Page 27 of The Disputed Legacy
I shrugged.
I couldn’t deny that Saul excited me. Having his attention on me had given me a renewed sense of mattering, but not in the same manner that I’d been taught to view the opposite sex. My parents had been extremely controlling about how I could ever view men or spend time with boys when I was younger. This was all new. Meeting Saul was a thrill I hadn’t navigated before, and I wasn’t ready to have it end.
That night, it seemed like it had ended.
He didn’t show.
Then the next night, he was absent again.
Oscar, of course, noticed. “Where do you think he is, Mama?” he asked from his booth as he did his homework.
“I’m not sure,” I replied honestly, keeping my tone neutral. And how could I begin to guess where Saul could be? I had no clue where he lived, what his job was, where he worked, or anything else. For all I knew, he could’ve been passing through New York and traveling, never to be seen again at Tiny’s diner.
For the rest of the week, I lost more and more hope that he’d just show up out of the blue like he had that first rainy night.
And he didn’t.
Margo noticed his absence. Irene and Rosie did too. That was how much of an obvious connection we’d been forming while not committing to anything. They all saw how he wasn’t here anymore, trying to talk to me or helping Oscar with homework.
“Well,” Irene said when we were talking near the end of my shift at the end of the week, “what’d you say to him to spook him off?”
She was rude to say it like that, but it didn’t change the fact that I had said something that clearly pushed him away.
“Stop,” Rosie said, too sweet not to come to my defense. “Why does it have to be her fault that he’s not coming around anymore?”
Irene smirked. “Because he was obviously only coming here to see her. What is it? You turned him down?”
“No. That couldn’t be it,” Rosie protested, truly naïve. “He was just here to eat and liked talking to her.”
“No, Rosie,” Irene drawled, exasperated. “A man only looks at a woman like Saul watched her when they want them.Reallywant them, and not to bring a meal out from the kitchen.”
Rosie blushed and didn’t add anything else.
I hated that Irene was likely right. That Saul wasn’t coming by anymore because he’d lost interest in me after I told him I wasn’t dating anyone right now. That I didn’t want to put myself out there to date anyone.
See? He was just after me for sex. That settles it.
I’d taken a risk to offer him friendship, nothing more. That was my pace of letting him be in my life at all, and that slowness, that basic level of companionship wasn’t good enough for him.
Because he wanted more.
He expected more.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told them, lying bluntly.
Deep down, itdidmatter. To me.
It hadn’t been much, just existing in each other’s orbit and being aware of the other, but that was an important baby step for me, a woman who stubbornly and instantly avoided allowinganyoneto get close.
Despite the nagging assumptions that Saul had lost interest in me after I suggested we be friends, I missed him. Even though my good-night kiss hadn’t been enough to show him my version of lukewarm compassion, as a friend, I wished I could see him again.
Just once more. He had appeared almost as if I’d dreamed him up, and now he was gone again, leaving me to the dull day-to-day existence of doing nothing but working and being too afraid to ever let anyone in.
12
SAUL
Most of our interactions with the Romano Family were resolved between us.
