I stepped aside.
“That would be great, thanks.”
She came in and announced her name was Mia as she took off her jacket. From her white blouse and short black apron, I could see that she had probably just come over from the dining room at the Lafayette House. Mia went through my cabinets, looking for plates and such, and then expertly doled out the food. And there was a lot of it: sautéed sea scallops, hand-cut French fries, a large bowl of salad. Holy God, it looked like Felix had sent over enough food to feed a squad of hungry soldiers.
Mia washed her hands and said, “Is this okay, then?”
“It’s great,” I said. There was something about her look that just … got to me.
Couldn’t explain it.
“Do you need to go back to work?”
She shook her head. “Nope. My shift is done, thank God.”
I sat down on the near stool. Mia stood on the other side of the kitchen counter next to the three extra stools.
“This is going to sound odd, but please listen. Look at all this food.” I waved my hand around the full plates. “There’s no way I can eat all this. I won’t even be able to finish the leftovers. Please join me.”
Her eyes were warm but suspicious. “I don’t think so.”
I put a blue cloth napkin on my lap. “Mia, I’m a few days out of the hospital. Lots of people know me here in Tyler. I’m a magazine writer, and I have nothing untoward in mind. In fact, I’m so weak, I can’t even think of anything untoward. It’d be a shame to let all this food go to waste.”
I could sense her hesitation, and added, “And your time here, well, it’ll be reflected in a tip. Does that sound fair?”
A quick nod. “Yeah, it does sound fair. And Christ …”
She picked up a knife and fork and I asked, “What’s that?”
Mia started working on a scallop. “This’ll be the first time I get to eat one of the meals I serve to all those rich people that stay across the street.”
After a few awkward moments, my meal and my guest both settled down. I was hungry, but not compared to Mia, who looked absolutely starved. As she ate I learned she was an only child, came from a very small town up north called Wentworth, and had graduated from the University of New Hampshire in Durham more than three years ago with a B.A. in Journalism. Her parents had moved south outside of Porter, looking for work: Dad was a construction contractor, and Mom kept the books and did some hairdressing on the side. Still, even with her college degree, Mia couldn’t afford to work full time as a journalist.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Mia said. “The professors—all former reporters themselves—did great, and I learned a lot working on the student newspaper. I managed to get a summer internship at the paper up in Dover, but … look at me. I’m no reporter. I’m a waitress here and at another place, barely making enough not to starve, all the while my student loan debt keeps on climbing up and up.”
“Sounds rough.”
“Yeah, good word, rough. You see, as much as I learned about being a newspaper reporter, what I really should have learned is that I was getting trained for a dying industry. It’s like being an apprentice at a buggy whip factory back when Ford was setting up his first assembly line. My aunt, she used to be a reporter here thirty, forty years ago, and back then, there were lots of papers competing in this part of the state, weeklies, semiweeklies, dailies. Lots of pressure to get the news. Now? One Texas-based outfit owns all the local newspapers, so there’s no real competition.”
Mia paused, shook her head. “I do what I can. I’ve done freelance, I’ve done some web stuff, but most of them want stories for free. Ugh. Like it’s gonna give me exposure and I should be grateful for that.”
“And the waitressing?”
Another pause. “Up at the Lafayette House it’s okay. Make good tips because of the rich folks who stay there. But the other job, up in Porter. A fish shack that, for some reason, a bunch of grumpy retired cops hang out at, and the three commissioners that supposedly oversee the Porter cops. Bigger bunch of clueless jerks you’ve never seen, and they tip like shit.”
We ate some more and she said, “What’s your story?”
“Magazine columnist. Used to work for the Department of Defense. Had some surgery recently. Trying to bounce back.”
Mia nodded, looked around my house. “Cool place. Up in the dining room at the Lafayette House, you can see the top of your place. Nice and remote. And old. Am I right?”
“Built in the mid-1800s. Almost as old as I am.”
She laughed. “You’re not that old—but maybe old enough.”
A flash then, of déjà vu, and in that moment, this young lady reminded me of my Cissy Manning. Not that they looked alike: Cissy was taller, skin more pale, and she had thick red hair. No, it was her attitude, the way of carrying herself and her lack of shyness when talking to someone she had just met. That had been my Cissy, back at the Pentagon, a strong woman who could talk to anyone without any fear.
“Hey, I’m curious about something,” Mia said. “Where did you go to college?”
“Indiana University, in Bloomington.”
“How long after graduation did you wait before getting a full-time job, you know, a real job with the start of a career and benefits.”
“About a month.”
Mia’s eyes widened with amazement. “Lucky you.”
I took a sip of water, thinking of that short career, and the dead bodies of friends and a loved one left behind and forgotten. “Yeah, lucky me.”
She wouldn’t let me help her with the dishes, and when she was finished with them she packed up enough leftovers for me to have a second meal. I walked her back to my door
