Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33261 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33261 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
“Are you okay?” Martha asked.
“Yeah, just wondering if we’ll be closed tomorrow, or something.” Amy took a seat opposite Martha. She didn’t have leftovers or a way to make up anything. The stock was depleted and she liked to do this regularly, so there was never a risk of using out-of-date products.
“What are the chances of the same order being incorrect twice in one day?” Martha asked.
“It’s not right for it to be incorrect once in one day. I don’t know, something doesn’t feel right about this.” She shrugged.
“Maybe they were just having a bad day.”
Amy smiled. “You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. You cannot give me a time when I’ve ever been wrong.”
She couldn’t help but think about it, and trying to wrack her brain over when Martha was wrong was actually hard to do. “You know, you’re right.” Amy laughed. “I guess you are always right.”
Martha nodded her head as if it went without saying. She adored this woman so much.
Amy tried to stifle a yawn, but that was impossible. She had been spending most of her spare time with Daniel, and seeing as the bar was always open quite late, that also meant a few early mornings for her because of the café. She didn’t mind. Falling asleep in his arms was a dream come true.
“Do you think we should do anything for Penelope?” she asked, concerned for her friend.
“What would you like to do?” Martha closed her paper, folded her arms, and sat back.
“I don’t know. Find her a man, or a soul mate, or a puppy?”
Martha chuckled. “Penelope will stop when she is ready.”
“Do you think she will be able to take more heartache?” Amy asked.
“Let me ask you something. You and Daniel have been dancing around each other for well over five years, do you think he is going to cause you any level of heartache?” Martha asked.
The question was so unexpected, but at the same time it wasn’t. If this didn’t go right with Daniel, then it was going to cause her heartache. She already felt … close to him.
“What’s your point?” she asked.
Martha shrugged. “Penelope is dancing around men, thinking she is in love, and the truth is, she loves what she’s doing. She enjoys the chase of each new man, because if she didn’t, she would have stopped by now. Instead, she lives in the same town she claims to hate, having random hookups with men she doesn’t know. The tourists. Why?”
“Because she wants to find a way out of town.”
“If she wanted to be out of town that desperately, nothing would have kept her. The tourists are easy targets for her. She doesn’t want to settle down. She doesn’t want to find someone. Penelope is an amazing woman. You and I both know that, but the moment she settles down, has children, a husband, and a life here, do you know what that means?” Martha asked.
“She’s happy?”
“Yeah, she’s happy, and then she is like her mother.”
“What?”
“Her mother was the same. Always saying how much she hated Lost Creek. How she wanted to get out. She’d sleep with random tourists too. Admittedly, not quite like her daughter, but it was close, and you didn’t hear that from me.”
“But, Penelope’s mom is happily married.” Her friend was one of four children. Penelope was the second child. The eldest had gone away to college. The other two were in high school and from time to time, they would visit the café, but not often.
“And has been for as long as I’ve known her,” Amy said, but her argument had already started to lose steam, when she realized what she was saying. “I wasn’t born when she was like Penelope, because my best friend also wasn’t born.”
“And we don’t keep dragging up a person’s past. We all make mistakes. We’re all just trying to get through this life with as little pain as possible. For Penelope, all we can do is be there, and if she decides she wants to leave town, then we let her. Lost Creek will always be her home, but think about it, she could have left long ago. On a bus. With her car.”
“But she always had so many excuses.” One of them had been that she hated riding buses, and there was no way she was leaving town on a bus. Another argument had been that she didn’t want to leave because her car wasn’t in a good state. Then, after she got her car fixed, she couldn’t leave because she had spent all her money fixing her car, and now she had to save up. That argument was the last one Amy remembered hearing a few years ago.
Penelope got a lot of tips, because even though she was a pain in the ass, when she buckled down and got the job done, she was one hell of a waitress.