How to Save a Life (16 page)

Holy fucking pin-up model, she was smokin’.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what type of expression she saw on my face, but it must not have what she was aiming for.

“Does it not look ok?"

I was seriously struck dumb by her beauty.

I started at her feet, because looking up any further for a continuous amount of time would result in a lower piece of my anatomy severely inflating, and I couldn’t have that with the current position I was in.

She had just plain black ballet flats on her feet, but what I wouldn’t have given to see her in a pair of red peep toe pumps. Shit, starting with her feet was supposed to help me calm down not get me even more riled up.

Traveling up her long, shapely legs, I found the hem of her Fifties style retro dress. This particular dress was black with little red cherries all over it. She had her little white apron wrapped around her waist and tied in the front in a big red bow. The top of the dress was what really took the cake, it was almost in a heart shape. The rounded portion of the heart covering the swell of her breasts. But that little dip in the middle that separated the two halves revealed a pretty nice portion of her cleavage.

“Ahem," Sheridan cleared her throat, and I realized that I was still staring at her breasts and hadn’t answered her question. “My eyes are up here you know." I quickly flicked my eyes up to her face and then saw that she had taken the stance of a pissed off woman; hip protruding out and a hand perched on it, the only thing that would complete this look would be her toe tapping on the floor.

“Sheridan, you look…wow! You look absolutely beautiful, I’m just really glad that Wanda doesn’t wear the same uniform, I don’t really know who could pull it off better."

Hands down it was Sheridan.

Her face broke out in a smile, which made her outlined crimson lips look amazing against the whiteness of her teeth. She even stayed true to the theme of the diner with her hair, it was done up in some retro like twist. God if she would just start strutting and sashaying around singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President," in a sexy tone, I would seriously die a happy man, it would be with an extremely horrendous case of blue balls, but I would be happy nonetheless.

Sadie whining at the door broke me out of my Sheridan induced trance, she must have been home from work. I straightened myself up on the couch, it was my day off and I actually for once took the day off. I did absolutely nothing but piddle around the house and watch crap TV but it was nice to be able to just relax for once instead of trying to run myself in a million different directions.

The storm door opened and I heard Sheridan’s special high pitched voice, reserved especially for Sadie, “Hi there Sadie Belle, have you been a good girl today?" Sadie whimpered a few more times and it was almost as if she was trying to answer her question.

I heard the clicking of her shoes on my hardwood floor before I saw her appear in the doorway to the living room. She looked surprised to see me home, especially being on the couch, “Oh, hey Mike. I didn’t know you’d be home." She came walking around the back of the couch and around the other side to sit opposite me, “And watching
Roseanne
too? Do you have a fever, are you feeling alright?" She leaned over to place the back of her hand on my forehead. I knew she was just joking with me but it felt nice being cared for.

Her being in the position she was in gave me the perfect view of her cleavage and I had to quickly recover before I started salivating over her luscious breasts.

I scratched my arm to give my hands something to do, which was becoming more and more common these days, if my hands were free they would itch to touch Sheridan, to hold her. “What can I say, there wasn’t anything else on. It was either this or
Real
Housewives
of some rich community. And I really didn’t feel like listening to catty bitches fight, so
Roseanne
won."

“Well, I’m glad you’re here." My ears perked up a little more. “I received my first paycheck at The Diner today so I wanted to get you a little something to thank you for everything you’ve done. It’s nothing much, but I hope you like it."

She handed over a small bag and I hurriedly tried to rustle it open. I wasn’t used to receiving gifts, this was unchartered territory for me, but I was happy that Sheridan thought of me.

I took the item out of the bag and just looked at it blankly. My heart lurched into my throat and I honestly didn’t know what to say.

The item in the bag was a navy blue St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap. Almost identical to the tattered one that I always wore except it didn’t have the giant red cardinal on the side like my current one had.

She pointed to the hat, “I saw it and instantly thought of you. Now you can replace the dingy one that you always wear." I still couldn’t speak and she began to get extremely fidgety at my lack of a response. “Is it not ok? I mean you must like the Cardinals since you wear it all the time, but one thing I had never really took into consideration is that you don’t have a single bit of other Cardinals memorabilia in your house. Diehard fans normally have their space decked out in it."

I just continued staring at the new hat that Sheridan gave me, but finally found my voice and it came out harsher than I had intended it to, “That’s because I’m not a diehard fan actually, I really hate the Cardinals."

I rose from the couch the new hat clutched in one hand and the sack it came in clutched in the other. I began walking towards my room, I needed to be alone at the present time.

“Then why do you wear it, especially to the point of it almost falling apart?"

I stopped my descent and turned back towards the couch to see Sheridan twisted in her seat, “I received this hat on my birthday from Hannah a few weeks before she died. She liked the red cardinal on the side of and thought it would look good on me."

I turned back around to finish my way to my room and I heard Sheridan take a sharp intake of breath. I knew it wasn’t her fault, she didn’t know, but I really couldn’t bear to console her at the moment and assure her that everything was ok. I promptly shut my door and just laid outstretched on my back in my bed for the rest of the night.

Sheridan

It had been a few days since my gift giving disaster occurred. Things were almost back to normal I supposed. Mike finally had reassured me that I didn’t know so it wasn’t a big deal, but I knew it had to have brought up some daunting memories for him.

No wonder he wore the thing until the stitches were coming out of the seams, his princess had given it to him. When his explanation came out of his mouth I instantly felt sick. Of all the things that I could have given him, it was the one thing that should never be replaced.

It was a busy day at The Diner and I didn’t see an end to the mass amounts of customers in sight and of course, it had to be a day that I agreed to work over my normal eight hour shift.

The customers instantly took to me and I tried to make my cheery disposition the first thing they encountered when entering for their meals, this had made for some fantastic tips. But today just wasn’t a good day, my feet ached and my hands hurt. I just prayed that I wouldn’t drop anything.

My usual customers had already come and gone, Charlie being one of them. He had been in to grab his breakfast every day that he was on shift, which was normally every day. He always looked so sad and generally needed some cheering up, so I always made sure I wore my biggest smile in hopes that it would rub off on him.

It was weird to think that I had regular customers. I now even have people request to sit in my section when they saw me working. Wanda was more than alright with it because it took some of the workload off of her.

She really almost reminded me of Roseanne except for her fiery red hair. She was almost pushing sixty but acted as if she were thirty. The poor woman was so busty and it caused her to have major back pain because of it. She always acted like she couldn’t care less or didn’t give a shit, but something in her eyes told me otherwise. She was trying to put up a tough exterior for some reason or another, but I had seen through her antics. I had really grown quite fond of her. You always knew when she was coming because of her huffing and puffing due to being an excessive chain smoker, her poor voice had even turned raspy because of it. She was always taking a break to go light up one of her cigarettes, but I didn’t mind because I had a job.

I was bringing plates to their respective tables left and right, no time for resting and I could feel my hands getting weaker, but I chose to ignore it.

The next plate that I grabbed shouldn’t have affected my hand, it was only filled with pancakes, but that was how my hands worked. It could be the smallest of things, but when they wanted to give out they just did. No rhyme or reason to it.

I felt the plate slip out of my hand and away from my grasp as it fell to the black and white tiled floor and shattered into dozens of pieces.

I was instantly thrown back into Pate’s house and I just knew he was going to get onto me for ruining another one of his plates. I knelt on the floor trying to pick up the remnants of the plate and prayed to God that he would take it easy on me.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and I instantly began pleading and apologizing profusely, hoping that the blow wouldn’t be as harsh.

“I’m so, so sorry. I’m cleaning it up as quickly as I can."

“Sheridan," the raspy voice of Wanda brought me back to the present. I blinked away the thought of Pate and realized that I was still in The Diner. My hands were filled with the remains of a mixture of pancakes and broken ceramic.

I felt tears well up in the corners of my eyes and I again apologized, “I’m so sorry, Wanda. My hands are weak sometimes."

“Girl, don’t you worry about it. Happens to the best of us," she waved off. I really liked how she tried to downplay the situation trying to make me feel better. I kept my focus on the scraps on the floor, because I didn’t want to see every single eye in the restaurant on me and my clumsy hands.

Archie came up behind me and put a hand on my back, “Why don’t you take a break, grab yourself a cup of coffee and take a seat at the counter." He winked and started sweeping up the fragments into a dustpan and disposing of them in the back.

I took a deep breath and let it all out. No matter how good my life was now, I could never ever get rid of the gruesome memories of my past.

I did what was suggested and plopped myself down on one of the barstools and placed my head in my hands. I couldn’t quit, accepting defeat wasn’t an option. Pate wouldn’t win.

I had almost everything I needed here. I was getting my life in order and soon it would be complete. I had Mike, but what the hell were we? He was without a doubt my best friend, but I longed for more. Sometimes I would think that I would see little glimpses of hope for the two of us, but I didn’t know if the feeling was mutually reciprocated.

I heard a set of bags being sat down beside me and the relentless chatter of a male and female. I knew that females voice.

I perked up to see Tessa Monroe sitting next to me.

“Sheridan, I was hoping you would be here! I caught wind from Brock that you worked here now." She had just started ignoring the guy who was with her, which I hadn’t recalled ever seeing.

But evidently he wasn’t one to be ignored. “Ahem," he said stepping in between Tessa and myself and extending his hand in my direction. “Excuse, Tessa sometimes I think she was born in a barn," which earned him a shove in the shoulder and a scoff coming from Tessa. He rolled his eyes in her direction and continued on, “I’m Toby Morgan, and you are absolutely gorgeous."

I instantly felt the color rise in my cheeks at his abrupt forwardness.

“Oh, Toby get a grip." Tessa looked at me, “Don’t worry he wasn’t hitting on you, he’s gay. And besides," she focused her attention to Toby, “even if you weren’t, she’s with Mike."

“I’m not
with
Mike, I just sleep with him. No, I meant I sleep in his spare bedroom at his house." I just needed to quit before I kept digging my hole even deeper.

“Uh huh. Don’t be ashamed of it girl. If I had a big bad secretive man like Mike, I would be telling everyone that I met on the streets. That boy is fine," Toby quipped. My first impression of him was that he seemed like such a diva. I could almost imagine him snapping his fingers and bobbing his head.

“Oh, I almost forgot," Tessa retrieved one of the plastic sacks from the floor and pulled out a cake mix box and plopped it on the counter in front of me. “Look!"

I looked at Toby and then back at Tessa. Was I missing something here?

“Um yeah, it’s a cake mix." I started looking the other way, and then at my imaginary watch, I was thinking that it was almost time for me to be getting back to work.

“No, silly. Its cupcake mix! When Emmalynne had her baby, I tried and tried to find cupcake mix so I could make some cupcakes while she was in the hospital. Everyone freaking looked at me like I was stupid because I didn’t realize that I needed cake mix. Well boom! Now what! I found cupcake mix!" She shouted as if she were super proud of herself. I didn’t know what to think.