Elma could not help the way she felt. The bowl of yellow-flavoured cream sitting in front of her would have to wait. As the door by the entrance opened up to admit a new customer, Elma felt the rush of cold air weave into the Bistro. She twisted a turn and in less than a minute, she was wrapping her polka dot scarf about her neck. Elma thought that the undertone was far too mucky a brown that it could complement her denim overall, but it would need to suffice. Except, not him.
'Great!' Elma scoffed to herself, digging her spoon into her bucket of delicious yoghurt, she stole a scoop.
"You didn't seem like you were going to eat that a while ago," the intruder said, admitting his weak butt into the same divan as her, in a casual souse. "I've been watching you from the corner over there," he poked his finger out, his very round nose swooping upfront along with his gaze, "over there you looked lonely, so I thought to myself—" he was looking right back at her when he decided to say, "Hi! You can call me Dan."
Elma rejected his handshake.
"Danny, am I correct?" Elma said, half as polite, half as irritated. "If you do not mind me saying, I think you could use a wash."
"What?" Elma saw his furrows deepen once he'd half shut his mouth with his hand over, sizzling in his own breath. "Are you saying I stink?" the boy asked.
"Hey, don't blame me," Elma, throwing her head back, let her eyes dim in view of him while she said, "I'm just being nice; garlic, plus onions, plus grilled fish and, is that prawns I smell? No, it must be the sausage or whatever. But either way, I think—"
The boy was already up on his toes. Wincing a frustrated grin at her, he left. Elma could sense how badly his pride was hurt, she could from his gait despite how very-in-control he was walking off to his former table. She should pity him but it was all his fault. Elma thought he shouldn't go about bothering girls simply because their seats weren't taken.
"So, I take it that you're never going to own a boyfriend?" Someone said someone that wasn't the first high schooler who'd just left her table in dejection. This person was someone Elma was perfectly happy to see, only that her pale, soggy face would not let it show.
She let him walk his stealthy, sweaty self over to her side. Once he'd slid into the cushion, his arm swung over her shoulder, she allowed it.
"You never used to damage people's hearts before."
"Shut it, Teddy," Elma said, yanking her ice cream bowl away before he could aim for it. "What do you think you know about girls like me? Not even my mood right now is a pride to me."
"And is that why you're troubling your senses, worrying over milk that's already been spilled?"
"I didn't order a glass of milk, it would just make me cringe, and then I would cry, and then I would shout my lungs out, jumping onto the tabletop till the entire Vletzela got pulled over to this side. It could all be too dramatic to even think about. Still, I cannot believe I actually lost my shot at the job."
Ted, wrapping his mouth to the side, became thoughtful of how important this job had possibly meant to her. Being her cousin, though not any related as grain was to peas, he had tried to be a listening buddy and a friend. Though he knew how badly she wanted to prove a point to his father, Howard, by clinching a spot in the Di Mauro's for a change, Ted felt she didn't have to be so dramatic about losing out on the interview. She was always going to get accepted elsewhere, she could go multinational in a snap of a finger, she was that smart, she could soar the skies and be anything she freaking wanted to be. She was Elma Grey.
"Just so you know," Ted began, sipping off her nearly liquified yoghurt broth, "I never thought you were pretty when you cried."
"But I'm not crying!" Elma yelled.
"You're not?"
"No," she, darting her hand to touch her lids, frantically wiped off the smudge she could spot. "Something must have gotten into my eyes," she contested, "a crumb of dust, most likely."
"Right." Ted kicked the bowl away, turning to her. "Are you set to go home now? I got here at exactly 7.45? You know how he gets with you being out this late and for no good reason."
"For no good reason, you said?" Elma could feel her nerves shooting tall. "Do you agree then, that I have no reason to be like this? To go back home to change my clothes just so I could wallow in pain, silently, at this place, for The LAst THREE HOURS STRAIGHT!?"
She'd stabbed her palm against the table, but Ted simply sank in the divan, folding his arms, unperturbed.
"I think," he smacked a bit of his saliva onto his pale pink lips. "I think that you can hitch a job, an even better one at any other establishment in the state."
"But not with them, Ted," Elma said in a silvery voice, bending her head in shame. "I will never get another chance. But the more I contemplated deeply, I could never fathom what I particularly did wrong. All he did was insinuate that I had a boyfriend and that I was waving him when…" she trailed off, reminiscing.
"Why did you stop there?" Ted asked, "Did he think that maybe," he was leaning closer, "that maybe I was your boyfriend? Was that why he didn't give you a chance at an interview?"
"It wasn't anything like that," Elma intervened. "None of it matters. It was never your fault!"
"Was it, though?" Ted dropped the talk when he saw her look away. The view of the tall street lamp just outside sharded the Bistro against the rest of the boulevard. "I think we should get up and leave."
Elma looked him over her shoulder and did as he'd said, slinging her bag over her shoulder.
"Sure you'll feel a bit better after this," Ted said, assuringly, as soon as he got in front of her to open the oil-painted brown wooden door. They had reached the house.
"I don't know, Ted," Elma said, looking about the tidy compact environment— a short white fence sparsely a couple of steps from where they now stood on the topmost rung of the short cavalcade of polished white stairs. Elma flitted her gaze back to him. "I doubt Marilyn would be happy to see me in such a state. I bet she still doesn't know that I lost out on the job?"
"Don't look at me," Ted protested as though he was getting plaintiff-ed. "I barely got off work when I followed your call over to the restaurant," he said.
"It's fine. I thought you wouldn't have talked about it with her."
"Well, not the heartbreak, no. But I did tell her about your dashing out for an important interview."
"Right." Elma twirled her mouth over to one side. "I didn't meet anyone at home when I first got back, it was much easier then, to deal with the ache alone. But now, with everyone in? It's guaranteed, Ted, I am so going to freak out."
"Or not!"
Ted, busting open the front door, had shoved her right into before she could even say, Jack!
At first, Elma avoided his grip, squirming and squeezing her hand away. But Ted's hold was solid. She could only mutter an "I don't want to!" and "I'm in no mood for dinner tonight!" as an adverse form of protest. They soon glided off the floors of the entryway and into the diversion that led off to the dining kiosk. The loud spices blinded her nostrils as did the noisy chatters dent her ears. It was all so surreal and Elma was trying to figure out the cause for a celebration when she heard the felicitous slogan of the Hughes: SURPRISE! SURPRISE!!
"We're so proud of you, Elma." Her aunt Marilyn reached her first and planted a subtle kiss upon her wispy Auburn hair. "Congrats on your new job, Huni."
"What job?" Elma asked, quickly pulling away. The crinkled lines on her forehead were enough to quench every tinge of excitement lingering in the air.