Chapter 4: Ash Street

The Ash Street diner had a cracked red booth in the back corner, and four women sat in it waiting for me.

I knew every one of them.

The first woman had come to us ten years ago, when she was twenty-four and could not tell a salad fork from a dessert fork.

The woman from year four had a dragon tattoo on her wrist that I had once told her to cover at dinner.

The woman from year seven had brought me a cake the day she left, and I had never understood why.

The woman from year nine sat on the end, twisting a napkin, and I had taught her to hold a wine glass by the stem only last October.

"Daphne," the first woman said, and slid over to make room. "Sit."

I sat.

None of them looked guilty, and none of them looked afraid.

They looked ready.

"I owe you all an apology," I said. "I trained you to sit at his table and smile. I thought I was being kind."

"You were kind," the woman from year four said. "That was the problem."

"What?"

"He told us you wanted us there."

I stared at her.

The woman from year nine pulled out her phone and put it on the table, with a message already open on the screen.

It was from Bancroft.

Daphne asked me to find her some company this year. She's lonely and she's too proud to say it. Be nice to her. Don't let her see you're nervous.

I read it twice.

"He told every one of us the same thing," the first woman said. "That you'd asked. That you were the one who picked us."

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