before I knew it, we’d pulled off I-95 and into a part of town I was completely unfamiliar with. He didn’t bother to pull into a lot or find a parking spot, instead choosing to double-park at the side of the road. “Get out. Get your stuff and get out.”
Numbly, I did what he said, hefting my purse on my shoulder as I slid out of the Jeep. He barely waited for me to pull my bag out of the back and shut the door before he pulled back into traffic to the accompanying honks and shouts of irate drivers as he cut people off and shot back onto the expressway.
I stood there between two parked cars for a long time, staring after him, not quite able to believe that he’d dumped me, literally and figuratively. The people passing by barely paid me a glance. Those who did quickly looked somewhere else and hurried on their way.
With a shudder, I hefted my purse higher on my shoulder and grabbed my bag, trying hard not to cry. That could come later, sometime when I was alone and curled up in bed with a pint or two of ice cream and enough chick flicks and alcohol to help me forget this weekend had ever happened.
That Chaz had ever happened.
There was a diner down the street, a real dive, but they might have a phone they’d be willing to let me use. I trudged the half a block to the storefront, dubiously taking in the glass fogged with dirt and cracked cement stairs leading inside. The place was empty save for a tired looking old lady with wispy white hair tied up into a fraying bun who was leaning against the counter, a cigarette hanging limply from her fingertips while she jawed with a cook over the serving counter. They both quieted, looking at me with wide eyes as I stumbled inside.
“Lawd’s sakes, girl, you look like you done seen a ghost,” the woman remarked, stubbing out her cigarette and standing straight. “Come in, sit down. You hurt? Need an ambulance?”
The mention of an ambulance made me jerk in response, terror at being discovered as a possible lycanthrope making my fingers fly to the cuts on my arm hidden beneath my long-sleeved shirt. She couldn’t have seen. She couldn’t possibly know. But the way the waitress looked at me, the concerned wariness in her dark brown eyes, filled me with a bone-deep terror that she somehow saw the monster I might be peeking out of my eyes.
“Jesus, girl, we don’t bite here. Come in; sit down before you pass out. You gonna be all right?”
My throat tightened up at this unexpected kindness, and I shook my head. With some effort, I picked my purse and bag off the checkered tile, inching over to one of the tables by the window and setting my stuff down. My voice cracked when I spoke, so I had to clear my throat a couple of times before it came normally. “I’m sorry. Thank you. I’m just looking for a phone to call a cab, if that’s okay.”
The lady exchanged a look with the cook, one I interpreted as “no sudden moves, don’t alarm the crazy lady.” She gave me a smile, her teeth nicotine stained in places to a color that very nearly matched the chocolate hue of her skin. “Sure thing, sugar. You just have a sit right there. I’ll call for you. You want anything while you wait? Some coffee, maybe a slice of pie?”
I gave her a watery smile, and she disappeared through a swinging door into the kitchen. A few minutes later, she came out bearing a cup of steaming coffee and a plate with a slice of warm apple pie. The scoop of vanilla ice cream next to it was already making a sugary pool.
“The cab company will send someone along in about twenty minutes. You just enjoy that now, and let me know if you need anything else.”
I settled in to the comfort food and found it helped ease the nervous tension that had wrung my stomach into knots. Knowing I could curl up into a ball of misery in private at home soon also helped. My eyes burned from the effort to keep from spilling any tears, nothing I wanted to do considering how carefully the cook and waitress were watching me, despite that they’d resumed their casual chat behind the counter.
Already I was worried about strangers thinking I was