Schemes Come to Naught novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Sunday at Navarro's

On Sunday I drove to Parsons Avenue without deciding to.

For ten years I had eaten at Navarro's every Sunday at one o'clock.

My hands steered the Audi there on their own.

I sat in the car outside for ten minutes with the engine off.

Then I saw Carmen through the front window, wiping down table four.

She looked up and saw me.

She pointed at the door with her rag.

Twelve tables, all full.

Every head turned when the bell rang.

I knew half of them by first name, the retired postal worker and the two sisters who ordered flan before dinner, and the man who brought his crossword.

Nobody said hello.

"Sit," Carmen said.

She pointed at the corner table I had sat at for a decade.

I sat.

She walked into the kitchen without another word, and a plate came out in three minutes, because she had never made me wait.

Arroz con pollo, with the burnt edges she saved for me.

She set it down, put a fork beside it and stood over me with her arms crossed.

"Eat," she said.

"Carmen, I know I shouldn't be..."

"Eat."

I ate.

It was the best thing I'd tasted in weeks, and that made it worse.

The room was very quiet.

A fork scraped somewhere.

Carmen waited until I'd cleaned half the plate.

Then she pulled out the chair across from me and sat down, slowly, with a hand on her back.

"I'm not going to curse you," she said. "My daughter told me not to, and she's right, you're not worth the breath."

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