David
Cara slept in the car all the way home. David reclined the passenger seat for her and drew a throw he kept in the car, over her. Her sleep was real and deep. Tommy and Marissa huddled to one side, which was fine for them because they were inseparable.
From years of a life in clubs, David had developed the ability to function like he had a full eight hours sleep when he only had a few. Tommy and Marissa were sort of the same, but his sweet Cara was wiped out.
He decided she didn’t need to go to work and that she really needed to have a day to recover. A day to spend with him. Selfish? Yes, but sometimes being selfish was okay.
“Where does she work?” he asked his friends in the backseat.
“The Peppermill in Sunnyvale,” answered Tommy.
“Oh, like that place in Vegas?”
“Yep, you went with us once,” Tommy reminded him. “It’s that twenty-four-hour joint that we went to after a show.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said replying. “Cara?” He tried to wake her.
“Mmm?” she replied sleepily.
“Mind if I get you the night off?” he asked. “Can I go to your work and get you some time off?”
“Yeah, sure,” she replied, though he wasn’t quite sure she was fully awake.
“After hearing you two last night, I think she’d say yes to just about anything,” said Tommy.
David flashed a look of mischief in the rearview mirror.
“Maybe we should test that out.”
He and Tommy laughed.
“What can I say? She’s a cutie,” said David.
Without traffic, Pacific Heights, where he lived, was only forty minutes away from Sunnyvale. On the way to San Jose and the recording studio, David asked his voice activated GPS for directions to the Peppermill.
They pulled off the highway a few exits before San Jose and slammed into the Saturday morning bustle of Silicon Valley. It took them a half an hour to move four miles. When the Peppermill was in view, Tommy and Marissa pointed it out.
“There it is,” they said in unison.
David parked and rolled down the windows.
“Now, no barking at strangers,” he joked to his friends. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He entered the restaurant with his head purposely focused down. He was a multimillion dollar musician voted number twenty of rock’s all-time best drummers by Rolling Stone Magazine. His celebrity was bittersweet because he got famous with a band that reached cult adoration when the front man committed suicide.
He might get mauled in the restaurant or might slip in and out without incident. He never knew what to expect. He only wanted one person to recognize him and that was Cara’s manager when he explained to him or her that she was not coming into work today.
He stood at the counter waiting for assistance. Familiar whispers came from the nearby diners. He pretended not to notice. A hostess arrived at her podium.
“One?”
“No. I’m not eating. May I speak to a manager?” he asked politely.
She picked up the phone to summon someone. A guy in his late twenties approached. David watched the guy’s face transform from stern to giddy. This guy recognized him. David inwardly smiled because his ploy would work.
“Hey,” David said bumping fists with the man. “You have an employee named Cara Blomquist?”
“Yeah,” stuttered the manager. “I think so. I mean, yeah. Are you? Are you…?”