"She Can't Speak Chinese!" Millionaire Laughed — Then the Black Waitress Spoke
Chapter 34
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Daniel seemed to understand. "Go home," he said.Maya shook her head. "My shift isn't over."Thomas gave her a look. "It is now."She almost argued, then stopped. For once, she let someone take care of her.Thirty minutes later, Maya stepped outside Harbor & Pine. Rain cooled her face. The city lights stretched across the wet pavement. She walked toward the bus stop with Daniel's card in one pocket and Richard's check in the other, but neither was the first thing she reached for. She pulled out her phone. There was one person she needed to call before any of this felt real.The bus shelter on Rainier Avenue was half full of rainwater blown in from the side. Maya sat on the narrow metal bench beneath the scratched plexiglass roof, her Harbor & Pine coat pulled tight around her shoulders. Cars moved past in long streams of white headlights and red taillights, tires hissing across wet pavement. Somewhere down the block, a bus broke down, then pulled away before reaching her stop.For the first time all evening, nobody was looking at her: no diners, no investors, no millionaire waiting for her to fail—just rain, streetlights, the damp smell of concrete, and the folded check inside her coat pocket: $100,000.Maya had not looked at it again since leaving Harbor & Pine; she was almost afraid to. Money like that belonged to another world: the world of Richard Hale's dinner, private investment negotiations, and executive folders worth more than apartment buildings. Not bus stops, not worn shoes, not a woman who had spent that morning worrying about whether Evelyn Parker understood a lease renewal.Maya unlocked her phone. Her thumb hovered over one name: Susan Parker. She pressed call. It rang twice. Then a warm, familiar voice answered:"Maya?"Just hearing her aunt say her name almost broke something open. "Hey, Aunt Susan."Susan was 61, and she had always possessed the kind of voice that made a person feel as if there was still a kitchen light on somewhere waiting for them. "You sound strange."Maya smiled faintly. "Good strange or bad strange?""Don't play with me. What happened?"Maya looked through the wet glass of the shelter. A woman across the street hurried beneath an umbrella. A delivery truck rolled through the intersection. The ordinary city kept moving."A lot."Susan waited. Maya had always loved that about her: she did not rush silence. When Maya lost her office job three years earlier, Susan had not filled the room with advice. She had shown up with groceries, sat at Maya's kitchen table, and waited until Maya could say the words she was most ashamed of: I might lose the apartment. Susan had simply answered, "Then we figure out Tuesday before we worry about Wednesday."