“Hello?” She held the cellphone tightly against her head, her slim fingers white with tension. Only moments earlier, the restaurant’s host seated the young woman in the booth across from me. She had long, black hair and delicate features. A tiny thing, she was slender and petite, and in many ways, the young woman looked like a doll – fragile, with wide, frightened eyes. Her sweater was thick cashmere; her skirt short and dark. I believe her heels were Jimmy Choos.
“No,” she said. Her voice trembled, and she closed her eyes. “I can’t talk about it on the phone. Please, just come to the restaurant.”
I tried not to be obtrusive in my scrutiny of the young woman. Instead, I pretended interest in my shrimp cocktail, yet her furtive actions and obvious discomfort snagged my attention. I averted my gaze, finding some small detail in my cutlery to examine. Out of the corner of my I eye, I saw her drop the phone into her purse and anxiously scan the restaurant. She was crying. Or at least she had been. Her pretty blue eyes were raw and red rimmed. Her pale cheeks were flushed. She held a tissue clenched in her fist and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. Her lips trembled and fear clouded her angular face. She was a pretty girl, though clearly terrified.
Around the young woman, the restaurant whirled in the hustle and bustle of a family diner at lunchtime. Teenagers spoke in whispers. Some glanced her way. Others were boisterous, laughing at jokes unheard by either of us. The young woman seemed wholly unaffected by the small diner’s crowd, drawn into her own little world of impending calamity. Whomever she spoke to on the phone would arrive at some point, and then the drama would begin. I wondered what set the young woman on edge. What was it that she feared so much that she chose a public place as a venue to disclose her secret?
Cherry Pickens 