“Yeah. I know it might sound a little boring, but I could pay you better than what you make at the diner, and you’d get better hours for sure. Plus, you could hang out with me all day.”
She laughed and then was quiet on the other end for a moment.
“It sounds wonderful,” she said. “I just don’t know. I don’t know anything about the logging business.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “We’d teach you anything you needed to know. I’m probably going to be in and out of the office all the time, and I can answer any questions you might have. Just imagine, the only cups of coffee you’d have to pour would be your own.”
She laughed again, and I reveled in the sound. It was musical, and I wanted to hear it over and over again, forever.
“Maybe. I’ll think about it. Is that okay?”
“More than okay,” I said. “I don’t have any other applicants right now, so you go ahead and take your time.”
“Thank you for thinking about me,” she said.
“No problem.” I refrained from telling her the truth. That all I had been doing since I saw her at the party was thinking about her.
We said our goodbyes, and I hung up, hopeful that I had pitched the job well enough.
10
LAUREN
I kept the fake smile stretched across my face until I had walked away from the table of petty, dissatisfied customers, and I was out of their sight. As soon as I was back in the kitchen, I allowed my expression drop and rolled my eyes. There were just not enough words in the language to express how difficult that group of people had been to deal with. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on the perspective, they hadn’t been interested in my opinion about anything.
It was one of those days when I knew for certain I couldn’t keep working at the diner for the rest of my life. Or possibly even for the rest of the year. Or maybe even the rest of the week. It was just getting to be far too much, and I couldn’t convince myself I liked it anymore.
That in of itself was hard for me sometimes. I could still vividly remember when working at Dina’s was one of the best parts of my life and a dream job. It was something I looked forward to every shift and enjoyed every second of it. Being in a small town and having the chance to serve mostly the same people every day was fun, and in a way, I felt like I was a part of something special.
Living in a small town might have been some people’s nightmare, but for me, it had always felt like a privilege. It meant getting to know everybody around me and having a closeness of the community that just couldn’t exist in big cities. Working at the diner put me right in the thick of it. I was a part of many morning routines and privy to just about everything that was going on in town. It could be so much fun.
I’d had that conversation with Harleigh more times than I could even count. She wasn’t like me when it came to working at the diner. Waiting tables for her was something she had to do, not something she wanted to do. Her eyes were always on the door, waiting for something better to come along and her life to finally start. She could never understand how I could possibly enjoy working there so much.
During those moments, I tried everything to explain it to her and convince my best friend she could be happy right there like I was. Of course, I knew she had other ambitions. I knew her heart always longed for a life as a stay-at-home mother and a professional writer. That was what she dreamed of, and she would never be satisfied until she had it. But I thought she could at least be happy with where she was until she got there.
Now that felt like a lifetime ago. She’d taken huge strides toward achieving her dream. Her twins were incredible, and she was working hard on her writing every day. She was truly happy. And I was happy for her. It wasn’t that I was embittered by her getting out of the diner and finding a new life or that I was envious of her for having something else. Instead, it felt more like her taking that step and discovering what was waiting for her just showed me the cracks in my own life.
When I watched her finally quit the diner and go off into the world, it made me realize that moving forward was possible. There was more out there, and I didn’t have to convince myself I had reached my peak. I wanted more. Or at least something different. I’d worked at the diner since I was old enough to work, and I wanted to see what else the world might have in store.