The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,31
finish. What good did it do to get attached to someone, if you knew that someday they’d betray you, turn their back and leave? Everyone left at some point. Girlfriends. Family. Even the people you thought you could count on forever, like brothers. Especially brothers.
“What about you?” he asked, filling the silence.
She dropped her gaze, same as always. Ash never wanted to talk about herself. She just wanted to finesse other people into telling all their secrets. Just like a lawyer.
“Serious boyfriend? This one you just broke up with?”
She shrugged. “I thought so.” She picked at a hole in the arm of the loveseat. “Guess I was wrong.” Sadness filled the spaces in her face that before had held light.
“His loss,” Eddie said.
“That’s what I keep trying to tell myself.”
“You decide how long you’re staying in town?” He tried to convince himself it was a casual question, that it didn’t matter to him one way or the other who lived upstairs from him. Truth was, though, Eddie couldn’t imagine anyone but Ash tripping down those stairs in the morning, letting herself in after dark, tossing a toy for the kitten to play with. He couldn’t picture anyone else on the other side of this door, anyone else stretching out on the rooftop, anyone else arguing about whose turn it was to drag the trashcan to the corner.
She’d gotten under his skin.
“I don’t know,” she said after a minute. “I only sublet through the summer, so when September rolls around…”
She didn’t finish, and Eddie wasn’t sure he wanted her to.
“Well, you’ll figure it out,” he said and left it at that.
She laid her head against the cushions and closed her eyes. “I hope so,” she said, but the words were so quiet he wondered if she’d meant to speak them aloud at all.
Chapter Thirteen
“Marty had to go outta town,” J.T. informed Ash as soon as she walked into the restaurant that evening.
“Oh. Okay.” She wasn’t sure what that had to do with her.
“He said you’re supposed to be in charge ‘til he gets back.” J.T. stuck a toothpick into his mouth and wiped down the empty bar.
Ash stopped. “What are you talking about?”
The bartender flipped a glass and slid it into place on the shelf. “Here.” He fished in his front pocket for a slip of paper. Ash recognized Marty’s scrawl on the back of the wrinkled receipt as J.T. handed it over.
Ash, please take over tonight. You know where the keys are. Money goes in the safe. Be back tomorrow. M.
She sagged onto a stool. “Why me?”
The bartender shrugged. “Why not?”
Ash dropped her head onto one hand and stared at the note. Take over? Well, how hard could it be, really, to empty out the two registers at the end of the night and lock up the money? She knew the rest of the routine: how to wipe down and secure everything in the kitchen, where to put the trash out back, how to set the alarm when she left. Marty had shown her all that weeks ago. Bobby V., the kitchen’s head cook, had worked at the place longer than Marty had run it. And J.T. was in charge of the bar.
“Okay.” She headed for the kitchen. She’d give it a try. Tuesdays never drew a big crowd anyway. And it didn’t look as though she had much choice. How much could she screw up in a single night? “You all set out here?”
J.T. winked when she glanced back at him. “All set, boss.”
She gave him a dirty look and decided not to answer.
* * *
“You did good,” the bartender said a few hours later. They sat across from each other and stared at an infomercial scrolling across the television screen.
“Yeah? Thanks.” Exhausted but secretly pleased with herself, Ash reviewed the night. Only a handful of tables, but that wasn’t unusual for a weekday, and J.T. had done a decent business at the bar. She’d even managed to handle Betty June, the widow who complained about everything from the temperature of her steak to the number of ice cubes in her drink. By the end of her meal, thanks to a couple of questions about her cats and a compliment of her wide-brimmed hat, the woman had practically beamed at Ash as she left.
“You should be in charge more often.” J.T. stacked glasses. “You’re damn better lookin’ than Marty, anyway.”
“Maybe he’ll give me a raise.”
The bartender laughed. “Keep dreaming, honey.”
Ash laughed too. “I guess you’re right.” Still, she wouldn’t