You'll Just Know

Chapter 23

            Later that afternoon, I performed my dishwashing duties with robot-like, unthinking motions while my mind was busy rewinding and replaying the highlights of the day’s events. My entire torso was sore, and a nasty black-and-blue splotch had begun to form where Chad’s blow had landed. It was very easy to forget, though, in light of everything else that had happened...

            I remembered thrillingly the way Wendy had grasped my hand, and I tried desperately to recapture that electric moment in my thoughts. Behind all of this, the wheels and gears of my mind were churning out questions by the truckload: What did this mean? What was Wendy doing right now? (Was she thinking about me?) How will things be different now? And on, and on, and on...

            I reached into the bin on my right and picked up another dirty plate. I sprayed off the leftover food, then dunked the plate into soapy water. With practiced ease, I scrubbed it clean, rinsed it off, then placed it in the rack to my left. I reached again to my right and picked a dirty glass from the bin...

            I couldn’t wait to see Wendy again. I thought about risking another trip to her window, but then thought better of it. The rain the other night had frozen up in some places. I could just see myself sliding wildly off her roof as I tried to get across.

            Smiley appeared for a moment to my left. He extracted two clean plates from the rack and toweled them off, then disappeared wordlessly with them. Cora appeared with another bin of dirty dishes and placed them to the right of the one I had almost emptied. I hardly noticed as I swam in my cloud of thoughts.

            Maybe I could risk a call to her. Surely Mr. Cameron had calmed down a bit since the summer. Maybe he’d even forgotten about me altogether! Wishful thinking, I knew.

            After a moment, I realized that Cora was still standing next to me, watching me. I pulled myself from my thoughts self-consciously and looked at her. When I turned to face her, I saw her standing there with her arms crossed, a thin smirk on her lips.

            “What?” I asked.

            “I’m waiting.” Cora said, still staring at me and now tapping her foot expectantly.

            I turned off the water so I could hear her better. “Waiting for what?”

            Cora smiled knowingly. “Don’t play dumb with me, boy-o. I want to hear what happened.”

            So much had happened that day, in fact in the past few days since I’d seen Cora, that I honestly had no idea which she was referring to. “What do you mean?” I asked, hoping for more guidance.

            Cora leaned up against the counter and pointed towards the kitchen door which led out into the dining area. “Chad Wright is out there right now, ranting and raving like a lunatic.”

            Hmmm...

“About what?” I asked innocently.

            “About you... or, more specifically, what exactly he’s going to do to you when he next gets his hands on you.”

            I was shocked to find that that news elicited no emotional response from me. I remained unfazed. (There were other, bigger things on my mind...) “Hmmm…” I said casually. “You don’t say?”

            Cora smiled more broadly now. “Yup. Apparently he doesn’t know that you work here, either.”

            I shrugged. “Not many people do. I never get out of this kitchen.”