Chapter 21 - Messing With Carrie

Chapter 21: Chapter 21 - Messing With Carrie

Carrie didn’t move.

She stood frozen beside the booth with her hands still half-raised where the menu had been, staring at him like she’d just watched a corpse sit up in its coffin.

Jesse grinned up at her.

"What’s the matter?" he asked. "Cat got your tongue, Samantha?"

Her lips moved. Nothing came out. She tried again.

"How... how are you here?"

Jesse leaned back against the cracked vinyl of the booth and looked around the restaurant, taking his time. The construction workers at the counter. The retirees arguing about baseball. The woman in the lavender blazer at table four, still glaring at the kitchen door, waiting on her salad.

"How is anybody here, really?" he said. "Big questions. Deep stuff."

Carrie stared at him.

Her mind was everywhere at once. The alley. The blood. Angus’s boot coming down again and again. The weight of Jesse’s body sagging against her shoulder as she dragged him through the glass doors of St. Nicholas. His face, swollen and split and turning purple under the hospital lights.

And now that same face was smiling at her across a table at Marlowe’s. Not a scratch on it.

It wasn’t possible. People didn’t heal like that. Not overnight. Not ever.

She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but Jesse got there first.

"I’m really hungry, Samantha." He tapped the edge of the table with one finger. "What do you recommend?"

Carrie blinked.

Her training kicked in before her brain did. It was the only part of her that still seemed to be working.

"The... the lunch specials today are..." She swallowed. "We have a turkey club with sweet potato fries. There’s a chicken pot pie, it’s homemade, the crust is really good. And the soup of the day is, um, minestrone. And there’s a meatloaf plate that comes with mashed potatoes and green beans..."

Jesse was barely listening.

He was trying to. He really was. But the uniform wasn’t helping.

Marlowe’s dressed its waitresses in fitted blue blouses and black aprons, and whoever had ordered Carrie’s blouse had clearly ordered it a size too small. Everything was covered. Every button was done up. But her breasts strained against the thin white fabric like they were negotiating their release, the buttons pulling just slightly with every nervous breath she took.

Last night he’d been too drunk and too heartbroken to fully appreciate them. Today he was neither.

’Focus,’ he told himself. ’Focus, Jesse.’

"...and the meatloaf is Hector’s mom’s recipe, so people really like that one, and the..."

Jesse dragged his gaze up and looked her straight in the eyes.

Carrie’s voice faltered. She looked away immediately, down at the table, at the window, anywhere else.

"Why are you avoiding my eyes now?" Jesse asked softly. "Last night you couldn’t stop looking at me. Like you wanted to eat me alive."

Her face went bright red, all the way up to the roots of her hair.

Slowly, she made herself look back at him. Those same grey eyes from the bar. Without the blonde wig and the smoky makeup, they looked even bigger.

"Seriously," she said, and her voice shook. "How are you all healed up? How are you here?"

Jesse smiled.

"It’s a miracle, Samantha."

Something in her snapped.

"Stop calling me that." She said it too loud. A man at the next booth glanced over. She lowered her voice to a sharp whisper. "Stop calling me that. Are you even real? Are you some kind of... some kind of ghost?"

Jesse reached across the table and took her hand.

She flinched, but he didn’t let go. His fingers wrapped around hers, warm and solid, and he squeezed. Not hard. Just enough.

"Does this feel real enough for you?"

Carrie went completely still.

His hand was warm. His pulse beat against her fingers. He was here. He was flesh and blood and very much alive, sitting in her section at Marlowe’s on a Wednesday afternoon, wearing a suit that probably cost more than anything in her apartment.

She didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified.

She was both.

Jesse let go of her hand and leaned back again.

"And I’ll call you whatever I want," he said, his voice dropping into something lower and more dangerous. "Now take that fine ass of yours to the kitchen and get me something good to eat." He paused. "And it better be good."

Carrie’s face burned.

She bent down, fumbled for the menu that had fallen onto the seat, and grabbed it with shaking fingers. She turned to go.

"Oh, and Samantha?"

She stopped. Turned back.

"When you come back," Jesse said, "I want you to talk to me in that British accent."

Carrie stared at him.

"This time," he went on, "I want you to sound like Mary Poppins."

She searched his face, looking for a smirk, a wink, anything that would tell her he was joking.

There was nothing. He was dead serious.

Carrie spun around and hurried toward the kitchen before her legs could give out.

*****

The swinging door slammed behind her.

She stood just inside the kitchen with her back pressed against the wall and her heart trying to punch its way out of her chest.

Hector glanced over from the grill. "You okay, Carrie? You look like you saw a ghost."

’You have no idea.’

"I’m fine. I need an order."

"Of what?"

That was the question, wasn’t it?

He hadn’t told her. He’d just said something good. And it better be good.

What did he like? Was he a steak guy? A burger guy? Was he going to eat it at all, or was this just some elaborate game where he made her bring out plate after plate until she cracked?

She turned toward the swinging door. She could go back out there and ask him.

She put her hand on the door.

Then she remembered the way he’d looked at her just now, calm and amused and completely in control, and the way he’d said it better be good. Like a threat dressed up as a joke.

She took her hand off the door.

No. She couldn’t go back out there. Not yet. Not without something in her hands.

She’d have to guess. And pray.

"Hector," she said. "Give me the best thing you’ve got."

Hector frowned. "Best thing on the menu?"

"The best thing you can make. Whatever you’re proudest of. And make it fast."

Hector looked at her for a long moment, then slowly smiled and cracked his knuckles.

"Say no more."

*****

Back in the booth, Jesse watched Carrie hurry away.

He watched the way her hips swayed under the black apron. The way her skirt hugged the round, shapely curve of her backside with every quick step. The way she looked back over her shoulder at him once, then nearly walked into a busboy.

Jesse bit back a smile.

[What are your plans for her, host?]

He kept his eyes on the kitchen door long after it had swung shut behind her.

’I’m still thinking about it,’ he replied. ’But it’s going to be fun.’

His phone buzzed against his chest.

He pulled it out of his inside pocket.

A text message. From Aunt Marie.

No greeting. No explanation. Just a phone number. A Manhattan area code he didn’t recognize.

Jesse frowned at it.

He was still trying to figure out what it meant when the phone started ringing in his hand.

AUNT MARIE.

Jesse raised his eyebrows.

"She calls me twice in one day," he muttered to himself. "This has got to be good."