“Hey Sarah,” Max returned.
Her eyes came to me, she did a body sweep and her face closed down, just a little bit but it did it and I thought that was strange.
Max stopped us in front of her and didn’t let go of my hand.
“Got a table?”
“Yep,” she said instantly and I looked into the packed restaurant. Then I looked behind us. Then beside us. All the open space and outside was filled with people standing waiting for tables.
I also noticed they were kind of dressed like me, except different, slightly more casual. But they were obviously tourists on vacation wearing vacation clothes, not locals.
Locals, evidently, didn’t have to wait for tables.
She grabbed some stuff from under the hostess station, turned and walked into the restaurant. Max tugged my hand and we followed her. She took us to the far, back corner where there was an empty booth that a busboy was still wiping down. He scurried off with a smile and a, “Hey Max,” before he passed.
She slapped down white paper placemats, utensils wrapped in napkins and a plastic bucket filled with crayons.
Then she turned to Max and asked, “Usual?”
“Yeah,” he replied, using my hand to position me toward the side of the booth that had its back to the wall, facing the restaurant. “Two,” he concluded.
“Gotcha.”
“Wait,” I called when she started to move away.
“Yeah?” she asked, eyes on me.
“I like your earrings,” I told her. “They’re stunning.”
She looked surprised a second before she lifted the fingers of one hand to her ear and muttered, “Thanks.”
“Did you get them recently? I mean, is there somewhere I could buy a pair?”
She studied me for a moment before saying, “Yeah, down the street, I got ‘em a year ago but they carry ‘em all the time.”
“Thanks,” I smiled at her.
“Sarah, this is Nina,” Max told her and she nodded to me.
“Hey, Nina.”
“Hi.”
“It’s called Karma,” she told me.
“What?”
“The silver place. They got other good stuff too. Karma.”
“Karma. Thanks,” I said again.
“No probs,” she replied then turned and walked away.
Before I knew what was happening, Max maneuvered me into the booth before I could take off my coat or purse. And again before I knew what was happening, he sat down in my side.
“Max,” I said but he wasn’t listening, he was shrugging off his coat, his arm bumping into me twice as he did so. Then he threw it over the table to the opposite bench, turned to me and said, “Coat.”
I pressed back into the corner, pulled the purse off my arm, Max took it from me, threw it over the table and it landed on his coat. I watched it sail then I watched it land.