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“Oh, um—” I’m caught off guard by the question. All I’m thinking about is Tyler, not Miranda.
“I mean, it’s fine if you don’t want her to, but she’s been wanting to pick up extra shifts. She says she needs the money and all,” Elizabeth says, twirling a strand of silky hair around her finger.
I have to actually think for a moment before I realize that Miranda doesn’t have a number because she doesn’t have a phone anymore. Maggie shut off her phone service about two seconds after I called and told her she was with me. “Miranda doesn’t have a phone, but I can ask her for you,” I offer. Her phone beeps and she glances at the screen.
And I’m totally not spying on her, but I look too out of habit. Tyler’s name scrolls across the top of her phone. My chest clenches in pain. He just sent her a text message and I catch the word apologized before she tilts it toward her to type out a reply. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I said Miranda doesn’t have a phone, but I can ask her for you.” She looks at me, perplexed and opens her mouth to say something. But then her phone beeps again. This time I do purposely look at the screen. It’s Tyler again.
You know how I feel about
It’s all the words I get to see before she flips up her phone and types out a reply. Her fingers move rapidly across the tiny keyboard. I watch as her eyebrows deepen, either in concentration or frustration. She snaps the cover back over the front of her phone, lets out a sharp sigh and smiles at me. “Anyway, sorry about that. So Miranda doesn’t have a phone? Did it break or something?”
I let out a little laugh. “It’s a long story. She had one, but her mom paid for it and when we moved, well, the phone magically quit working.”
She nods. “That’s not very long of a story, now is it? Can you ask her for me?”
“Sure—” I barely get the words out before her phone beeps yet again. She gives me a broken smile and turns the phone over and over in her hands. “I’m sorry, Robin. I know this is so rude of me.” She looks at her phone for a brief instant. Her eyes flick back and forth as she reads, and then with a very defiant press of her finger, she taps the screen. “So, anyway. Let me give you my phone number and you can have Miranda call me from your phone.”
The pain in her eyes reaches out to me and pulls me in. As much as I want to hate her, I can’t. She’s hurting, and she’s too sweet to hurt. Plus, I want to know what Tyler is talking about that’s making her so upset. “Is anything wrong?” I ask, giving a knowing look at her phone.
“Nope, not at all.” She shoves her phone in her back pocket and flashes me the perfect Salt Gap Diner Waitress Smile. “My friend is just—being annoying.”
“Yeah, annoying friends suck.” Wow. I just managed to say the most idiotic statement in the history of the universe. All because I can’t get Tyler out of my mind and now I’m going insane about what he’s telling her. And the worst part is that it’s none of my business. I take out my own phone just to give me something to do. “I’m ready for your number,” I say, wondering if he’d still be texting her if I had agreed to go on a date with him instead of saying no.
Miranda yanks the pony tail out of her hair with a fury that only working a twelve hour shift can bring out of you. “I asked everyone at work if they knew how the photos got in the counter,” she says, rocking her head back and forth and letting her hair fall down her shoulders. There’s an arc of bent hair from where it was in a ponytail all day.
“And did anyone have any answers?” I ask. It’s half an hour past midnight, but I’m stirring macaroni and cheese on the stove and kolaches are in the oven. Comfort food. I’ve gotten accustomed to Miranda’s crazy work hours and try to have dinner ready for her when she gets home. Who knew I could be so domestic?
She takes the wooden spoon out of my hand and eats a bite of macaroni straight from the pot. She loves leaving me in suspense. “Nope. No one knew anything.”
“I’m starting to think there’s no reason that photo is there. Like maybe they hired an interior decorator who found random photos in a thrift shop and put them in the counter.” I wave my arm around the air in circles. “For ambiance, or some shit like that.”
“Why would Great Grandpa throw out a photo? Especially one as great as that one,” Miranda says, taking another bite of macaroni. “Plus you know how he cherished every photo of his wife. There’s just no way.”
She’s made a valid point. The buzzer goes off and I pull the kolaches out of the oven. The smell of freshly baked croissant bread makes my mouth water. Homemade kolaches are the best recipe my mother ever passed down to me. Miranda is crazy about them too and so it’s become a staple food at our house.
Our house. I’m still getting used to the idea of that. I sit on a barstool at the kitchen island and wait for my food to cool enough to eat. “The sign on the door says the diner was established in 1935*. That’s about the exact time that Grandpa would have been the age he is in the photo. It was a new photo.”
Miranda listens thoughtfully. “Do you think Great Grandpa lived here?”
“No, he’s always lived in Houston. He made his real estate empire there.”
She bites into a kolache and cheese drizzles down her chin. “Maybe he stopped by on a road trip when they were building the diner and he donated the picture so he could be immortal in the counter forever?”
“Way to sound like a Lifetime movie,” I snort. She rolls her eyes and walks over to the cabinet to grab a glass. Then she makes a noise like she’s choking on her food. “You okay?” I ask over my shoulder.
The sound of glass shattering on the floor makes me jump. I turn around to see Miranda squatting on the floor, arms on the countertop. Her fingers grip the edge of the granite. I rush over to her and put my hand on her back. “Are you okay?”
“I—I don’t know. I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Go to the bathroom!” I bolt up, taking her elbow with me. If she’s going to hurl, she’s not doing it on the kitchen counter.
Miranda cries out in pain when I pull her into a standing position. Her hand flies to her stomach. “Fuck my life, this hurts!” she yells. “Ugh, I’m gonna puke. I’m gonna puke.”
The bathroom is way down the hall but the back door is only an arm’s length away. I make the split decision to shove Miranda out the back door and let her lean over the porch railing. The moment she’s hovered over the safety of the grass outside, she throws up all the food she ate just moments ago.
I want to run into the other room and cover my ears with a pillow and pretend this isn’t happening. But I remind myself that I’m not the pregnant teenager here. She has no one else and she needs me. So I pull back her hair and rub her back and tell her it’s going to be okay. I do my best to ignore the blood-curdling chokes and hacking sounds that are coming out of Miranda’s throat, tempting to make my own dinner come back up as well.
