Page 5 of Melancholia

I open my eyes as she takes their order, only to groan with frustration when I see I’m no longer alone in my booth.

Mary has made another appearance, her birthmark almost seeming bigger than it was at Kindred Pines.

Or…is it? Maybe it was always this big, and my subconscious has it right.

Or maybe my delusion of her is the incorrect thing here, and the birthmark actually is smaller on the face of the real Mary, who lies deader than a doornail back at the mortuary.

“Go away.” My voice is soft and frustrated. “Come on. I didn’t see you enough to take a mental fucking picture. Can’t you just go away?”

Betty stops in front of my table, not looking up from the pad she’s scribbling on. “You say you needed somethin’, Nell?” she asks absently.

I shake my head fervently, kicking myself because I know better than to talk to my “guests” when someone else is around. That’s asking for another trip to the psych ward that did way more harm than good the first time.

…And the second.

I’m definitely not looking to go for round three anytime soon, so I just give Betty my biggest, most reassuring grin.

“I was just muttering to myself about what I have to do tomorrow.” The words are a lie, but I think they’re plausible enough. I’ve had practice coming up with things on the spot ever since this started happening years ago. “I really don’t want to forget anything. I’m, uh, hoping to prove to Cecil that I can take care of the mortuary more often, so he feels like he can go out of town or just have a night off.”

“Would be nice,” she agrees. “Your food will be out soon, hun.” She walks away as I push a few loose pieces of black hair behind my ear and look down at the side of the coffee creamer pot that shines reflectively on the table.

God, I’m pale. Even distorted like this, it’s obvious just how pasty I am, and just how little my light grey eyes do to soften that fact. Sometimes, I feel like I look as if I’ve climbed straight out of a cooler drawer myself, and by now I’ve heard all the jokes about my career in correlation to just how pasty I am.

Stubbornly, I shove the creamer away, not wanting to look at my reflection in it any longer. I don’t need that kind of guest coming to visit me tonight, after seeing my own distorted features in a way that could make things go bad in my head.

“Not tonight,” I sigh, though I open my eyes to gaze at Mary. “I suppose you could be worse. Hell, I don’t even know what you did while you were alive. Maybe you were a terrible person.”

“Or maybe I wasn’t,” Mary counters. “Maybe I was a great person who just made a bad decision. Maybe I had a family. Kids.” She continues as Betty does a quick drive-by to make sure her tables are all set.

“A career. Hell, a dog.” Though her voice rises, Betty doesn’t hear her.

Of course she doesn’t hear her. This pleasure is reserved, unfortunately, just for me.

The two women in the nearby booth get louder as their conversations jump from friends to relatives to school to the woman’s older daughter’s pregnancy.

“She’s having twins,” the mom insists to the daughter confidently. “I’ve seen how she’s carrying, and how much weight she’s picked up. Gosh, I hope it’s twin girls. Can’t you imagine how adorable they’d be? Black hair like their mother, freckles, and⁠—”

I’m up before I can even think about what I’m doing. The table, securely bolted down as it is, only shakes a little when my knee slams into the underside, while I’m unsuccessful at biting back a yelp of pain.

Both women whip around to look at me, eyes wide in surprise like they didn’t realize I was sitting there. And, well, maybe they hadn’t. Maybe in their little world, I hadn’t registered to them before they sat close enough to be in my late-night-diner specific personal bubble.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t…” But my heart is racing as Mary twirls on one of the barstools, looking completely at ease and a little amused.

“Gosh, you’ve freaked them out now,” she observes. “They probably think you’re on drugs. You look like a goddamn terrified deer.”

I ignore her, drop my eyes to the floor, and head to the register where Betty is standing, counting tips. She looks up at my approach, visibly confused, and glances back to the table where I’d been.

“You all right, hun?” she asks in her dry voice. “You, uh, want to find somewhere else to sit? I don’t mind.” She looks pointedly at the two women who she clearly agrees don’t know the proper decorum for being at a diner at this time of night.

Well, I think dryly, at least I’m not the only one who disapproves of their cheerfulness.

“N-no, I—” I tuck my black hair behind my ear, though it comes right back down to swing in my face in vengeance. “I’m not feeling so great.”

“You really aren’t,” Mary agrees as she peers into the cash register like it’s her responsibility.

“Could I go ahead and pay for everything? I-I know I already ordered, and I don’t want to inconvenience you⁠—”

Betty cuts me off with a quick raise of her hand, palm out toward me. “Cook hasn’t started work on it yet. He’s on a smoke break,” she informs me kindly, and walks back to pluck the ticket off the hanger. “And don’t worry about the coffee, it’s on the house tonight. I know you’ll be back in a few days, and when it comes to tipping, you’ll be kind to ol’ Betty.” She gives me a wink that has me snorting, and my heart lifts, just slightly.