Bullies Spit On A Waitress — Unaware She Was A Commander For 10 Years!
Chapter 6
Theme:
Font Size:
24px
Donna looked at her. In thirty-one years of running a diner, Donna Harland had learned to read people the way some people read weather: she could tell you which regulars were lonely and which were just quiet; she could tell you which couples were about to break up and which ones had just remembered why they married each other; she could tell you in thirty seconds whether a new customer was going to tip or not.She looked at Claire now, and she felt something she hadn't expected: not fear, not pity—something closer to recognition. Like watching someone standing in a storm with their feet planted and their face calm, and realizing that the reason they're calm is not because they don't know what a storm is; it's because they've stood in worse ones.Frank had taken a step toward the table. Claire looked at him—one look, a small shake of her head. Frank stopped. He stood there for a moment, a seventy-two-year-old man with a bad knee and a Gulf War ribbon in a box in his closet, and he looked at Claire Harmon like he was trying to solve something. Then he sat back down, slowly.Tyler was talking to his friends now, loudly, about nothing in particular—the way you talk when you want a room to hear you and also want to seem like you don't care if they do. Brody said something about coming back tomorrow. Colt said something worse about Claire. Donna heard it; her jaw went so tight her teeth ached.And then Tyler stood up. He picked up the remaining sugar packets that Claire had put back on the table. He walked them over to the counter, past Claire, and held them out over the floor. He opened his hand; they scattered. He looked at Claire.Then he reached across to the hook beside the counter where servers hung their aprons during breaks. He took Claire's spare apron—the clean one she'd hung there at the start of her shift—and he threw it on the floor. Then he walked back slowly to his table.Donna took a breath to speak."Don't," Claire said again softly. Not to Tyler; to Donna.Donna looked at her."I'm handling it," Claire said.She walked out from behind the counter. She didn't go toward Tyler. She walked to the far end of the room, to the second booth from the door. She straightened the salt and pepper shakers on a table that hadn't been used all night. Then she moved to the next one—straightening, wiping, moving. Slowly, methodically, she worked her way toward the door side of the room.Brody didn't notice. Colt was looking at his phone. Tyler was watching Claire with narrowed eyes. Finn was watching something else entirely.