Waiting for a Girl Like You (2 page)

She rounded the tables again, but dinner was ending, so more people were heading out than seating, which lightened the workload. Through the restaurant window, she could see Ida pouring on the local flavor at the register and Paul circulating tables, receiving his laurels. Marc at table ten was either still or again on the phone with his meal untouched.

“I just wanted you to know what happened, Sandy.”

Dez, Jody, Tessa, Sandy—the man was awash in women.

“I have to go. If I don’t have this steak at least half eaten before Paul gets here, he’ll cry or something.” Marc picked up his knife. “Yeah. Yeah. Bye, Sandy.” He tapped the disconnect button on his Bluetooth. “Don’t ever get married.”

“What?” Alex stopped in the act of taking his empty water glass.

“Never mind. How are you?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” He cut into the steak. “Paul is an artist.”

“He is. Enjoy your dinner.” Alex turned away from the table, intent on turning over the remainder of her tables to Drew and getting out of here.

“Aren’t you going to answer the question?” Marc asked.

Alex turned back. Potterville should change its name to Incongruity, West Virginia. “I thought it was rhetorical.”

“No. How are you? Enjoying working here for the summer? You are just here for the summer, aren’t you? I don’t remember seeing you before.”

“Yes, I… My cousin lives in town, and she told me I could earn a lot of money waiting tables here. The tips are really good.” Alex clutched her hands together, hoping it would anchor her to reality. So far, no good.

“Who’s your cousin?” He forked a bite of steak into his mouth.

“Angela Runningwater.”

“Mm.” He nodded like that fit something together for him. Heaven only knew what, but since this was Incongruity, West Virginia, it could be anything. Or nothing.

She tried to pull off a professional smile, but it felt broken. “Enjoy your dinner.”

Drew was at the drink station when she got there. “Almost time.”

Alex checked her watch, a cheap little number she’d fished out of a bargain bin at a Big Lots. It kept time. That’s all she needed it for. “Past time, sucker. They’re all yours. This is table ten.” She shoved the glass at him.

“The
special
table.”

“Exactly.” She emptied her tips into her purse and tossed the dirty apron into the hamper. “See you tomorrow.”

“Bye.”

Instead of going past the front of the restaurant, Alex ducked behind and walked down the street toward Angela and Finn’s house. Tourists stuck to the main drag. The restaurant, the churches, the library, the elementary school, the square. All the stuck-in-time, Americana Main Street they came to indulge in. They didn’t tend to wander into the neighborhoods behind so much. It would be too much like going backstage at Disneyland.

The night was turning out nice. Clear and breezy. All week it had been sweltering hot, which was why she preferred to work inside the air-conditioned restaurant, and why Tina had been stuck with the concrete patio. Do good work, get rewarded. That was the theory. Alex licked her lips. Marc at table ten would make for a great reward.
No, no, don’t go there.
Some things are better off as a mystery. She wanted to crawl in bed with Percy Bysshe Shelley. She’d been trying to finish that biography for a week now.

* * * *

“Well, what do you think?” Paul asked.

“Spectacular as always, Paul.”

“She is lovely, isn’t she?”

Marc glanced at his half-eaten steak. Was Paul getting chummy with the food now? Ida would blow a gasket if he wanted to change the restaurant to vegetarian. “She?”

“Alex. Your waitress. I told Ida she had to send Alex out to wait your table.”

The matchmakers were at it. Marc drew a deep breath while the information settled around his shoulders. Better than Paul going vegetarian at least. “Is that so? I’m pretty sure I can find women on my own.”

“I’m sure you can. You could walk into the middle of the street and throw a rock and come up with a dozen, but nobody wants to see you make another mistake like Desiree.”

“I was divorced from her long before I met you.”

“And you’ve been through half a dozen since who were just not suitable.” Paul put his hands on his hips. “You need to get laid by someone who isn’t looking at your bank balance, and if there’s anyone, it’s Alex. She isn’t what you’d call a material girl.”

Right. She’d made the comment about coming here to make money. Of course, she was talking about tips, not fishing for diamonds and Bentleys. “Paul, I came to town to relax.”

“If you wanted to relax, you wouldn’t be in the one town on the planet where you were most likely to be recognized.”

“I could be recognized anywhere.”

Paul poked the table with one straightened finger. “People come to Potterville hoping to see a member of Touchstone. We can read you, boy-o. You want companionship.” Paul slid into the chair across the table. “Keep eating while I lecture you.”

“Okay.” Marc cut into his steak. “You’ve been spending too much time with Ida.”

“Now, I know Alex isn’t your normal type,” Paul began, ignoring Marc’s comment. “She’s a bit on the slender side, but she’s very bright, and she deserves a break. She’s working on a master’s degree and pinching every penny along the way. Angela says she had a boyfriend, but there was something scandalous about it, and she broke up with him. Right now, she’s in the perfect place for a nice summer fling. And for that job, you, my dear, are an ideal candidate.”

“Got this all planned out, do you?” A summer fling wouldn’t be a hardship, and this Alex girl wasn’t hard on the eyes, either. If he did it right, they could part as friends at the end. Unlike Jason who tried to have a fling and ended up married to the girl. Not that Cassie was a disaster. Cassie was probably the luckiest thing that had happened to the band since Candy made friends with Ronnie Bauer’s son, but Marc didn’t plan to get married again anytime soon. Not until he got this Desiree thing taken care of, and that might require a hit man.

“Yes, we do. Right now, she’s staying with Angela and Finn in that thimble Finn calls a house. We think you should invite her to stay in the guest cottage on the mountain.”

“Why didn’t you tell Cassie to do that?”

Paul flushed and turned away.

That was telling. Cassie had promised the house to Marc for the summer so he could play recluse if he wanted and still have adulation in easy reach. She wouldn’t want to inflict some woman on him without permission. Paul and Ida wouldn’t think twice, and they wouldn’t stop until they succeeded. They played a long game.

“Just give her a try.” Paul stood up. “Don’t tell her it was a set up. She’s even more prickly than you are.”

“And if she’s not interested?”

“Then I guess
you
are not all you’re cracked up to be, sugar.” Paul patted his cheek and walked away.

Paul was spending way too much time with Ida.

* * * *

“How was it tonight?” Angela asked before Alex crossed the threshold. She and Finn were sitting on the couch watching television like good, normal people. Since it was after nine, John-John must have been in bed.

Alex had not paused in her route across the living room toward the hall. Finn’s weird OCD routines freaked her out, and she really needed to spend some quality time on her own mental health before she could deal with someone else’s. Besides, she had to be invading their space. They were being very generous letting her stay, and she didn’t want to be any more of a burden than necessary. “Pretty good. My purse weighs a ton so I’m going to be up late rolling coins.”

“No! Marc! Did you meet Marc?” Angela leaped off the couch and bounded across the room like a soap bubble caught in a draft. “Ida said he was coming to town today and he eats at the diner every night when he’s here.”

Alex hurried down the hall like demons were pursuing her instead of her cousin. Everybody in town must be hung up on this guy. Cute. Okay, smoldering, but those were everywhere. “I guess so. Ida put me outside at the end of my shift, and I’m pretty sure it was just so I could wait on this Marc guy at table ten.” She dropped her purse on the dresser in the guest room. It clinked and jingled as the coins inside rearranged themselves.

“Skinny? Dark hair? He’s so cute, isn’t he? And so nice. I never thought famous people would be so nice, but everybody in Jason’s band are so nice.” Angela flushed.

Alex wasn’t sure if the flush was caused by her excitement or her grammatical error. No, it had to be the excitement. Which begged the question, why was she so excited about table ten? “What band?”

“Touchstone.”

“Touchstone? Did they do that song ‘Lucky Charmer’?”

“Yes.” Angela nodded so fast that Alex expected her fillings to jingle as much as the coins in Alex’s purse. “We told Cassie about you, and she agreed he would like you, and since you were going to be here waiting tables, and he was going to be here vacationing, it was perfect.”

What was perfect?

“Cassie is always right about these things. She was right about me and Finn.”

That was what was perfect. The entire town was conspiring to push her into the arms of this rock star. Alex drew a deep breath. If the entire town thought she should make a play for this not-so-bad-boy, she couldn’t disappoint them. He was mighty nice to look at and, no doubt, better to touch. Plus, he had an added acceptability factor. Angela wouldn’t be pushing her toward a married man. After being evasive about whom she was dating for the past three years, Alex needed a boyfriend her parents could meet. The fact that Marc was good looking and successful was a bonus. It wasn’t all
Dirty Dancing
and “nobody puts Baby in the corner.” And what was the worst that could happen? He wouldn’t like her? Not everybody was going to like her according to the self-help books she’d been reading. All part of the journey.

She wouldn’t mind if he liked her. That crack about the sucker bank and that he really wanted to know how she was upped his attractiveness by a factor of ten.

“I’ll talk to him and see what happens.”

“Yay!” Angela grabbed her in a typically overenthusiastic hug. “I have big news, too.”

Alex shifted, testing her ribs as Angela released her. She hoped to get through the summer without broken bones, but she wouldn’t bet on it. “Oh?”

“Finn says it’s time for us to try for a little baby brother or sister for John-John.” Angela blushed.

Once upon a time Alex had been that naive. Blushing at the thought of sex. Smiling when talking about her beloved. Believing that the one she loved wanted the best for her. Not that Finn didn’t want the best for Angela. At least the best that was in his comfort zone to give. From the outside, their marriage looked a little automated and dull. Because she was the best judge of a solid relationship, after all.

“That’s great. I’m happy for you.”

“He doesn’t like to—you know—do it when you’re in the house, though.” Angela blushed a deeper shade of crimson.

So far as Alex had been able to determine, Finn didn’t like to do anything when she was in the house except sit on the couch and watch TV. Sometimes he would eat, but only at the prescribed meal times. She couldn’t even recall him going to the bathroom when she was in the house. The poor man was going to end up with the world’s worst case of constipation by the end of the summer. “No problem. I close a couple days a week, anyway. I’ll just stay out extra late.”

Angela sighed so heavily that Alex thought she might run out of oxygen and faint. “I knew you would understand. He makes me so happy. I hope you’re as happy with Marc as I am with Finn.”

Yes, because Marc was going to fall in love with her and sweep her away from all this. The Rock Star and the Waitress. It was like the plot of a penny dreadful, emphasis on dreadful. It couldn’t hurt to try. Alex smiled. “Maybe.”

Angela hugged her again, this time without causing Alex’s ribs to creak, then hurried out to rejoin Old Reliable watching the never-ending parade of sitcoms and police procedural dramas.

Alex leaned back against the headboard for the best view of the door and the sliver of hall beyond. Maybe that was real love. The stable, permanent kind. All her life she’d been pursuing the sparks-flying, big band passion. What if it was just meatloaf on Monday and
CSI
on Tuesday with tongue
A
inserted into slot
B
every Saturday night? Or was
CSI
on Wednesdays? And if they were trying for another child, tongue
A
would be in slot
B
more frequently. Marc didn’t inspire grand passion, but he was nice enough, funny, and good-looking. He was already more than she had the right to ask for. A better investment of her time might be figuring out what kind of woman she needed to be for him. He wasn’t going to be attracted to an egghead lit major. If half the town wanted it, she should try her best. She’d done such a dandy job of choosing her own romantic partners; she should start outsourcing that task. Anybody could do a better job than she had.

* * * *

The next night, Alex sent the last customers off with a friendly good night. The air was hot and sticky, and she was looking forward to getting back to Angela’s house, getting out of her horrible heels, and going to bed. She had spent the entire evening proving the adage about never wearing new shoes without breaking them in first. Although, they had earned their price tag in increased tips. Too bad Marc hadn’t shown up to appreciate the effort. He was the whole reason for wearing them.

Two hours research last night, and another hour this morning, had yielded very little in results as to what he liked. Twenty years of photos of him with thin women in short skirts and high heels didn’t reveal a lot. She had learned his favorite color was green, but she didn’t own anything green, so that was a wash. And he liked sports, especially the big three: football, basketball, and baseball. Unfortunately, she knew nothing about sports of any kind so that wasn’t an opening. The only useful piece of information she’d gleaned was that he appreciated his privacy, which she had learned last night, listening to him ream out that woman over the phone for giving out his number. Lacking anything that would give her a conversation opener, Alex had resorted to a pair of new heels and the shortest skirt she owned and decided to play dumb on who he was and a little hard to get. A man like that had to get tired of women throwing themselves at him. Not that she could blame them. Smart, funny, hot. Any woman on his arm would feel like she’d won the relationship lottery. Damn it, now she did want him to like her. Ida and Paul had both commented that she looked pretty tonight, and then fretted about the fact that Marc hadn’t shown.