There’s a commotion behind me, Ruby calling for me.
“My break’s over. I should get back to work.”
“Thank you for talking to me.” Mirta leans forward and wraps her arms around me in a quick hug, and when she pulls back, I check to make sure none of the grime and grease from my day got on her stylish dress. “Thank you,” she whispers again. “And good luck. I hope everything works out for you and your child.”
“Same to you.”
I linger for a moment, struggling for the right words to give her, but none come.
The helplessness is the hardest part, that sensation of being trapped by life, by circumstance and all the things out of your control wearing you down day after day, month after month, year after year. It’s enough to make you want to run away and never look back. It’s enough to make you rail against the world.
I see it in her eyes, a spark, a flash of anger, hot and sharp, transforming her into someone else entirely. Someone I recognize.
I smile back at her.
* * *
—
“You have another one,” Ruby tells me when I walk back into the restaurant.
The new customer is young and pretty. At first glance her clothes are fine, but there’s something slightly off about the way they fit, as though they were made for a younger girl, a body still on the cusp of womanhood.
The hemline is shorter than what’s fashionable, the belted waist tight despite her slender frame. Her necklace is lovely, though, adding a dash of style to the whole ensemble you typically don’t see in these parts.
Definitely not from around here.
A traveling case rests on the ground next to her, appearing as though it was fine once but has seen its share of better days.
“Runner,” Ruby predicts.
“Clothes are too nice for a runaway.”
Ruby snorts. “Rich kids got problems, too.”
They probably do, but when so many of your struggles revolve around money, it’s hard to envision any other sort.
“She looks like she’s in trouble,” I murmur.
“Or like she came down here for a getaway like the rest of them.” Ruby’s gaze sweeps over the restaurant. “It’d be a shame if a storm comes and all their vacation plans are ruined.”
She doesn’t say the rest, but I hear the unspoken worry in her voice—if a storm does hit us, the restaurant will lose out on the business we all desperately need, too.
I walk over to the newcomer’s table. “Good afternoon. Welcome to Ruby’s Café. What can I get you?”
“Coffee, please. Black.”
“Anything else?”
The girl hesitates, her teeth sinking down on her lower lip. “No, thank you.”
I revise my earlier assessment. Maybe she was rich once—her clothes and natty little suitcase certainly have that appearance about them—but now she looks hungry and scared.
“I’ll be right back with the coffee.”
I pour her a coffee in the back and add a slice of key lime pie from the kitchen.
Ruby shakes her head as I walk by with the plate in hand. “You’re a soft touch, Helen.”
“She’s a kid.”
“And you have one on the way. Sooner than later, judging by how that baby’s dropped in the last week or so.”
“And I hope if my child is ever hungry, alone, or scared, someone will do right by them.”
She sighs. “I’ll add it to your tab.”
Tom will wonder why I bring him less this week, but I suppose I’ll deal with that later.
I walk over to the table, stopping to take another order on the way, and set the key lime pie and coffee in front of the girl.
Her eyes widen. “There’s been a mistake. I didn’t order any pie. The coffee is fine.”
“It’s on the house,” I reply, and because I recognize the determined glint in her eyes, the pride there, I lie and say, “No one’s ordering it, and we’ll have to throw it out at the end of the day. You’re saving me the trouble, honestly. The scent makes me sick. I haven’t been able to go near the stuff.”
I can’t tell if she believes me or if she’s too hungry to care, but she picks up the fork, scooping up a bite of the pie, her eyes closing for a moment as she swallows it.
There’s an art to the girl’s movements, a daintiness that reaffirms my impression that someone once taught her to dine as though she is at a formal dinner, her posture erect and graceful. You can tell a lot about a person by watching them eat.
“Good, right?”
She flashes me a bright smile. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Is there anything else I can get you?”
“Actually, I’m looking for someone.”
“Most everyone in Key West comes through Ruby’s at some point.”
“Best key lime pie in town,” she mutters under her breath.
I grin. “Can’t argue with that. Who are you searching for?”
“He came down here for work, I think. That’s the problem. I don’t know exactly.”
She pulls a letter out of her purse, the envelope crinkled and worn. Masculine handwriting slants across the page.
Boyfriend, most likely.
It takes everything in me to resist telling her that I’ve yet to meet the man who’s worth chasing all the way down here, but for her sake, I hope she’s found the exception.
She hands the envelope to me, and I study the writing. The postmark is from Key West, the letter addressed to a Miss Elizabeth Preston, no return address.
“What line of work is he in?” I ask.
“I don’t know what he’s doing. He fought in the war. Last I heard, he came down here to work with some other veterans.”
I give the letter back to her, doing a quick sweep of the restaurant to see if any of the veterans are dining here.
“The veterans work in camps to the north. They like to come down to Key West on their days off, let off some steam, and your sweetheart might have sent that letter when he was here, but they live up on Lower Matecumbe and Windley Keys.”
A line forms on her brow. “Matecumbe. I think I saw that stop on the railroad.”
“There are two ways to get there—the railroad or the ferry. For the ferry, you have to take the highway to No Name Key. The ferry leaves from there, and it takes you up to Lower Matecumbe Key in a few hours. It’s unpredictable—sometimes it doesn’t run, other times it’s late—but God willing, it’ll get you there.”