Part I, Chapter XV

March 25, 2006

Brooklyn, New York

It was a routine Emma had become accustomed to doing. Sitting in an empty restaurant booth, twirling the salt and pepper shakers carelessly between her fingers, she had gotten used to Spot becoming a no-show for getting together. In the past week, they had planned four dates, of which he showed up for none.

"I'll make it up ta you," he'd swear every time she would reprimand him. "I promise."

"No, Spot, I'm tired of this!" she'd reply, breaking from his embrace. "We really need to talk and you're just not making time for me!"

"Tomorrow night. You an' me'll have dinner tomorrow night at Sonny's."

"That's what you said last night, Spot."

"Well, I mean it this time, dammit!"

She had stared him down, searching his eyes for sincerity. Her lips had pursed as her arms had folded against her chest tighter.

"Look, I've just been real busy…an' I can't talk now 'cause I gotta get back to the lodging house. I gotta a lotta stuff to do, I'll explain later."

Emma had agreed to dinner tonight, allowed him to kiss her cheek as he left, and she stomped away her frustrations from him as she made her way home. Presently, she noticed the grip on the salt shaker in her right palm had gotten significantly tighter as she replayed the conversation in her mind. She glanced at the clock: seven forty-five, one hour past their scheduled time.

Her eyes panned the half-empty restaurant. It was rather quiet tonight, but then again, it was a Sunday—she had gotten good at judging crowd sizes after waiting on Spot so many times. She noticed a young waitress no older than she, coming out of the kitchen carrying an armful of dinner plates. A moment later, the girl had dropped all four plates of food, crashing to the floor. She must have been new.

"Anything else I can get for you, miss?" asked the server, interrupting the scene behind him.

Emma shook her head low, paying no attention to the full bowl of soup on her table. "No, thank you."

Emma sighed and returned her mind to the situation at hand. She thought to herself, how wasteful I must be of my own life that I wait around for him. A sudden urge of angry passion rushed through her body. She slammed the salt shaker down onto the table and quickly sat up straight.

"I'm done," she said to herself strongly.

Perhaps—well, it most definitely was—her stubbornness getting the better of her, for she found her mind racing with mental fortitude and dignity. I'm not putting up with Spot Conlon's shit any longer! I've told him time and time again I need to talk with him, and does he listen? Not at all!

Her mind's strength running away with her, she threw down the money for her dinner and stormed out of the restaurant with her head held extremely high. Never had Spot infuriated her so much—she even left her sweater sitting in the booth and it was forty degrees outside—and she wasn't going to stand for it anymore. In her mind, if Spot needed to talk, he could make time for her, and hopefully it would happen before she left for Philadelphia. If not, Emma thought, and she even paused slightly in her tracks, his loss.


At eight o'clock that evening, out of breath and eyes watering from sprinting into the wind, Spot arrived at Sonny's. His hands pressing atop his knees, he caught his breath and calmed his speeding heart. The restaurant was half-full, he had noticed, and as he looked around the room, there was no Emma.

Seven forty-five, right? Spot checked the clock on the wall. Maybe it was earlier than that. He couldn't remember for the life of him what time Emma had told him to meet. Scoping out a booth in the back, he sat down just in case she was running late.

"Soup of the day's garden vegetable," said a waitress flatly and hurriedly, tossing a menu onto the table.

"Oh, uh, thanks."

"Name's Elizabeth, I'll be takin' care 'a you, and go easy on me 'cause it's my first day," she continued robotically, as if she had been repeating it over and over.

"A'right."

As time passed, Spot got to thinking that maybe he really had misheard Emma. It was almost eight thirty, and she was hardly ever late. He looked at the crumbles of a roll and the empty plate sitting pathetically on the table before him. He barely remembered even eating; he had tried recalling his conversation with Emma so many times he didn't even notice the food was gone. He had been so busy with dealing with Brooklyn as well he didn't even realize he had eaten a meal! How in the world could he expect himself to remember something as little as dinner?

"Ugh, what a day…"

Interrupting his thought process, Elizabeth plopped down across from him and let her head fall to her shoulder. "I'm sorry, mind if I just rest a bit b'fore my boss sees me?"

"Yeah, sure," replied Spot, finding a slight connection with the girl. "I know how ya feel."

"Y'mean your arms are sore from carrying plates all day, too?" she asked sarcastically. Her eyes widened for emphasis, even at her point of exhaustion.

Spot breathed a laugh. "Not exactly…but I know what yer goin' through, first day, new job."

"Oh, thank you." Elizabeth's hand felt on top of his as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from her shoulders. "Somebody understands."

A moment of hesitation found Spot staring at the situation before him. He stared at Elizabeth resting one hand atop his while the other propped up the weight of her head on the table. He felt a connection with her, even in its seemingly innocence and comfort.

"Elizabeth, d'ya wanna get us two cups 'a coffee?" asked Spot. He slipped his hand from underneath hers, and instead took her fingers in his grasp.

The waitress looked up from the table into his eyes, thankful and charmed by his baby blues and subtle smile. "Sure."

As Elizabeth got up, she paused and turned around. "I'm not exactly s'posed to do this…well, I could prob'ly get arrested, actually…but Sonny's got some liquor in the basement and no one's down there tonight. Y'want some 'a that instead?"


It wasn't until Emma had reached her home until she realized she had forgotten her sweater at Sonny's. Her passionate anger had quickened her pace, letting her forget that it was still almost freezing outside. On any other occasion, she would have forgone the sweater, returned the next day to Sonny's and ask the manager about a missing item. But this night, so enraged and fired up, she turned in an instant and marched all the way back to the diner.

"Can't treat me like that, who does he think he is?" muttered Emma to herself, still thinking about Spot. "Ugh!"

Several minutes later, Emma rounded the street corner on which Sonny's was located. As she walked closer, she saw two young people exit quickly from the back door. The boy looked all too familiar and Emma stopped in her tracks.

"Okay, shh!"

"You'se gonna get fired fer this and it's only yer first day," laughed the boy.

Emma took three steps forward. Was this girl kidding? thought Emma. If she could see her from this far away, there was no point in her trying to be quiet.

"God, it's freezin' out heah," stated the boy as they walked around of the restaurant.

She watched closely as the girl grabbed the boy by the hand.

"Oh, yer hands are warm," said the boy. "That helps."

The girl turned around and, in the glare of the restaurant's lights from inside, Emma saw the new waitress she had seen earlier flash the boy a smile.

"Just don' tell Sonny, promise?" asked the girl.

"Yeah…" said the boy. He glanced around him quickly and Emma felt her heart drop to the pit of her stomach.

"…I promise."

Emma's mouth fell open as she watched Spot follow the waitress down the staircase to the basement of Sonny's, where the owner occasionally ran a speakeasy full of liquor, and where she remembered pulling a barmaid from Spot's lap just a few weeks ago.

Suddenly Emma became very aware of the freezing temperature outside—the wind whipped her hair around and froze her to the bone. She would have stepped forward and continued to Sonny's to retrieve her sweater, but she couldn't. She could barely even move.