Chapter 9: The Booth With the Torn Seat

Josiah's POV

The diner's booth had a torn seat, and Daphne put her finger through the tear and grinned at me.

"You were right," she said. "I hate it."

"You said you'd love it."

"I lied. It's the one lie I've told today." She picked up a menu. "Order for me. I want to see what you think I'd like."

I ordered a grilled cheese, a plate of fries, and a chocolate shake.

She ate the sandwich, and then half of mine, and then stole my fries.

I watched her do it, and I thought: I could look at her eat for the rest of my life.

I did not say so.

I told her about the laundromat instead.

The dryers had shaken the floor above it so hard that Anson once spilled a pot of tea into a keyboard.

She laughed so hard that the waitress looked over.

She told me about Ohio, and the diner there where her mother had worked nights, and the jacket.

"She wore it to the bank when we nearly lost the house," Daphne said. "She told me it was her courage suit. She got the loan."

"Did you keep the house?"

"For a while." She looked at her plate. "Then she got sick."

I did not say I was sorry, because everyone said that.

I put my hand flat on the table next to hers, so she could take it if she wanted.

She took it.

We did not go back to the office.

I walked her home, because she would not let me call a car, through six blocks of wet streets and yellow light.

Her building had no elevator.

She climbed the stairs ahead of me.

At the third floor she stopped and turned, so that for once I was looking up at her.

"This is me," she said.

"I know. I won't come in unless you ask."

"I'm asking."

She unlocked the door, and drew me in by my tie.

The apartment was small, one room with a bed under the window and a kettle on the stove.

There was a framed magazine cover on the fridge, held up by a banana-shaped magnet.

It showed three young men on a laundromat step, and one of them was me.

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