Megan’s tumble of emotions settled into something like numbness, all feeling draining out of her and leaving an empty stillness behind. She’d been in this cluttered back room so many times, the sights were all familiar, but each object stood out like it was new again. The cork board covered with newspaper clippings from the restaurant’s fifty-year history. Framed photos of the T-ball team the diner had sponsored for years, most of those kids grown up and gone off to college by now. Gray filing cabinets crammed into the corners, each drawer filled with decades of vendor invoices and god knows what, since Winston and Martha always resisted digitizing their systems. Stacks of papers on every available surface. There was a whole wall of employee photos from the years, everyone who had ever worked at the Starlite Diner, from busboys to line cooks.
Megan was there, right in the middle of the wall, from back when she was first hired. Her sixteen-year-old face stared back at her. Not much had changed in nearly ten years. Sure, she’d upgraded her glasses, but she still had the same mousy brown hair, practically in the same shoulder-length cut, with the same bland smile. Teenage Megan looked resigned to whatever was ahead of her. Her stomach twisted in discomfort. Was she still the same teenager inside, just in an older body?
And then, next to her, Scarlett’s face smiled back. They’d been hired at the same time. Scarlett’s hair was a wild light-brown cloud, and she had the same goofy smile as Megan. Back then, Scarlett had seemed so sophisticated, but this photo made her look like just another sixteen-year-old kid.
Megan’s gaze drifted over the most recent row of faces in the photographs, the handful of other waitresses and cooks who traded shifts with her. Only a few, now, with the decline in business. “Does anyone else know yet?”
“We thought we’d tell you first.” Winston shuffled some papers around, averting his gaze. “You’ve been with us the longest. I figured you deserved to know first, even if you probably saw the writing on the wall for a while now.”
She must’ve looked stricken, because Winston frowned and shook his head. “Now, don’t you worry. We’re gonna take care of all of our employees, best we can.” He patted his pockets, then got up from the squeaky office chair and began rummaging through the piles. “Let’s see. Where is this. It’s a big envelope. Ah, here it is,” He pulled a manila envelope out from the file and reached inside, peering in as he sorted through the documents. “Here we go. We looked up what was standard, and we threw in a little extra because you’ve been such a big help, and because we got a good shake from the Winn-Dixie deal.” He came around to her side of the desk and handed her a check.
Megan looked down at it, and then looked at it again, disbelieving. “Ten thousand dollars?”
“I know it’s not everything, and it’s not a salary, but it should at least keep you going for a while.” He shifted awkwardly, pushing his glasses up the brim of his nose.
Megan’s heart pressed against her ribs. “You didn’t have to do this. I can apply for unemployment or something.”
“It’s the least we can do.” He smiled sadly. “You’ve been part of the Starlite family since you were just a girl. We could barely keep the place open without you.”
Megan got to her feet and gave Winston a hug, carefully, the kind of hug you’d give your grandfather if he’d just had surgery. She and Winston had never been on a hugging basis, but this was different. He patted her back awkwardly. “Thank you,” she said.
“No leaving before the end of the month, though, all right?” He held her at arm’s length and wagged a finger at her. “We’re gonna have a lot of stuff to pack up, and a few dozen more breakfasts to cook. Your trip to Vegas will have to wait until February.”
Megan laughed, even if she felt more sick than amused. “Sure. February.”
Chapter Two
Ten thousand dollars. Megan stared at the check in her hand as she sat in her car in her driveway, not yet willing to move from that spot. What was she going to do with this kind of money? It would pay all her bills for months and months. She had good savings, what with never going anywhere and running up very few expenses. If she was frugal, she could probably make her savings plus this income last...eight, nine months?
But what was she supposed to do without the Starlite? She got tired by 8:00 p.m. She woke up every day at four. Her rhythms were diner rhythms, patterns she’d forced her body into in order to keep this job that she—honestly—didn’t really like that much.
Oh, wow, her world spun just thinking that. She said the words out loud. “I didn’t really like that job.” Guilt, embarrassment, fear, all rushed through her system one after the other. She tried it louder. “I didn’t really like that job!”
Her laughter bubbled up, hysterical, the kind of half-wild laughter that would get out of control if she didn’t tamp it down. It wasn’t happy laughter; it was the fraught, unstrung kind, the kind when a person had reached the end of their rope. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself and got out of the car.
Megan fumbled the key into the lock of her house, jiggling it a few times to get the tumblers to click. She should call the landlord about this one of these days. Still staring at the check, she nearly walked into the doorframe as she went inside. The warmth was a welcome change from outside, where Florida’s damp winters made fifty degrees feel like half that. Not that she really knew what twenty-five degrees felt like; it pretty much never got that cold here, and she had never been out of Florida.
Megan stopped in her tracks, right between the living room and kitchen, a jolt running from her head to her feet. She’d never been out of Florida. And here she was, holding ten thousand dollars in her hand, convincing herself to squirrel it away in the bank and stay inside her little box.
Or.
She could do something crazy.
Teenage Megan came to mind, herself at sixteen in that photograph, trying to blend in with the background. That Megan had wanted to have adventures. She’d told herself she was going to do all these things someday, once she’d gotten out of high school, then once she’d gotten out of college, then any day now, always later, after she put a few things in order. There were always reasons to avoid change. Reasons to turn down invitations, to ignore job opportunities, to stay exactly as she was. It was always easier to keep the status quo than to shake up her life. She’d taken the path of least resistance over and over again, and here’s where she had landed.
She could take this ten thousand dollars—or not all of it, even just a fraction of it—and go somewhere.
Not Vegas, as Winston had joked. Vegas wasn’t her style. Honestly, what was her style? She hadn’t lived enough of her life to even develop a style, but she had dreams. She had a whole list of places she wanted to go, a scrapbook full of “someday” visions for her future. With the check burning hot in her pocket, she pulled the scrapbook off the living room bookcase and sat down on the sofa.