Second Hearts (The Wishes Series) (10 page)

“Thanks so much,” I replied sardonically.

She began to wish me a Merry Christmas but I stepped back inside and closed the door in her face before she got the words out.

Seven hundred and twelve dollars was the sum total of my wealth after I’d paid for my criminal damage. On the plus side, it meant there was no time to hide away and dwell on my train-wreck love life. I was back on the job hunt.

Landing a job took no time at all. I was a bit savvier this time around. I embellished nothing and didn’t even have to lie. Thanks to my short stint at Nellie’s, I was an experienced server.

I was now waitressing at a midtown restaurant called Mama Sicily’s. I had no idea who Mama was. I was interviewed by a man called Roger who didn’t look Italian at all. I cornered him outside while he was having a cigarette break. He agreed to hire me, told me I could start the next day and dissolved into a vile coughing fit.

***

My life in New York was rollercoaster of ebbs and flows.

I returned to my apartment full of the hope that had all but disappeared the day before. My lone celebration consisted of a bunch of fresh flowers bought from the newsstand at the end of my block. I was still arranging them in my makeshift vase (a water bottle I’d cut in half) when someone knocked on my door, bringing on the next ebb.

“Go away,” I called from the kitchen. “I’ve got no more money.”

“Priscilla, open the door.”

Dealing with Ryan seemed slightly less grating than Mrs Edwin, but I was still annoyed with him. The whole saga of the day before was essentially his fault.

“What do you want?” I asked, opening the door just wide enough to see him.

Ryan flashed the trademark, knee-weakening Décarie grin. I was
so
over that grin. “I’m here to apologise.” He produced a huge bouquet that put mine to shame. “Are you going to invite me in?”

Relenting, I took the flowers. “Be my guest,” I muttered, stepping aside.

Ryan stood in the centre of the barren lounge room and turned around in a full circle. “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

“Very funny.”

“No, I’m serious. It looks great now Gabrielle’s not in it.”

“Ryan, why are you here?” Perhaps he wanted his frying pan back.

“Like I said, I came to apologise. What I did yesterday was pretty low, even for me.”

“It ended badly,” I told him, standing in the kitchen, butchering another water bottle to house my new flower arrangement.

“Don’t you have a vase?” he asked, wincing as I hacked through the plastic.

“Yes, but I only use it on special occasions.”

His laugh echoed in the empty apartment, and as hard as I fought against doing it, I laughed too. He walked to the lounge room window, pushed the sheer curtains aside and studied the unimpressive view of the building next door.

“Adam will come round, Charli.”

“No. We’re done. And I’m fine with it.”

Ryan turned back to me, and wisely decided against questioning my change of heart. “I have a gift for you.” He reached into his pocket. “I want to make peace.”

“You don’t need to make peace. I forgive you.”

He placed a small white box on the kitchen counter and slid it to me. “Open it, please.”

“You should know I’m not good with presents. Adam once gave me a very expensive necklace,” I explained, refusing to touch the box.

“Did you lose it?”

“No, I sold it to some African gangsters.”

Ryan chuckled darkly. “I’m not shocked by that at all.” He tapped the lid of the box with his finger. “This gift is practically worthless.”

I’d heard that lie before, but ignoring my reservations I picked up the box and peered inside. Amongst the tissue paper lay a plastic name badge.

“Adam told me you preferred Charli over Charlotte.”

“Adam was right.”

“So you’ll withdraw your resignation?” He frowned as I shook my head.

“I’ve already taken another job.”

“But y
ou were the most devious, crooked, underhanded waitress I’ve ever had. It’s worth keeping you around just for entertainment purposes.”

I should have been insulted, but it was a fair description of my career at Nellie’s.

“Yeah, well, I’m trying to change my ways,” I muttered. “What did Paolo say when you ran it by him?”

“He cried a little bit,” he teased. “Taylor didn’t have a problem with me rehiring you. I asked everyone else’s opinion but no one in the kitchen seemed to know who you were.”

I couldn’t be sure that he was joking. It all sounded completely plausible.

“Well, I’m Mama Sicily’s problem now. I start tomorrow.” I picked up the water bottle vase and carried it to the corner of the room, setting it down on the floor. I took a step back to admire it. The glorious display looked like a glimpse of spring in middle of winter.

“Who do you owe money to?” asked Ryan recalling my hostile greeting at the door.

I explained my run-in with Mrs Edwin, and the reason behind it – omitting Fluffin and Oliver’s hairdos. Alex had had trouble focusing on the main story once I’d filled his head with that mental image. I didn’t want to make the same mistake with Ryan.

“You’ve settled the debt,” he told me. “She can’t come back for more.”

“Huh?”

Straightening his pose, he brushed his hands together as if he was dusting them off. “
Fait accompli
, Charli.”

“You sound like a French lawyer,” I accused, scrunching up my nose.

“I am a French lawyer.”

I choked. “Why are you running a restaurant then?”

“Everyone needs a hobby.”

“That’s your hobby?”

He smiled but didn’t look at me. “No. It’s what I do. I liked the idea of picking up a failing business and making it successful. We turn over a lot of money.”

I spoke without thinking. “You don’t need the money.”

“You’re right, we don’t,” he agreed, miffed. “But when money is no object, how do you measure success, Charli?”

I had no answer for him. It wasn’t a predicament someone with seven hundred dollars to their name ever was ever likely to face.

“Adam is studying law.” It was a stupid thing to say. It wasn’t as if he didn’t already know.

“Like a trooper,” he jibed.

“It’s not a very creative choice of career, is it?”

One of my favourite things about Ryan was his sense of humour. If it were possible to push him over the edge, I hadn’t yet managed to do it. “What can I say? It makes our mother happy.”

Ryan didn’t strike me as the type who’d undertake a law degree to make his mother happy. He’d invited a girl his mother detested to a family lunch, sheerly to rattle her cage.

“Trite.”

“It’s the truth, Charli. She’s shallow.” His wily expression made it impossible for me to tell whether he was joking.

“Is Adam studying law, to make his mother happy?” I cringed as I said his name. I’d mentioned him far too many times for someone claiming to be over him.

“Adam has a tendency to toe the line rather than break the rules and go after what he really wants. That’s why you’re here alone, right?”

“He doesn’t want me,” I snapped. “That’s why I’m here alone.”

“Is that what he told you?” I played right in to his hands by saying nothing. “Exactly. He never told you that. Adam never told you a lot of things.”

“You’re right,” I said sourly. “He never told me about dim Whit.”

It wasn’t my finest moment. In my heart of hearts I knew that prior knowledge of Whitney wouldn’t have changed a thing. I loved him because I couldn’t help myself.

“Dim Whit won’t be an issue anymore.” He said it darkly, like he’d done away with her himself.

“Why?”

“Because he dumped her, yesterday. Right before he took off after you. He pulled her aside and told her it was over. It was like a bloodbath, Charli.” Very inappropriately, he smiled. “Adam left and Whitney started howling like a banshee.”

“Oh, that’s awful. The poor girl.”

Appalled by the sympathy I was throwing her way, Ryan groaned, confirming what I already knew. If the Décarie brothers had been twins, Ryan would have been the evil one. “There’s nothing poor about her. She’s an idiot,” he insisted. “He’s wasted more than enough time with Whitney Vaughn.”

“Are you really that callous, Ryan? He dumped her in front of an audience.”

“I guess he just got caught up in the moment. I’ve been waiting years for it to happen.”

I didn’t know what to make of Adam’s actions. I’d only ever known him to be warm and sweet. Those were the traits I loved. I wondered if they were the qualities Whitney loved too – before he smashed her heart to pieces in a crowded restaurant.

“It was a brutal thing to do,” I insisted. Peeved, I walked back over to the kitchen bench to continue work on my first bouquet. I showed none of the care I had with the other arrangement, viciously snipping the stems and jamming them into the plastic bottle. It was hard not to think selfishly. As badly as I felt for dim Whit, the sole source of my ire was the realisation that by the time Adam had knocked on my door, he was free and easy – and still didn’t choose me.

Perhaps sensing I was a menace with the scissors, Ryan announced he was leaving. He glanced around the stark apartment one last time. “Are you going to be alright here?”

I glared at him. “Of course I am. I live here.”

“Look, Charli, if you ever need anything, anything at all, I want you to call me.” He took out his wallet and handed me his business card. “Or Adam. If you can’t reach me, call Adam.”

Like that was ever going to happen. If I were lying in a heap, bleeding to death, I wouldn’t call Adam. I thanked him and dropped the card on the bench. It was nice to know I had options outside the three Alex had given me.

8. Humble In Victory

Mama Sicily’s was nothing like Nellie’s. The only thing it had going for it was the fact that Paolo didn’t work there. It was a tiny, pokey place decorated with dark red walls and a brown tiled floor that felt sticky under my feet. The restaurant was packed with so many tables and chairs that it was hard to move. It was wishful thinking on Mama’s part. In the two days I’d been working there, I’d never served more than three tables at a time.

Working only for tips meant that slow shifts were not very profitable. It left plenty of time for idle chatting, which is exactly what my only front of house co-worker, Sophia, liked to do.

“Where do you go tanning?” she asked, munching on a handful of peanuts she’d swiped from the bar.

“The beach, usually.”

She guffawed like I’d told the world’s funniest joke. Sophia turned my stomach. She had to be related to Mama Sicily – there was no way the girl could have held the job otherwise. She was lazy, impolite and unkempt. For the second day in a row, she wore a tight-fitting white shirt with sweat stains under the armpits. Her skin-tight black jeans were at least a size too small. She was Just plain horrid.

Apart from Sophia, the food, the atmosphere and the lack of patrons, something else bothered me. Roger, the manager, insisted we pool our tips and split them evenly at the end of the week.

The tip jar was kept under the counter. Several times a day, Sophia would bring it out and count the money. I wanted to believe that she didn’t pocket it. Her clothing was stretched to the point of splitting. There was nowhere for her to conceal the cash.

“Where do you get your hair done?” She yelled the question across the empty restaurant while I tried to dust the tacky plastic flower arrangements on the tables.

It was the first time I’d smiled since I began working there. “Chateau de Tate.”

Mitchell had been my most recent hairstylist – under sufferance. After one disastrous attempt by my own hand, he had no choice. I’d cut it so crookedly that he had to lop four inches off it just to even it up and stop me bawling.

“Is that in Manhattan?”

“No, Sophia,” I muttered.

“I went blonde once.” I looked across the room at her, trying to imagine her lanky black hair ten shades lighter. “It took three years to grow all the way out. I couldn’t be bothered changing it.”

It was incomprehensible. Sophia had spent three years looking like a skunk because she was too lazy to do anything about it.

I decided on the long walk home that it was time to quit my ghastly job. I couldn’t find a single reason to stick it out. Even Marvin agreed with me when I sought his opinion at the door.

“Leave it in the past, Miss Charli. Blue skies tomorrow.”

As far as I was concerned, Marvin was the king of the good advice.

I forced myself to work one more day. The plan was to finish my shift, collect my half of the tips and kiss Mama Sicily’s good riddance forever.

Roger wasn’t taken aback when I told him I’d quit. “You lasted longer than I thought you would,” he grumbled, in between hacking coughs that made me queasy.

Sophia wasn’t exactly forlorn either. “You’re not cut out for this job.”