The VIP Room(118)
Leslie came up behind Emma and laid her hands on her shoulders. Emma jumped, jerking away as a small scream slipped from her lips.
“Sorry.”
Emma turned around, reality coming back into focus. “No, I’m sorry.” She dragged her fingers over her face, wiping away the memory of his words. Everyone was staring at her. It brought a flush of shame to her cheeks as she realized not only was she the center of attention for reasons she would rather not think about, but she had done something she had sworn she would never do again.
She had to get out of there.
Chapter 2
“I’m sorry,” Emma said for what had to be the millionth time.
“Don’t worry about it.” Martha handed her a bottle of water as she settled on the low wall that marked the line between the diner’s parking lot and the lot of the liquor store next door. “Leslie told me what happened. He was a real piece of work.”
“He was. But I never should have lost my temper.”
“We all lose our tempers from time to time, Em.” Martha gestured toward the diner. “You don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to do exactly what you did.”
“But I should know better.”
Martha slid her arm around Emma’s shoulder. “When are you going to stop blaming yourself for that? Your mom shoulders some of the responsibility, too, you know.”
Emma climbed off the wall. “I’ll quit if you want me to.”
“Naw. I’m too shorthanded most days to run this place without you. Besides, what would you and Sophie do without this job?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take a few more minutes, get your head in the right place, then get back to work. All the tables are full and Leslie’s struggling to keep up.”
“Thanks, Martha.”
Emma watched her go inside, more grateful than ever before that she was a part of her life.
Three years ago, Emma stumbled into this diner in the middle of the night with nothing but the shirt on her back to her name. Martha not only served her a free—and incredibly delicious—meal, but she offered her a job. If not for Martha, Emma was pretty sure her life would have taken a decidedly different turn that night.
If anyone understood the kindness of strangers, it was Emma. That’s why she was so outraged at herself for doing what she did to that business suit. No one deserved a cup of coffee in the face, not even an * like him.
Emma climbed off the wall and sort of shook herself off, wiping her hands on the front of her uniform. Time to get back to work.
* * *
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful.
Emma stopped to check the mail on her way into her apartment building, glancing through the pile of advertisements mixed with a few bills, as she made her way up the stairs. Three flights. She was told when they moved in that the elevator would be fixed within a week, but that was two years ago and the elevator was still plastered with caution signs on each of the four floors of the building.
Oh, well. It was good exercise.
“Sophie?” she called as she pushed her way into the apartment.
“Over here.”
Emma dumped the mail on the counter and fell onto the couch next to her sister, pushing her long, thin legs out of her way. Emma remembered being plump when she was sixteen, too short and too plain to draw the attention of the boys she admired at her high school. Sophie was the complete opposite. She was all legs, so slender she could wear clothes Emma still could only dream of, and she had a warm, healthy tan that Emma—with her appallingly pale skin—would kill for. If it weren’t for the unique electric blue tint of their eyes and the funny upturn of their noses, people would never know they were related.
“How was school?”
“It was school…all busywork and social repression.”
“It’s not supposed to be a party.”
“It should be. Then I might learn more.”
Emma ignored that comment—she’d heard it before—and tugged a small device out of her sister’s pocket. She scrolled through the screens, noting a few high numbers that shouldn’t have been there.
“Did Jill bring pasta in her lunch again?”
Sophie took the device from Emma and shoved it back into her pocket. “I just bolused later than I should have.”
“Why?”
“I was busy.”
“You have to be more careful, Sophie. We can’t afford for you to end up in the hospital again.”
“It wasn’t like that.” She climbed off the couch and headed for her bedroom. “You’re worse than the endo, you know. She wouldn’t even bat an eye at those numbers.”
Her door slammed, rattling the DVDs stuck on a shelf below the television.
Emma leaned forward and pressed her head between her knees. She’d read once that this position was supposed to be calming, that people often used it to head off a panic attack. It never seemed to help her.
Like her life wasn’t hard enough. Like dealing with her own school problems—classes that ran over and caused her to be late to work, professors who didn’t understand that she often did her homework at three o’clock in the morning, and that was why her handwriting wasn’t always legible—wasn’t bad enough. Like taking on the responsibility of her younger sister when her mother went to jail two years ago wasn’t hard enough.