Chapter 9 - What Colleen Told Me in the Parking Lot
The parking lot lights had just clicked on over the diner. They buzzed a little and threw a yellow circle down on the cracked asphalt. I’d buckled Leo into his car seat with the red basket empty beside him except for a couple of salt grains on the paper liner. He was holding his dinosaur against his chest and his eyelids were getting heavy.
“I’ll be right here, buddy,” I said. “Mommy’s gonna make a call right outside the car, okay? You can see me the whole time.”
He nodded. I left his door open a crack so the dome light stayed on, and I stood two steps back with my phone in my hand. Rosa had wiped our table and waved at us through the window. My phone had been warm in my palm all night. It finally vibrated again. Not Mom. Aunt Colleen.
I answered before the second ring. “Colleen?”
“Jenna. Honey, are you somewhere you can talk?” Her voice was low, like she was in her kitchen with the door shut.
“I’m outside the diner on Route 9,” I said. “Leo’s in the car. He can’t hear.”
A pause breathed through the line. I heard ice clink in a glass on her end.
“I saw your mom called you eleven times,” she said. “She asked me to check on you. She’s worried sick.”
“I know. I’m going to call her back,” I said. “But first I need to know what happened today. That plate wasn’t just a mix-up, was it?”
Colleen sighed. “No. Not exactly.”
My throat tightened. The night air smelled like fryer grease from the diner vent and wet leaves from the edge of the lot.
“Tell me straight,” I said.
“Carol told me this morning she was going to make the first batch for Tyler,” Colleen said. “He’s been having a hard time at school and she wanted him to feel special when he got there. She told the other kids they’d have to wait for the second batch. She said it all orderly, like that would make it fine.”
I stared at the gravel. Leo’s hand in the air, his mouth open, everyone laughing. “So she wanted Leo to wait for my cousin’s kid.”
“She wanted all of them to wait,” Colleen said quickly. “Not just Leo. It wasn’t supposed to be about him. But Leo was the only little one brave enough to walk right up and ask. And then —” She stopped.
“And then everyone laughed,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “It went too far. Your uncle did that thing where he narrates like the kids are on a TV show, and your cousin laughed because she was nervous, and then everybody just... followed. I saw your face, Jenna. You went white.”
I pressed my fingers against the roof of the car. The metal was cool and a little gritty.
“Why didn’t anyone stop it?” I asked.
“I should have,” she said. “That’s on me. That’s why I kept texting your mom. I sent her three warnings while we were still on the deck. I said, Carol’s doing the fries thing, Leo’s crying, people are laughing, somebody needs to step in. I didn’t have your number pulled up or I would’ve texted you direct. I’m sorry for that.”
So the eleven missed calls weren’t random. They were Colleen watching from the side and trying to pull a rope.
I looked in at Leo. He’d tipped his head back and his dinosaur had slipped to his lap. His striped shirt was wrinkled and there was ketchup on the blue pocket. His breathing had gone slow.
“I left because nobody was going to fix it there,” I said. “I wasn’t going to let him sit there and learn that crying in front of everybody is entertainment.”
“You did right to leave,” Colleen said. “I told your mom that too. I said, let her cool down, let her take care of that boy.”
Something loosened in my chest, just a fraction. I hadn’t realized how much I’d braced for her to tell me I overreacted.
“Colleen, I’m going to talk to Carol,” I said. “Not tonight. He’s wiped out. But tomorrow. At her house. I need to tell her that what she did hurt him, and the laughing hurt him more, and I need it to not happen again.”
“Okay,” she said.
“I don’t want it to be me against the whole deck again,” I said. “Will you be there? Not to gang up on her. Just to witness. To say what you saw if she says I’m remembering it wrong.”
The ice clinked again. I could picture her at her table, twisting her ring.
“Jenna — Carol’s my sister. You know how she gets when she feels cornered,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “I’m not asking you to pick a fight. I’m asking you to tell the truth about what you saw.”
Another long pause. A car pulled into the lot and its headlights swept across us. Leo stirred but didn’t wake. I put my hand on the open door so he could feel I was close if he half-woke.
“I’ll be there,” Colleen said finally. “You tell me what time. I’ll sit at the table and I’ll say what I saw. The plate was for Tyler first. Leo asked. People laughed. That’s the truth.”
“Thank you,” I said. My voice caught. “That helps more than you know.”
“Get that baby home to bed,” she said, softer now. “And call your mom. She’s been pacing the kitchen for two hours. She loves you. She’s just stuck in the middle.”
“I will,” I said. “Right after I hang up.”
May you like
We said goodnight. I stood there another second with the phone against my forehead, listening to the lot go quiet again. The diner door opened and closed. Silverware clattered inside.
Colleen had agreed. I wouldn’t have to walk into Carol’s house alone with just my memory against hers.
