Authors: Charlotte Swanpol
Sophie was curled up under her blanket, shivering and sweaty, unsure of what time it was, just that the morning light hadn't fully peaked and that she was in her house. She wasn't safe. She couldn't be, not after being taken by that man. What was he doing just dropping her off at her house? Why would he leave her?
If the prosecutor maintained that she killed somebody, then why did they drop the charges? It didn't make any sense. If you kill somebody, you go to jail. You don't just walk away.
Something bigger was going on. Alberto was a simple man. He lived in his one bedroom in the only other apartment complex in town, and he kept to himself. He had a string of odd relationships, but that was all that anyone knew about him. He was transparent as can be.
Sophie didn't want to move, but regardless of what happened, she still had to survive and go to work. She checked her phone and saw that she had hours before she had to be there, but she was too restless. She had to talk to Rita, so she took a quick rinse and changed into her uniform.
She thought the car was going to be a problem, but when she stepped outside, it was there where she always parked it. Somebody took it back to her house for her. It was strange. Cops were never that helpful.
The restaurant lot was empty. There was no crime tape—nothing. Rita's car was parked in back though.
Sophie strode in and sat down at the bar. “Hey, Rita.”
The woman came out from the kitchen and looked Sophie up and down. “What the hell happened? They told me you were under arrest for murder.”
“I know. I don't know what to say, Rita. The cop took me to my house and said that I did it, but I wasn't charged.”
“What?” She shook her head. “That is the strangest thing I've heard in my entire life. I know you didn't do it because you were scrubbing dishes when it happened, and there's no way they actually thought you were guilty.”
“See, that's what I'm saying. What do you think it is?”
“I don't know. I don't care. As long as I have my server then everything is fine. I don't want to have to run this place alone.”
“Hey, um...” Sophie stared down at the bar.
“What?”
“You know how you had to pay Alberto and now you don't anymore.”
“You want a raise?”
“I'm dying, Rita.”
“Fine. $1.00.”
“What? Oh my god, thank you.”
“You just have to work faster now.” Rita walked back to the kitchen, leaving Sophie sitting at the bar, trying to forget what happened.
She could move on. It would be easy. All she had to do was push all of this out of her head and go about her day, and that's exactly what she tried to do.
She clocked in and started wiping down the tables, and setting up the soda machine. Sophie did everything she normally did, but Alberto's eyes still haunted her, and no matter how hard she tried, she still felt like she was sitting in the back of that cop car. Not only did something serious happen, she was a victim of it, and that really pissed her off.
Sophie was in the kitchen scrubbing dishes when the bell on the front door sounded and a customer walked in.
He was big and had an air of authority. She went up to the table and smiled. “Hello, my name is Sophie. I'll be your server today. Can I get you anything to drink?”
“I'll just get a coffee.”
“Great. Anything else?”
“I'll wait. Thank you.” She walked away and went to pour it for him, trying not to stare at the way his massive form could barely fit into the tiny chair.
She brought the cup out to him and set it down. “There ya go. Is there anything else I can bring you?”
“Uh, I think I'll wait a little longer.” His light caramel muscles were sticking out of his tank top. He could've lifted a car up with one hand.
“OK. Did you need a menu?”
“No. That's OK.”
Another man walked in the door as soon as she walked away and sat at the table right next to the other guys. He was squirrely with a dirty white shirt and a camouflage hat.
“Hello, my name is Sophie. I'll be your server today. How can I help you?”
“I'll get a coke with two shots of whiskey and a chicken fried steak with scrambled eggs.”
“Sir, we don't serve alcohol here until noon.”
“What?” He jumped out of his chair and swung right at Sophie's nose. It made a cracking sound on impact. The big guy at the other table crashed down on him like a force of nature.
He turned back at Sophie, and said, “Head outside. Hey,” he yelled to Rita. “Get her some napkins!”
Sophie ran out front with her crooked face spewing blood. Rita ran out soon after with a wad of napkins. “Here.”
“He just came at me.”
“I know. I heard what happened.”
“Don't kick the other guy out.”
“I'm not gonna. We're gonna get rid of the hillbilly, though. He's taking him around back.”
“You think he's gonna hurt him,” Sophie asked.
“No,” she laughed. “That's what's so funny about it. The hillbilly was screaming at the top of his lungs and that other guy, all he did was restrain him.”
“I need to fix my nose.”
“You need a doctor. It's all crooked.”
The man strode out from the other side of the restaurant and a white pickup truck from the stone age pulled out of the lot as fast at its ancient engine would allow.
“You OK,” he asked Sophie.
“Yeah. I'm alright. I'm a little worried about my nose.”
“I think she needs to go to a doctor,” Rita interjected. “I can't leave the restaurant, otherwise I would take her.”
“That's alright. I'll take her.”
“Thank you.” Sophie followed him to his big black pickup truck and got in the passenger door.
“I'm Jim by the way.” He offered her his hand.
“Sophie.” She shook it and they headed out to the hospital.
“I think you'll be alright, Sophie.” His wavy black hair was blowing in the wind streaming through the open window. “He just broke your nose.”
“Well, thank you. I can't say how wonderful it was for you to step in like that.”
“I can't watch a man hit a woman like that,” his knuckles were white against the steering wheel. “It gets me so mad.”
Jim sat in the waiting room of the hospital patiently. When she got out, he was smiling at her. “You OK?”
“Not really. It hurt a lot, but I'm alright.”
“It'll go away in a day or so. I called the restaurant to make sure that guy didn't come back. Your boss said for you to take the day off.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You want me to take you home or something?”
“I don't know.”
“You wanna go somewhere else?” He cocked his head to the side.
“Where?”
“I don't know. We could just go somewhere and have lunch if you want.”
“OK.” She couldn't think of anything better to do. He was the kind of guy she could talk to, a real man. He wasn't cocky or loud. He didn't have a swagger. He was simple and nice, somebody she didn't mind spending the afternoon with.
“I've never been here before.” There was a field of wildflowers at the edge of town, just something in the middle of nowhere where you could go and sit, but it was gorgeous. There pink and purple flowers, with butterflies darting around, resting on them.
“It's part of my dad's land. Don't go out here very much, but it's nice during the spring.”
They had a bag of Chinese takeout. It wasn't much, but it was good. Sophie hopped out along with him and took in the way that the wind blew through her straightened black hair.
It wasn't right. After the night before, it didn't matter how beautiful that place was.
“Something wrong?” Jim was standing near the back of the truck.
“No,” Sophie walked over to stand with him.
“It's not that guy is it? I should've decked him in the face.”
Sophie laughed. “No.”
He lifted down the bottom of the truck and hopped up. “Come sit with me.”
“OK.” She jumped in back, trying to forget the way that seat dug into her shoulder when she was in the back of the police car.
“Alright. Your moods getting to me. I wanna know what happened.”
“Last night, one of the servers at the restaurant was killed. I found him near the front of the car when I got off work.”
“That's terrible.”
“I didn't know him very well. There wasn't much too him. He just flitted around and did his thing. Then Rita, the boss, she called the cops and they arrested me and said that I did it.”
“Huh,” he looked confused.
“It's so strange.” She looked over at him. “I didn't do it, of course, but they just handcuffed me and put me in the car. It was horrific. I know something was up, though, and that's what scared me. It just didn't feel right. The prosecutor didn't even charge me with anything. They just took me home.” She looked at Jim, who was listening intently. “Have you ever heard of anything like that before,” she asked.
“If you got arrested, your life would've been over. You would've gone to straight to prison and you probably would've died there. Even if you got out, nobody would hire you, and they wouldn't rent to you. You were given a blessing, and I wouldn't take that for granted.”
“You're right.” She grabbed a pair of chopsticks and a box of food. “But what bothers me is why would they do something like that? It's just not done. I should be in jail right now if they think I did it.”
“Does it really matter in the long scheme of things?” He met her eye.
“No, but it's gonna bother me for a while.”
“Maybe it was a good reason.”
“It doesn't feel that way. I don't know. Thank you for listening.“
“Of course.” He picked out an egg roll and growled, ripping a piece off with his bared teeth, and a mischievous grin. Sophie smiled. She hadn't done that since the incident—not sincerely.
“Thank you for taking me out here, Jim. I needed a day off.”
He waited to finish chewing then swallowed. “You work a lot?”
“Yeah, I do. It's a real struggle. I wanted to leave so badly when I was younger, but I got stuck there and now I don't know what to do.”
“I see it a lot.”
“It's hard out here.”
“It can be.”
“What do you do?”
“My family owns Grinlo. I work out in the city mostly.”
“The construction company?”
“Yeah.” They were one of the largest in the state, and their home office was in town. It was small, but it was the only thing in town that you could call big, aside from the swamp.
“It must be nice.”
“It's alright, but I don't have any choices. Everything's all setup for me. I want more freedom.”
“I'm trapped too. It's for different reasons, but I know what you're saying.”
“If you could do anything, what would you do?”
“I wanna open my own restaurant. Rita's food is disgusting. I started working there so I could get the experience.”
“You cook?”
“Yeah. I can make the perfect crawdad etouffee.”
“There's something about a good etouffee. If it's done right, it's like going to heaven.” Jim rubbed him stomach.
“It's so easy. You've just gotta know what to put in it. Rita doesn't know what she's doing. Her po' boys are made with ketchup and mayonnaise instead of remoulade, and she buys the shrimp breaded in the deli section at the grocery store.”
“What?”
“Yeah, and you know who makes her jambalaya?”
“Who?”
“The same people that make chicken soup in a can.” Sophie nearly wretched thinking about the watery liquid.
“That's gross!”
“I want a place of my own where I can hang out, talk to people, and make them good food instead of stuff that somebody already made.”
“A hangout spot?”
“Well,” Sophie sighed. “It's more than that. I rent my place. I don't own it. The landlord could easily evict me. I work for somebody else, and she could fire me.”
“You want to be on your own two feet.”
“Exactly.”
“I don't have that either. My parents control everything. I don't even have my own checking account.”
“That's terrible.”
Jim reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Shit.”
“What happened?”
“It's family business. Can I take you back to your car?”
“Sure. Is everything alright?”
“Yeah. I just gotta get back.” They sped down the dirt road at almost sixty. When they got back to the restaurant, he gave her his number and sped off as fast as possible.