-down in a color Nathan called sherbet—whatever the hell that was.
This time he didn’t bother hiding his grimace when an ear-piercing keen accompanied Amber’s hiccups. “Can you bring us two glasses of water?” He glanced at her name tag. “Diana.”
Diana Alexander, or Didi as they called her, forced a smile on her face when the stretching of the muscles around her lips was the last thing she wanted to do. She nodded at the trust-fund brat who had reduced the poor girl sitting across from him to a mess of tears, and then turned on her heel to do as she had been asked. She should probably care more, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. If she wanted to make it through this day, she had to keep it together.
At the bar, she took a deep breath that didn’t quite make it into her lungs. Exhaling anyway, she concentrated on her task. With practiced movements, she pulled a circular tray from the stack and placed two glasses in the middle. Then she reached for the pitcher with cucumber and lemon slices floating with ice in the rich-people water and poured. Once the glasses were three-quarters of the way full, she balanced the tray on her open palm and returned to the table.
In the background, a middle-aged man asked for extra parmesan cheese. She ignored him, reminding herself to chill. Just attend to one table at a time.
She had woken up to a dead alarm clock because the power must have been cut in the middle of the night. This triggered the downhill slide. Her mom had probably run out of money before paying the bill . . . again.
No power meant no hot water, so no shower. To make matters worse, she’d had to make do with yesterday’s uniform since she’d been too exhausted to run the wash. And no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find her white tennis shoes, which forced her to wear boots that had seen better days.
Another patron calling her name surprised Didi out of her head. She tripped as she stepped on the shoelace she kept forgetting to tie, sending the tray lifting out of her hand. She managed to catch the tray by taking a step forward and placing her free hand on the edge. Sadly the two glasses had already spilled their contents onto the blubbering girl with Trust-Fund Boy. The girl screamed and pushed away from the table so fast the back of her chair caught Didi on the hip. This activated a sequence of events that killed her inside. The glasses fell and shattered. The girl yelled for the manager, then spat obscenities no lady should ever know.