Happy Sunday! Here's the first in a series of excerpts I'll be sharing from my upcoming release, Breathe Again. Enjoy!!
I’d been working there for
nearly eleven years, since the week after my sixteenth birthday, and I can
honestly say I loved it, but I was still so off-balance from the doggone
football player’s smile and body and... everything,
I asked Anika to switch positions with me. She happily agreed to wait tables,
knowing the tips would be good on a Sunday, our busiest day. I took her post in
the back where I helped my ever-hands-on uncle fill the orders.
I was deep in the trenches,
scooping tangy coleslaw into Styrofoam pint containers, when Anika peeped in
the kitchen and called my name.
“Yeah?” I said, without looking
up.
“Your brother’s here, and he’s
asking for you.”
I released a tiny sigh and
removed the vinyl gloves from my hands, followed Anika out the door, and upon
seeing my brother and his table mates, ducked back into the kitchen, dragging Anika
with me.
She jerked away from me. “Girl,
what’s wrong with you, grabbing me like that? I think you bruised my arm!”
“Tell my brother I’m not here,”
I whispered.
“I already told him you are here. And why are we whispering?”
“Tell him you made a mistake.”
“I ain’t lying to no preacher,
Maria! Now, come on!”
“Something wrong, niece?” Uncle
Felix asked.
“Um...” I snatched my apron off
and shook my head. “No, sir. Felton Jr. is out there asking for me. Probably wants
me to work his table.”
“You don’t want to?”
“Not really.”
“Then you shouldn’t be the best.
Go on out there.” He started hacking at a slab of ribs before I could respond.
I took a deep breath, left the
kitchen, and approached Felton’s table.
“Hey, baby sis!”
I nodded, swung my eyes from my
brother to his co-conspiring wife, and then to him, sitting there with an empty lap I could see myself sitting on
if I ever developed a bold bone in my body. He smiled at me, and I had to fight
the desire to run out the door and onto the parking lot.
“Hi,” he said.
Yassssssssssss!
ReplyDeleteYassssssssssss!
ReplyDeleteWhoa!!!!!
ReplyDelete