Everything, it seemed, was perfect.
She snapped open her eyes and exhaled. From there, her feet carried her to the lobby, where she slipped open the deadbolt on the front doors and pushed both of them open. Waiting to greet her at the head of the line was Mr. Hayes. He flashed her a toothy smile and adjusted the lapel of his tux jacket.
"You ready?"
"Yep. Marcy," she said to her lead hostess, who was waiting nearby. "Let’s start seating."
The young blonde nodded and immediately went to work, dispatching each of her six girls with table after table of important folks and their guests. Tracy stood back with Mr. Hayes and watched all of it with her hands clasped together so tightly that her knuckles were white.
Mr. Hayes reached around and rested his hand on the small of her back.
"Having fun yet?"
"This is supposed to be fun?"
Both of them chuckled. It was a well needed respite.
"I’m going to go check on things in the kitchen," he said and slipped his hand away. "Call me on the radio if you need anything."
Tracy nodded and watched him slip through the crowd and disappear in a matter of moments. She then turned around and walked aimlessly into the parking lot. Not far, but just enough to get away from the restless din of voices, plates and glasses.
There was a cool breeze starting to roll through the city and it grabbed onto the stray hairs that had fallen from her tight pony tail, gently fluttering them about her face. Her cheeks were still flushed, so the wind felt even colder that it would have normally. She shivered and looked to her left, where a small alley ran between her restaurant and the designer boutique next door. It led to the next street over, though Tracy didn’t make a habit of strolling through alone at night.
Just as she was about to turn around and go back in, something drew her eyes back. A little puff of smoke bubbled up from behind a streetlight. Tracy stood still and watched as another was sent up and subsequently carried away by the chilly wind.
It wasn’t until then that she noticed how quiet the rest of the block was. Aside from her bustling event, hardly a car every five minutes went by and there were even fewer pedestrians. Tracy took a step forward and looked closely.
Behind the lamp’s halo of yellow light, a familiar silhouette made her skin crawl. He was bulky, but not very tall. Maybe even an inch or two shorter than her, though if it was who she thought it was, that wouldn’t matter.
It’s him.
She rested her right hand on the car next to her, using it to propel herself forward when her feet wanted to run in the opposite direction. Tracy had to know if it was the man from her vision; the one whose identity had eluded her for almost a month. A deep, ominous feeling in the pit of her stomach seemed to already have the answer, but she had to know for sure.
Half way across the lot, the man flicked his cigarette into the street and pushed away from the pole. He started down the alley without so much as a glance her way. Tracy followed, though she kept her distance. All the while, her heart felt like it was going to pound right out of her chest. It was becoming hard for her to even breathe normally and her head felt like it would float right off of her neck. The whole world felt like it was being turned on its head.
Tracy slipped past the streetlight where he had been posted and watched as he made it half way down the alley and then abruptly stopped. Her breath caught in her throat.
Did he notice me?
For a while, he just stood there. It took about as long for Tracy to work up the nerve to go over there, but eventually she did. To her, the risk that she was taking was worth it if it meant getting the answers that she so desperately needed.
She started down the alley, inching closer to the man as the rising tide of fear grew in her chest. Finally she reached him, though she was careful to stay an arm’s distance away.
"Who are you?" her voice came out as nothing more than a squeak.
The man didn’t answer. Going against all of the alarm bells sounding in her head, Tracy reached out to him. Her fingers barely grazed the man’s tattered jacket when she spun on his heels. Tracy jumped backwards with a yelp, sure that she had made a grave mistake.
To her surprise, the man who greeted her was not the one from her dream, but rather one of the neighborhood bums. He smiled at her with a toothless (and far from sober) grin.
"Hey there, honey!"
Tracy suddenly felt like she was going to throw up. Hot tears stung the corners of her eyes and she felt the skin on the back of her neck get hot. All of the swirling emotions in her head were becoming too much for her to handle. She wondered if maybe she was losing her grip on reality; if she had gotten herself in over her head.
She backed away from the stranger, then turned and ran back to the rear of her restaurant. The tears were flowing freely from her eyes by the time she arrived, though it was only seconds later.
Plopping herself down onto the back step, Tracy buried her face into her hands and let it all out. She sobbed uncontrollably, her shoulders heaving up and down as she sucked down air between fits of anger and frustration.
It was almost an hour before she was able to pull herself back together and sneak into the bathroom to fix her makeup. The last thing that she needed was for people to think she was as crazy as she felt.
The rest of the night, though it was a very long one, went about as well as Tracy could have hoped for. The guests were pleased, her staff pulled in tips that would be hard to beat in the future and Mr. Hayes declared it a resounding success.
At almost midnight, after everyone else- including Mr. Hayes, who had to be up for a meeting the next day- had gone home, Tracy and Gordon sank down into two opposing chairs with heavy sighs. Most of the light had been turned off, leaving them in a spotty darkness that reminded Tracy of their sinful encounter just weeks before.
"Excellent work, Mr. Baxter," she said and smiled.
"Why, thank you."
He leaned back in his chair and yanked the soiled apron off of himself, throwing it down onto the floor by his seat.
"I didn’t know if you had it in you," he continued, "but I think that you handled it pretty well."
You wouldn’t say that if you had seen everything, she thought to herself.
"I don’t know about that, but I do think that we have cause for a little celebration. Maybe this week we can all go out for drinks."
Gordon Baxter laced his fingers together in front of him and said, "Why wait?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why don’t you come back to the hotel with me for a little while?"