Jonah Havensby (6 page)

A teenage girl in a waitress uniform had just placed some plates full of food in front of some two overweight men wearing thick flannel shirts. “Hey,” she said to Jonah as she walked over and leaned on the counter in front of him, “All by yourself today, huh?”

“No,” Was the only thing that came out of his mouth.

“No, huh?” She said with a smile.

“I mean,” Jonah stammered. “My dad is just at a meeting and told me to…” And he pointed in no particular direction out the window.

“Easy there.” She said with a wider grin. “I’m just teasing. What can I get you?”

Jonah pulled out the five dollars and put it on the counter. “How much is hot chocolate?”

“Oh, you’ve got plenty for that,” she said.

She turned, didn’t have to move but a step or two, and put a mug under a hot chocolate dispenser. She turned back and put it in front of him. Jonah relished the warm feeling of the cup in his hands.

The waitress took the five dollar bill to the register, rang it in and returned with two dollars and dropped that in front of him as well.

“Do you want marshmallows with that?” she said, once again, leaning on her elbows in front of him.

“Yes!” He said almost too eagerly. “I mean, sure,” he added trying not to be so excited.

She smiled and reached under the hot chocolate dispenser and brought out a bag of mini-marshmallows. “Say when,” she said and began dropping a handful in.

She had practically filled the cup. “Really?” She asked smiling.

“Okay, stop.” Jonah said with a blush and an awkward smile.

She laughed. “No problem. Looks good to me”.

A bell rang and Jonah instinctively looked toward the door. The last bell he heard had sent him into a panic. But this time, no one was coming through the door. The bell was a sound from the kitchen. The waitress, whose name was Jenna, according to her name tag, turned and picked up some plates of food and took them off to a table near the back.

Jonah raised the glass of hot chocolate and tasted it. It was amazing. It was warm and tasted great, but he found that the marshmallows had soaked up a lot of it. He put the cup down, not really wanting to take his cold hands off of it, and picked up a spoon. He mashed the marshmallows around in the cup and then spooned some into his mouth. Wow! That was even better.

Jenna returned and resumed her spot, putting her elbows on the counter and balancing her chin in her hands. She was very pretty. She had dark brown hair that was swept up into a ponytail and she had light brown eyes that really popped because of the eye makeup she was wearing. It seemed like she had really long eye lashes. She looked like she was probably seventeen or eighteen, only a few years older than himself, really, but she seemed older.

“So,” she said. “Do you want a piece of pie with that?”

Jonah looked at her, then down at his remaining money. “Is pie two dollars?” He asked. “That’s all I have left.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about how much pie is?” She said with a wide grin, but took his two dollars anyway. “Do you want apple or cherry? You can have a slice of the chocolate mousse, but that might put you on overload.”

Jonah was sick to death of fruit. He almost turned her down. “Can I have the chocolate one?” He asked with another blush.

“See,” she said walking toward the pie caddy. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

She returned with an oversized portion of chocolate pie and put it in front of him, then retrieved a fork from under the counter.

Jonah attacked it. He couldn’t remember anything being so good. He looked up and found her looking at him again. “Didn’t get lunch today, huh? Your dad must have forgotten?” She said.

“No,” he sputtered again. “I just wasn’t hungry until just right now.” He blushed with the lie.

“I get that. Chocolate does the same thing for me.” And with the sound of the bell, she was gone again.

Later, he had polished off the pie, slowing himself down purposefully. He had decided to take small bites and then over-chewed them, even though what he really wanted to do was lick the plate clean. He thought that by playing this little game, he might pass himself off as a kid waiting for his father as opposed to the starving homeless kid he was. Jonah was now scooping the last melty marshmallows out of the cup. Jenna had let him eat in peace, but now she was back, leaning on the counter.

“You want another one?” she said.

Jonah stared dumbly at her. He was already more full than he had been all week, but could he really say no? Would she catch on to him if he said yes? “Um…” he said mulling it over. He looked at the clock and saw that he’d been there for an hour and a half already. “I don’t have any more money.”

She leaned in over the counter, close to his face. “See that guy over there. At the end of the counter?” she said in a hushed voice.

Jonah leaned in to look, but couldn’t see past the other people at the counter, so he leaned back instead. There was a heavy-set man sitting at the end of the counter. He was wearing a trucker cap and a thick brown sweater and had a thick beard. Jonah leaned back to the counter and nodded conspiratorially.

“He just gave me a ten dollar tip!” she said in a quiet voice, but with a bright smile. She pulled the bill out of her apron and snapped it. “Buys a lot of pie.” And then she leaned back, finishing their secret conversation.

Jonah didn’t know what to do. Agree or disagree. Say yes or no. He purposely looked at the clock this time and said “I have to go meet my dad. His meeting is over by now.”

Jenna looked up at the clock. “Oh. Sorry,” she said. “I guess I didn’t realize what time it was.” The apology sounded sincere. Maybe she wasn’t on to him. “What’s your name anyway?”

“Jonah,” He said. Then thought maybe he shouldn’t use his real name. But it was out there now.

“I’m Jenna,” she said. “Does your dad have a lot of meetings around here?”

Jonah shook his head and then shrugged. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.

“If he does you should come back here. We have hot chocolate here all winter.” She said.

“Um, okay,” was all he managed.

“Bundle up.” She said. “It’s supposed to drop below freezing tonight.”

He stood up and zipped up his coat, then flipped the hood up as well.

Jonah looked up and down the diner. He didn’t really want to go, but knew he couldn’t stay. “Bye,” he said, sounding a little defeated.

“See you later.” Jenna said, and then the bell rang again.

Jonah opened the door and was met by a biting cold wind. He hunched himself further down in his jacket and stuffed his hands deep into the pockets. As he walked, it seemed like the sun was going down early. By the time he was back at his warehouse, it was dark, even though it was probably only five at night.

He retrieved his pack and swung it up on the dumpster. When he climbed the dumpster this time, the cold actually hurt his hands. When he dropped inside, there was no welcome from Grouchy. He probably moved on to somewhere warmer, or was too warm in his litter-nest to risk raising his head.

Jonah kicked a small chunk of concrete across the floor as he went to the stairs, making a little game out of it, like it was a soccer ball. When he got to the stairs, he picked it up and brought it up to the office. He closed the door, pushed the lock, and dropped his pack and the piece of concrete on the desk. He didn’t take off his coat.

He took out the tablet and plugged it in the outlet near the nest, which gave the room a small, soft glow. Then took out his water bottle and put that near the tablet. He thought about going to the bathroom and washing his face, but throwing cold water on his cold face didn’t sound appealing.

Picking up the concrete rock, he turned it over in his hand, then looked at the floor of the office. He was developing a game in his head. He walked over to the far wall, near the office door and used the concrete to etch a large circle into the wood floor. Then he went and sat in his nest, but from there, he could hardly see the circle in the dark, so he moved the tablet up on the control panel and faced it toward that end of the room. That was better.

He then sat down and put the concrete chunk on the floor in front of him. He spun it one way and then the other. Then he looked across at the circle. He shoved the chunk across the room, but he shoved too hard. It passed the circle, hit the wall and spun off toward the corner.  He got up, retrieved the rock and tried again. He almost made it in the circle a few times.

He got up and went down to the main floor. “Sorry, Grouchy,” he said in the general direction of his neighbor’s corner. He then went searching around the room for more items for his game. He came up with two smooth stones and three similar chunks of concrete to the one he already had.

He went up the steps, closed and locked the office door, picked up the first rock of concrete from near the circle and sat down in his nest again. He divided his game pieces, the two smooth stones on the right, and the four pieces of concrete on the left. He picked up one of the stones and slid it across the floor. It didn’t make it to the center of the circle, but it did slide into it.

He threw his hands up in the air and half-yelled “And the crowd goes wild!” and hooted and hollered like there was a stadium full of onlookers who were just as excited as he was.

The other stone made it in as well, but he found that the chunks of concrete, with their ragged edges and differing weights, had to be pushed with a little more leverage. He decided the new game would be ‘which team could get closer to the center: stones or chunks’. When he looked at the clock again, he’d found that he’d played for more than an hour and was kind of getting bored with it. He was also getting really cold, even with his coat still on.

He wrapped himself up in his nest and read the book samples on the tablet until he fell asleep shivering.

When he woke up the next morning, the first thing he registered was pain. It felt like the area behind his eyes was on fire. He had never had such a headache. When he opened his eyes, his vision blurred. He rubbed at his eyes until they cleared. The second thing he registered was that he was really warm. No, he was downright boiling.

He sat up and found himself in his boxer shorts, his clothes neatly folded on the control panel. When the cold air hit his exposed skin, he immediately dove back under the furniture cover that he used as a blanket, but it was still much warmer than it ever had been. And much heavier.

He sat up and moved the furniture cover and found that he was wrapped in a blanket, a hot blanket. His eyes trailed across it and then to the outlet in the wall. There was another plug in the outlet, above the one for the tablet. He had been wrapped up in a heated electric blanket.

He immediately threw it off him and jumped up to his clothes. He hurriedly dressed, bent over to stay as far out of sight of the windows as possible, but kept peering down onto the main floor the entire time. Who would have brought him an electric blanket?

When he was dressed he threw the door to the office open and looked around. It didn’t seem that anything was different. And hadn’t the lock on the knob popped when he tore the door open? Someone brought him an electric blanket but then bothered to lock him back in for safety?

Just then, he fell to one knee and grabbed his head. In his fear, he had ignored the pain behind his eyes, but now it was back, and it was brutal. His vision blurred once more.

He stood up, braced by the stairway railing, and moved back into the office. He was headed for his water bottle next to the nest. What he found was two loaves of bread and a jar of peanut butter. His water bottle was on the desk next to his pack.

He had another moment of panic. He grabbed his coat and put it on then threw the water bottle into his pack and ripped the tablet from the wall. Then he was gripped by another bout of pain and had to steady himself on the desk. When it subsided back to a dull ache, he whipped the pack onto one shoulder and turned for the door.

Something hit the floor next to the desk when he pulled his pack off of it. He moved to that side of the desk and looked down. It was a spiral-bound notebook opened to the first page. Scrawled across the top of the page in black ink were two words:

Better Now

Jonah put the tablet down on the desk and picked up the notebook. He stared at the words. They were outside the lines and weren’t level with each other. He closed the notebook cover and looked at it. He didn’t recognize it. He hadn’t brought it with him. He turned it over and looked at the back. He opened the front cover and stared at the words again. They were true. But that wasn’t really the point.

He went to the windows and looked out again. No one seemed to be hiding downstairs. Maybe they were outside. But why do this at all? It didn’t make sense.

He opened the notebook and looked at the words again. They were blocky and appeared to be scratched into the paper as if whoever wrote it pushed too hard. He turned the page over to see how hard the indention went through, but then discovered something new.

On the second page, written in a fine, curly print, very neatly and perfectly set within the lines were three short sentences.

You’re perfectly safe. Not to worry. The tablet works now.

He looked at the tablet then at the words. He dropped the notebook on the floor and turned on the tablet. After a moment, the ‘welcome’ screen lit. He didn’t see anything different. What did the note mean? The tablet did work. It had worked since he found it.

Then he noticed. In the top right corner, the wireless internet icon wasn’t red, as it usually was. It was green.

V

Jonah didn’t know what to do. In a panic, he stuffed his belongings into his backpack and took off down the stairs, leaving only the new food, the electric blanket and the nest he had made from the furniture covers.

In what felt like seconds, he was down the stairs and out the window.

When he reached the ramp outside, he had to stop. He doubled over in pain again. It was like a sharp stick was poking his left eye from the inside. His quick pace to get outside wasn’t helping. It felt like he’d never catch his breath.