Chapter 3 - Bad Shoes And A Shaking Tray
I told myself if I kept moving, the room would forget. I slipped my order pad back into my apron pocket and picked up the water pitcher from the side station. My hands were unsteady, and the ice shifted loud against the plastic.
The aisle between the tables was narrow. Candlelight threw everything warm, and the windows threw everything blue, and I tried to stay in the warm part. I made it to table six, smiled without showing teeth, and started to pour.
I didn't hear the busser behind me until his tray clinked.
It was just Marco coming fast with empties, saying "behind you" a half-second too late. My shoulders jumped before my brain caught up. I jerked forward and the pitcher tipped. Water ran over the rim of the glass and across the white tablecloth, darkening it in a fast bloom.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," I said. My voice came out too high. "I'm sorry, let me get that."
The woman at the table pulled her napkin into her lap. Her husband leaned back to save his sleeve. "It's okay, honey. It's just water."
Marco froze with his tray on his shoulder. "Harper, you good? I said behind."
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good," I said. "You just surprised me."
I could feel my face heating. Not just the bruised side. All of it. I grabbed a folded napkin from my apron and blotted at the spill, but my hand was shaking and the pitcher was still in my other hand, heavy. Water dripped off the edge onto my shoe.
The blue dress shoes. The ones I'd lied about.
At the side station, Jenna was rolling silverware. She looked up when I came back with the empty pitcher and the damp napkins wadded in my fist. The overhead heat lamp above the station was harsh compared to the dining room. It caught everything.
She stared a second too long at my left side.
"Harper," she said quietly. "What happened to your face?"
I turned toward the ice bin like I needed ice right then. "I tripped. At home. Bad shoes."
She didn't laugh. Normally Jenna would have made a joke about my shoes, about how I always tried to make a double in flats that were falling apart. This time she just set down the fork she was holding.
"That doesn't look like a trip," she said.
I kept my eyes on the ice scoop. The cubes cracked and settled. My breathing sounded loud to me, even with the clatter from the kitchen door swinging. "It's fine. It looks worse under this light."
"Did somebody—" She stopped herself, glanced toward the floor.
"Don't," I said. It came out short. One short sentence, and I hated how it sounded. I softened it. "Please. Don't make it a thing. I need this shift."
Jenna's mouth tightened. She picked the fork back up, then set it down again without finishing the roll. "You flinched so hard out there I thought you were gonna drop the whole pitcher."
"I've just been clumsy tonight," I said to the ice bin.
Out on the floor, movement caught my eye through the pass. Mr. Bell, our manager, was standing near the host stand. He wasn't seating anyone. He was watching. His arms were crossed over his vest, and his gaze moved from my tables to me and back again. I knew that look. It meant complaints or spectacle, either one was bad.
Jenna followed my look. "He saw that thing at table twelve," she whispered. "Everybody saw it."
My stomach dropped. I refilled the pitcher even though I didn't need that much water, just to have something to do with my hands.
"I have to go back over there," I said. "I'm still on twelve."
Jenna touched my wrist, light, so I would finally look at her. I didn't. I stared at the wine glasses lined up on the station shelf, at the candle refills, at anything that wasn't her eyes.
"Harper," she said. "If you need—"
"I'm fine," I said, and slipped around her with the full pitcher.
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The dining room felt louder than before. Glasses, low talk, a chair scraping. His table was in my line of sight past the chandelier. The candle in its glass holder was still lit. The dark menu folder was still where he'd left it, and his wine glass was low.
He wasn't looking at me right then. He was looking down at his hands. But I knew the second I stepped back into that light, he'd look up.
