Page 29 of Never Your Valentine

I design most of my cards on my tablet. They go from there to the printer, and I don’t see a paper card until the boxes are shipped to me. But special cards for special people are drawn directly on cardstock. I want the recipient to know they’re getting something handmade that’s one of a kind. It means I need to take extra care, since there’s no erasing. I’m taking my time with Darla Lee’s card, and loving the results so far.

I’m immersed in my work when Grant slides into the other side of my booth.

“Can I help you?” I ask.

“All the other seats are taken. When that happens, we share. You can’t have a four-top to yourself.”

I swivel my head to take in the rest of the room. There’s one other table that has a single diner at it, a middle-aged woman primly eating the fish dinner. “Sit over there,” I say.

“I’m not sitting with Ms. Santiago.”

“Why?”

“She was my fourth-grade teacher. She always looks at me like I’m one spelling test away from disappointment.”

“Ah, so she knows you well.”

“Ms. Santiago’s scary,” he says. “You’re just… I don’t know. Barely tolerable.”

I go back to coloring my card. “I would send you to Ms. Santiago myself if I thought she’d take you, but I’m not cruel enough to unleash you on an innocent woman eating fried fish.”

I’m adding more sparkles around the edge of my card when I notice Grant flipping through the pre-addressed envelopes I left on the table. He gives a half-snort, half laugh. “Do you expect me to believe you know movie stars?”

“I don’t care what you believe,” I tell him.

“Why are you sending mail to LeVar Burton?”

“Because his birthday is on February sixteenth.”

“I don’t get it.”

“And I don’t care.” I wasn’t going to explain myself. I tried that once. After my Cate Blanchett success, I ran to Magnus, brimming with excitement, feeling like I’d unlocked the key to cardmaking success.

Magnus told me it was adorable, in a pathetic, fanfiction kind of way. What I saw as a genius marketing idea, he called “sucking up to celebrities.” I think he even used the word fawning, although my memory is fuzzy on that part because I was so mad I kind of blacked out for a minute.

He apologized later. It was a really good apology. But the damage was done. I started to trust him less, and dammit, I trusted myself less. I can’t let that happen again.

Grant points to the envelopes. “I’m just curious about⁠—”

“No, you’re not,” I interrupt. “You’re trying to judge. To mock.”

“I didn’t mean⁠—”

“Don’t,” I snap. “You made it very clear that I’m not allowed to tell you how to run your business. Well, this is my business, and I decide how to run it.”

Our server hustles over, order pad in hand. Grant asks for a cheeseburger and onion rings. “Which he’ll be taking to go,” I tell her.

I open the card I’m making and concentrate on the inside message, shaping each letter with absolute precision. When I look up, Grant is gone.

After the dinner rush, the crowd thins out and I don’t feel bad about taking up a whole table. When the staff checks on me a third time, I decide I should call it a night.

Before I go, I make one more piece of art. I lean over to the now-empty booth across from me, take down the homemade reservation sign that the ROMEOs made, and carefully peel the tape from the back. I get out some nice cardstock and make them a new sign, complete with little cartoons of the four of them. Roy with his dark ebony skin and puffy hair. Fred’s skin a lighter brown, blue cap on his head. Milt with ruddy cheeks and a plaid shirt. Something’s missing. I draw Stan from memory, all kind eyes and soft jowls.

I tape the new sign on the wall behind their booth, leave a big tip for my server, and head back home.

The next night, after half an hour of bump-crash-yell, I escape to The Up and Away Café again. This time, when someone joins me in my booth, I’m not that surprised, except the stranger sitting across from me looks like a funhouse mirror version of Grant. This one’s a ginger, with a small scruff of red-gold beard and a brilliant smile.

“Can I sit here?” he asks.