Trapped in Forever

18 ~ Golf Makes Everyone Antsy

A/N: The girl that is mentioned, Adrienne, is from one of my very talented friend's novel, Bad Enough for You! Her characters also had a little camero in the last chapter as well. :) I encourage to check her story out!

When I grasped my hand around the thick, metal handle and pushed my hip against the wooden center just below the window pane with Mo’s written in fading and chipping gold paint, the door scraped against the floor tiles, scuffed and worn in a crescent like shape, and the dark golden bell hovering over the top of the door chimed as I shoved it open, wondering why Mo couldn’t afford a smaller, lighter door. As soon as I stepped one of my TOMS clad feet over the scuff marks, I was met with the sounds of dishes clattering together, being dumped into busboy carts with rusty, squeaking wheels, and the voices merging together into one, strident sound, and the sweet, thick scent of icing.

Laid over my arm was Orion’s jacket, pressed against my side as I watched waitresses adorning gold and black outfits dashing past me, flashing me a quick index before disappearing out of sight behind the white, swinging door, a rectangular window off to the left side giving glimpses of tresses of hair pressed down beneath shabby hairnets. Out of the corner of my eye, as I glanced at the door as it swung, flying back and thumping against something, I could see heavyset men, dressed in leather jackets two sizes too small, hunched over the bar, eyes glued to the television screen covering a golf game. They would throw their arms up in the air, shouting, when the ball would just barely miss the hole, rolling away somewhere else on the green pastures.

The third or fourth time my eyes subconsciously flickered over to the door, concealing the source of the distant sounds of sizzling, clanging, and muffled orders being shouted, and after I stepped aside after a woman, with frizzy, fiery red hair and drained, glassy eyes tapped me on the shoulder as she tried wheel her double stroller through the doorframe, I saw a palm press against the rectangular window, the heel hidden from view and fingers turning kind of yellowish compelled against the glass.  As the door swung open, again, I grasped the collar of the jacket, but instead of Orion, a man in a white, but slightly stained, shirt stepped out, head still turned in the direction of the kitchen as he shouted something, hand still on the door, and as he bellowed, I realized that this was Oliver, the one who berated Sarah-Anne about her smoking. I remembered, briefly, that he was tied into owning Mo’s somehow, when he turned his head away from the kitchen and then, after a short scan of the dining area, found me.

He paused, bringing a finger to his lips, as a frown crushed his features as he stared at me across the dining area, waitresses and patrons passing in between us and blocking our view, only to discover, once they passed, that we were still staring. Then he grinned, seemed to snap his fingers, and trotted over to me, nearly bumping into a preteen with dark blue hair extensions that were beginning to slip out of her black hair, head tilted down to stare at her iPhone, donned in a case dotted with little, white skulls.

“Amanda, right?” he called when he got within earshot, raising his eyebrows as he came to a stop in front of me, and he smiled again. “Sarah-Anne’s friend?”

As I heard these words, I bit down on my lower lip, and let out a breath, glancing over Oliver’s shoulder which blocked my view of the kitchen door, white and swaying, feeling out bouts of aromas of oil and sugar and the sounds of sizzling, running water, and clattering of glass dishes. I wasn’t sure why, but my heart sank a little deeper into my body—as if it were in the right place to begin with—when I heard this. Lately, I didn’t feel like anyone’s friend, let alone someone I barely knew who stuffed crayons behind her ear and couldn’t kick smoking. Instead of spending Friday nights at sleepovers, gossiping about boys and their kaleidoscope eyes that left you with the giddy eruption of butterflies in your stomach and about reality TV shows and watching chick flicks with Ryan Reynolds, I spent them lying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, absorbing silence and the quiet “discussions” between my parents about Mikayla through thin walls.