Chapter 5 MR GRADY'S SMILE

I did not stop to think. I grabbed Mimi under the arms and pulled her off the chair.

"Mommy, I was waving!"

"I know, baby. I know."

I yanked the curtain shut. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my teeth.

Mrs. Okafor was already beside me, one hand flat against her chest. "Jada. What did you see?"

"A camera."

She said a short prayer under her breath in her own language. Then she nodded, once, the way she did when a decision was made.

"Keep her away from the windows today," I said. "All day. Please."

"Don't worry, I will."

I knelt in front of Mimi. She was holding Biscuit by his one ear, watching my face too closely.

"New game," I said. "The windows are lava. We stay away from them to avoid getting burnt. The floor is fine."

Her eyes went wide. "Real lava?"

"Pretend lava. The kind that burns your toes."

"Can lava have soup?"

Mrs. Okafor made a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. "Yes, my queen. Lava can have soup."

I kissed Mimi's forehead, then ran.

I took the stairs two at a time and burst out into the morning light. The black car was already moving. It rolled down the street slowly, like it had all the time in the world. I chased it for half a block. I tried to read the plate, but a strip of mud covered the numbers.

At the corner, it turned and was gone.

I stood there with my hands on my knees, breathing hard. My knuckles were swollen and purple from the alley. Whoever they were, they wanted me to see them. That was the part that made me uneasy the most.

I went back upstairs, drank a glass of water standing at the sink, and checked the lock twice. Then I took the card from my apron pocket, looked at it, and put it back.

"I'm going in early," I told Mrs. Okafor. "Mr. Grady asked me to cover the lunch rush."

"Go," she said. She was already stirring the soup. "We will be fine. Nobody gets past me."

The bus was crowded and smelled like wet umbrellas. I stood near the back and watched every face. A man with a newspaper. A girl with headphones. None of them looked at me. That should have made me feel better. It didn't.

At the third stop, I saw it. Three cars behind the bus. Black, long, polished. It stayed there for six blocks, always the same distance away. When I got off, it drove past without slowing, and I felt my pulse pounding in my wrists.

Eighty-nine days, I thought. I counted them like beads on a string.

Delancey's looked different in the morning. The chairs were still stacked on the tables. Before I did anything else, I walked to the front window and pulled the blinds down halfway.

I slipped into the back hallway and called home. Mrs. Okafor picked up on the first ring.

"We are fine," she said, before I could ask. "The lava soup is very good, according to the customer."

In the background, I heard Mimi shout, "Tell Mommy the windows are hungry!"

I closed my eyes and breathed.

Lucy was at the counter, rolling silverware into napkins. She was twenty-two, with a gap in her teeth and the loudest laugh in the building. She looked up and froze.

"Girl. What happened to your hands?"

I tucked them behind my back. "I tripped."

"On what, a truck?"

"A very small truck."

She snorted. Then she saw my face, and the joke went out of her eyes. When the door bell jingled behind us, I jumped so hard that coffee slopped over my wrist. It was only a delivery boy. Lucy slid a fresh cup across the counter without a word.

"Drink that," she said. "You look like you need it. How many hours of sleep did you get last night?"

"Four hours."

"That is not sleep. That is a nap with ambition."

I laughed a little. It felt good, and it felt strange, like laughing in a church. I sipped the coffee and let it burn my tongue.

The kitchen door swung open.

"Cole."

Mr. Grady stood there in his usual wrinkled white shirt. His face was calm. Not red, not shouting. He was smiling.

I had worked for this man for two years. I had seen him smile maybe three times, and none of those smiles had been kind.

"You are early," he said. "Good. I like that."

"Yes, sir."

"Lucy's out tonight. Her mother is sick. So I need you to take the double." He tilted his head. "Noon to close. You can do that, right?"

My stomach tightened. "I can."

The back door stood open behind him, propped with a brick. Mr. Grady always kept that door locked.

"Of course you can. Mrs. Okafor has the little girl until midnight, doesn't she?" He said it lightly, like it was nothing. "So there is no problem."

I stared at him.

I had never told him that. Not her name, and not her hours. In two years, I had barely mentioned that I had a daughter. Whenever Mimi's pills came up, I kept my mouth shut, because Mr. Grady hated excuses.

"How do you know that?" My voice came out quieter than I wanted.

His smile did not move. "You told me once."

"I didn't."

"Then someone else did." He shrugged. "It is a small neighborhood, Cole."

Behind me, Lucy stopped rolling silverware.

"Table six is yours," he went on. "It is always yours. Some customers prefer to be served by the same girl." He gave a short, dry laugh, as if he had made a joke. "Good tippers, too."

Nobody had asked for me by name in two years. Not once. I wondered which customer he meant, and I did not like how he said always.

"Yes, sir," I said.

He nodded and walked away down the narrow hallway, whistling. Mr. Grady, who never whistled.

I stood there with the cold coffee shaking in my hand. Lucy came up beside me and kept her voice low.

"That was weird, right? That was weird."

"Yes."

"He has never said please or thank you to anyone in this building."

"He did not say either one."

"That is how I knew it was bad."

A black corner stuck out of my apron pocket. Lucy's eyes dropped to it.

"Whose card is that?"

"Nobody's."

"Nobody's card does not make your face do that."

"Do what?"

She pinched her mouth and drew her eyebrows down. "That. Like you are mad at someone who is not here."

"I am not mad."

"Okay."

"I am not."

"Okay," she said again, and left it there.

I touched the card in my apron pocket. Its sharp corner pressed into my finger. I almost smiled. I looked down the hallway, through the long pass window, into the little office at the end.

Mr. Grady had stopped at his desk. His phone sat beside a stack of invoices. The screen lit up, bright in the dim room.

One name glowed across the glass.

M.B.