Synesthesia: Chapter Twenty-One

serial fiction

Image: Nat Fernandez, Pexels (cropped)

Trying not to audibly hyperventilate, I hurried to put my wallet away before the waitress could see it and think I wanted her to bring the check.

Too late. She turned her head toward our table, her long, straight ponytail swishing across her back, nodded at me, and started walking towards us.

I glanced around the table again, then hurriedly tapped Amber on the arm.

She looked up at me with an indignant expression on her face, and a whiff of soap bubbles hung in the air between us.

My throat felt as dry as the landscape outside, and I did my best to clear it before speaking.

“Um… can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked in a half-whisper, hoping to escape the attention of the other two people at our table.

But she didn’t get a chance to respond before the long-haired waitress was standing over our table, fake-smiling at me and thrusting a little black book-shaped object in my direction.

“Here you go, sir!” she chirped fake-brightly, and my eyes watered with the smoky smell of her boredom at what must have been a thankless and soul-sucking job. “Thanks so much for dining with us today!”

After a few moments, she set the book-thing on the table and turned to walk away. It dawned on me that she had been waiting for me to take it from her and had finally given up.

Oops.

As the wood smoke dissipated, the foul, eye-watering stink of wet dog reached my nostrils, and I saw that Amber was staring at me in confusion.

“Just for a second,” I said, gesturing with my head that we should move away from the booth for this conversation.

Amber raised one eyebrow skeptically, then handed Jacob a blue crayon and tasked him with finding all the differences between two pictures on his paper placemat. As Jacob dutifully set to work, Amber slid out of the booth and joined me. We moved toward an empty section of the restaurant, where she stopped, hands on hips, and looked up at me, still reeking of wet dog.

“Well?” she asked impatiently, the dog taking on a patchouli note, and I realized she was waiting for me to say something.

I cleared my throat again and scratched nervously at the back of my neck.

“I’m, uh…” Why was this so hard to say? “I’m out of money.”

The patchouli dissipated. It was all wet dog now.

Amber was thoroughly confused.

“What do you mean, you’re out of money?” she asked.

I stared at her, wondering if she thought I had an infinite supply of the stuff.

“I mean I have thirty-five dollars left, and I can’t pay the bill,” I explained.

The wet dog wore a slight trace of orange-blossom perfume.

“Are you serious?” she asked. Her eyes flitted to a place somewhere behind me.

I turned and realized she was watching her son. He’d finished finding the differences and was now staring at me and Amber.

She looked back at me again. “So what are you gonna do?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“What am I gonna do?” I asked. Weren’t we in this together?

She shrugged. “Yeah.”

Jacob’s big dark eyes were boring a hole into the back of my head. I turned around and saw him still staring, his face blank and expressionless.

I turned back to Amber and rubbed my face with one hand, trying to remain calm. “Well, I wasn’t budgeting for four people,” I said. “I mean—”

“You gotta get some more,” Amber stated, as if this were the obvious solution I had somehow missed.

Holding back my growing frustration, I tried talking sense into her.

“And how the hell am I supposed to do that?” My voice came out in a whisper. Better than yelling in the middle of the restaurant.

She shrugged again. “Just take it.”

Now I really did want to yell at her.

“Who am I supposed to take it from?” I demanded, feeling my throat squeeze itself around my words so that I didn’t cause a scene.

She crossed her arms over her chest and gestured with her chin toward the table we had just gotten up from.

“Start with him,” she said, and I understood that she meant Hoka guy.

I turned and took a step back toward the table, but she continued speaking.

“And then once you’re done with him,” she said, a hint of gasoline in her voice, “I have some other ideas.”

Back at the table, I elbowed Hoka guy, who seemed to be taking a nap. His head rested comfortably on his arms, which were folded across the table, his empty plate apparently having been removed by our waitress or some busboy.

“Hey,” I whispered, leaning toward his closed eyes.

The eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, a strong blast of orange blossom hit me in the face. Then he sat up in a jerking, flailing movement, keeping his eyes on me the whole time, as if afraid I might bite his neck and suck his blood.

I glanced over at Amber, who nodded encouragingly.

“Gimme all your money,” I growled into the guy’s ear.

His body grew even more rigid, and the orange-blossom scent grew stronger.

“I don’t have my wallet on me,” he whimpered. “It’s in the glove box.”

I handed Amber the car keys and sent her out to retrieve Hoka guy’s wallet, hoping he was telling the truth and that there actually was a wallet with money in it out there.

The three of us sat in silence waiting for Amber to return, staring at one another uncomfortably. Minutes crept by. Jacob began to wiggle back and forth in his seat.

“I think he needs to go to the bathroom,” Hoka guy whispered, still holding himself rigidly upright and motionless.

I looked toward the restaurant entrance. No Amber.

“Do you need to go to the bathroom?” I asked Jacob, trying not to sound too scary.

The boy said nothing, just shook his head violently and continued wiggling.

“He says he doesn’t need to go,” I said to Hoka guy.

“I’m pretty sure he does,” Hoka guy objected.

Jacob shook his head again and wiggled faster.

“Just take him to the bathroom,” nagged Hoka guy.

More head-shaking from Jacob. Faster and more violent than before.

“He doesn’t need to,” I insisted, almost whining now. I really did not want to have to take a kid into the bathroom. I didn’t know anything about kids. Didn’t they wear diapers or something anyway? Was I going to have to wipe a butt?

I looked toward the front door again. Still no Amber.

My thoughts rolled around in a panic inside my head. Was she ditching me? Surely she wouldn’t leave without her son?

I stood up, ready to go investigate in the parking lot, when the front door swung open and Amber walked through, the car keys in one hand and a bulging plastic grocery bag in the other.

She walked up to me grinning, cinnamon and eucalyptus swirling around her like some disgusting herbal tea.

“What the hell—” I started, but she cut me off.

“Pay the bill and let’s go,” she whispered, opening the bag so I could see inside.

The bag was full to the brim with stacks of bills held together with rubber bands. Not tens or twenties, but fifties and hundreds.

I clamped the bag shut with my hands and stared at her in shock.

“Where did you get this from?” I asked, beginning to panic.

Amber placed two fifty-dollar bills carefully into the little black book and smiled so broadly I thought it must have made her cheeks hurt.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said again. “Quick.”