The VIP Room (38 page)

“
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 asshole 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.

T
he 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.

No. They had to throw diabetes into the mix, too.

Sophie was diagnosed eighteen months ago. It was a nightmare that Emma preferred not to think about. She didn’t want to repeat even a much reduced version of it if it could be avoided.

Forgive her for caring.

She got up and went into the kitchen, searching the cabinets for something decent to make for dinner. You’d think being around food all day would make her less inclined to cook, but it actually inspired her. She liked to cook. It calmed her nerves and excited her creative side. In moments, she was lost as she sautéed onions and seasoned a thin flank steak that would make a perfect fajita stir fry.

She could actually feel the day slipping away, all the guilt and shame and exhaustion that had been riding on her shoulders going away. And the wonderful smells coaxed Sophie out of her room. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t object when Emma asked her to set the table.

As they settled down to eat, Emma found herself watching her sister. She wanted to reach over and push a clump of blond hair out of her face, but she knew Sophie wouldn’t like it. She was too old for that sort of gesture.

Their life wasn’t all that bad. They’d come a long way from where they started. Their lives were humble, but it was so much better than it had been. And it could only go up from there.

That was something to be grateful for.

E
mma rushed
out of her biology class, already ten minutes late for work, and the diner was clear across town from the university. Just her luck, the professor decided that day, of all days, to go off on some tangent that had nothing to do with the day’s lecture. He couldn’t have done it on Monday, Emma’s day off.

The bus, of course, was also running late. She paced at the bus stop, making the poor toddler waiting with his mother nervous. By the time she got to the diner, she was nearly an hour late.

Emma rushed down the alley and grabbed the door with one hand, slinging her backpack off her shoulder so that she could easily drop it in the storage room as soon as she got inside. But the door didn’t open. She was so oblivious to the fact that she nearly smacked her head on it as her forward momentum refused to stop.

It was locked. This door was never locked.

She banged on the heavy steel, calling out to Todd. “Hey, let me in!”

But there was no response.

More worried than annoyed, she retraced her steps and walked around the side of the building. The parking lot was nearly empty, only a few cars taking up spaces that were normally filled by regular customers. Not only that, but strange men were boarding up the windows and someone had taped a sign to the front door that said: Closed Pending Remodel.

“Excuse me,” she said to the man closest to her. “What’s going on here?”

“Place is being remodeled,” he said, gesturing to the sign. “They’re turning it into a something else.”

“What?”

“I heard it was going to be a payday loan office.”

“I heard it was going to be a beauty salon,” another man said.

“What about the diner? Where’s the woman who owns it? Where’s Martha?”

The guy shrugged his shoulders. “We work for the construction company. We only know what they tell us.”

Emma stepped back, nearly falling off the curb. This diner had been there for as long as she could remember. Martha inherited it from her father who started it when he was newly home from fighting in World War II. It was something she swore she would never sell, let alone allow to be turned into some beauty salon.

What was going on?

Martha lived a few blocks away in a squat house that was nestled among other squat houses in a neighborhood that was no longer as middle class as it once was. Emma half walked, half ran the distance, her heart filling with dread. What if something happened to Martha? What if one of her kids was sick or her husband? She knew they had problems, knew they were struggling. What if the struggle had just become too much?

It never occurred to her to worry about her job.

She rounded the corner and could see immediately that Martha’s car was parked in her driveway. That seemed to be a good sign. She walked up to the front porch and knocked.

Martha opened, laughter exploding around her from somewhere in the depths of the house. Laughter even danced in Martha’s eyes until she realized who it was she had just opened the door for. Then the laughter disappeared as the color drained from Martha’s face. “I tried to call you.”

Emma stepped back slightly. “I assume everyone’s okay.”

Martha opened her mouth, then let it snap closed again. She stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door closed behind her.

“Some lady called last night, said her boss wanted to buy the diner from me.” Martha shook her head. “I’ve never gotten a call like that. I told her no, that the place wasn’t for sale. But then she dropped this number…this incredibly huge number.”

“It’s fine, Martha. I get it.”

“No, Emma, you don’t. It was more money than I could ever imagine, let alone see in my bank account. They transferred half of it into our bank account first thing this morning as an act of faith.” She rolled her eyes up to the sky, a sigh of pure bliss slipping from between her lips. “If I never see the other half, my family is set for life. We will never want again, never have to worry about debts or collection calls or having to get up at three o’clock in the morning to get to a job that barely covers the health insurance that will never be enough to cover my mom’s medications.” She focused on Emma again. “This is life changing money. I couldn’t say no.”

Emma smiled, joy rising inside of her for her friend. “I’m happy for you.”

Martha tilted her head slightly as she studied Emma. “That’s the thing about you. I know you are.” Martha came to her and pulled Emma into her arms. “I’m sorry for what this does to you. I know you and Sophie can’t afford to be without an income right now.”

“I’ll find something else.”

“Let me give you some money, something to tide you over until then.”

Emma pulled away. “No. We’ll be okay.”

“Emma—“

“Really, I’m happy for you, Martha.”

She walked away even as Martha called after her.

“
W
hat are you doing here
?”

“Nice to see you, too.”

Emma slid her arm around Sophie’s shoulders and led the way toward home, a sigh slipping from between her lips when Sophie’s cellphone began to chirp even though her friends were just feet behind them.

“Can’t they wait until you’re out of sight before they start texting?”

“It’s just Jill. She wants to know if we can hang out this weekend.”

“Probably not.”

“Why?”

Emma took a deep breath, not anxious to make her little announcement. “I lost my job this morning.”

Sophie laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s true. Martha sold the diner.”

Sophie stopped, her thoroughly lip glossed mouth hanging open. “You’re joking! I thought it was her dad’s, that she would never sell because it was a family legacy she wanted to leave to her kids.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.”

“What are we going to do now? The rent’s due pretty soon, and I have an appointment with Dr. Sanchez next week…”

“I know. I have a little put away. If we’re careful, it’ll cover those things and maybe a trip to the grocery store.”

“But what about homecoming? You promised me a new dress.”

“I don’t know how long I’m going to be out of work. It could be a while.”

“You promised.”

Sophie stared at her with big, rounded eyes that were filled with tears. Emma felt sick to her stomach. Her own fears had been churning there for hours and now, mixed with Sophie’s disappointment, it was just a little too much.

They walked home in silence. Emma forwent checking the mail in favor of locking herself in the bathroom the moment they were in the silence of their apartment. She hadn’t eaten all day, so there was nothing to come up, but that didn’t stop the painful dry heaves that wracked her body for the better part of ten minutes.

They’d been through so much…It wasn’t fair.

N
o one really knew the
truth of Emma’s past. Martha knew a few things, things Emma hadn’t been able to hide from her over the past three years. But it went so much deeper than even that.

As she lay in bed that night, worry gnawing at her belly, she reminded herself that things had been much worse once. At least they had a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs, and they were safe.

She couldn’t say the same thing three years ago.

It started when she was about five. She was playing with the new puppy her dad had brought home the night before and accidentally knocked into the china cabinet where her mother kept her collection of small, porcelain angels. One fell and broke. When her dad asked that night, she said she slipped in the bathtub.

It continued like that for three or four years. She would make little mistakes and her mother would lose her temper. And then came the drinking. Her mother no longer needed excuses after that. And then the men. She never told, but she got the belt anyway. It was about a month after Sophie was born when her father left. Emma had hoped he would take her with him, but he didn’t. Even when she finally told him the truth, he left her behind. Said he didn’t have room in his life for a little girl.

And then things got bad.

Emma climbed out of bed and went to the window. She could see cars in the distance, speeding along the interstate. There was once a time when she would watch traffic and wonder where all those people were going, what they did when they got there, and who they were with along the way. Did other people live their lives the way she did, or were they all like the families on television, always able to heal their differences before the hour was up?

She still wondered that. But now, she was more content to let them live their lives as long as they could do the same for her.

“
Y
ou don’t have
a high school degree?”

“I have a GED.”

“But you didn’t graduate high school?”

“You don’t have to graduate high school when you get a GED.”

Silence.

The man was staring at the application Emma had filled out, as though he believed he could make it say what he wanted if he stared at it hard enough.

“I’m in college,” Emma offered. “I’m studying pre-med.”

“You want to be a doctor?”

“Yes. A pediatrician.”

“That’s a pretty lofty goal for someone who never graduated high school.”

Emma looked down at her hands where they were twisting in her lap. This interview might as well be over. He clearly wasn’t going to get over the fact that she got her GED after leaving school in the eighth grade and spending less than a month with the study guide.

No one ever wanted the details. All they ever wanted were the cold, hard facts.

A few minutes later, she thanked him and politely shook his hand as he promised to call her in a few days. She knew that wasn’t going to happen.

She walked to her next interview. It was for a cashier’s job at the same grocery store where she and Sophie had been shopping for the last two years. It mortified her, having to apply for a job at a place where people knew her face, but she was hoping it would help her land a job. At least it would be convenient to the apartment.

The manager was nice, polite despite the fact that his eyes kept dropping to the front of her thin blouse. Even when she crossed her arms over her chest, his eyes kept searching for just a peek of her barely visible cleavage. And here she thought she had dressed conservatively when she left the apartment.

By the time she pushed open the front doors of her apartment building, she was exhausted. So exhausted, in fact, that she nearly missed the pretty pink envelopes that were taped to the front of each of the mailboxes.

She grabbed the one stuck to hers along with the mail, and began the slow climb up the stairs. She kicked off her shoes as she tore open the phone bill, mumbling under her breath as she did the math in her mind, trying to decide if they would be able to pay it with the little bit of savings she had. But then the water bill was there, too, and she realized she wouldn’t be able to pay both.

“Sorry, Soph,” she said to the empty room.

Maybe they could get prepaid phones sometime down the road. Or a miracle could happen and she might get one of the jobs she’d interviewed for today and they would, by some miracle, pay her the same twelve dollars an hour Martha had paid.

And maybe she would meet some billionaire who would sweep her off her feet and steal her away to his castle.

Emma poured herself a glass of tea and picked up the pink envelope. It didn’t say anything on the outside, just her name and apartment number. That meant it probably came from the management company. Maybe they were changing the dumpster policy again. Or maybe, just maybe, they were finally going to fix the elevator.

She tore the envelope open and pulled out the single sheet of paper.

Dear Ms. Allred,

South Plains Village has been bought out by DJC, Inc. As a result, all tenants will be asked to leave when their leases come to an end. According to our records, your lease ends November 30. We will expect you to vacate your apartment before this date. If you have any questions, please call the management office.

Emma couldn’t believe what she was reading. Not only had she lost her job, but now she was getting kicked out of her first, real, paid-for-by-herself home. And a month before Christmas.

Could things get any worse?

But, again, maybe she shouldn’t ask. Because maybe it could.

She folded the letter back up and stashed it in the top drawer of her dresser. The last thing she wanted was for Sophie to see it. They had almost two months. Maybe she could get a new job and find a place to live…maybe.

Maybe she should have let Martha give her money. At least then they’d have security and first month’s rent on a new place. But she couldn’t let herself do that. Once she started taking money from people, she was afraid she would start to rely on it. And that was one thing she was determined not to do. Never again would she rely on anyone for anything.

She’d figure it out.