LJ Idol, Season 9, Week 14: Confession from the Chair
The bell jingled, and the door opened, heralding the arrival--finally!--of a customer. Crossing the diner slowly, she bobbed her head this way and that, savoring every sight and smell, until her attention landed on the lone waiter behind the counter. She bounded over like a puppy, hopped onto a stool, and dropped her oversized purse in the one next to her, remarking to him, "Well aren't you a tall drink of water?" Her hand clamped over her mouth and her eyes immediately widened. "Oh, no! Did I actually say that out loud?"
The waiter blushed and shrugged.
"I know that boys your age kind of like to be objectified, but it's really not okay," she said. "Anyway, I'm a feminist, and I don't want to be a hypocrite."
He shrugged again, this time smiling a little.
"Please say something," she begged, "so I can quit prattling on like this?"
"What would you like me to say?"
"Thank you!" She touched his arm and yanked herself away the instant she realized what she was doing.
"Would it help if I took your order, ma'am?"
Her nose crinkled. "It would help if you didn't call me ma'am," she said, fiddling with a salt shaker. "I feel old enough as it is."
"You're not old," he replied.
"You're so sweet." She added, "Besides, I already know who you are, so there's no need to be so formal."
The waiter stiffened. "How do you who I am?"
She tapped her left breast. "Nick."
It was Nick's turn to be embarrassed as he looked down at his nametag. "Ah. Well can I get you something to drink, then?"
"I'll have a tall drink of water--dammit! I mean..."
"I'll be right back," he chuckled.
While she waited, she unscrewed the salt shaker with a quivering hand while the other flipped through the menu. She jumped a little when the glass touched down on the counter in front of her.
"What brings you all the way out here?" Nick asked.
"I couldn't resist," she nearly squealed, her nervousness dissolving instantly as she spun around in her stool, pointing. "Look at this! Out here in the middle of nowhere, a tiny chrome and glass building with a big, groovy, atomic-age sign that says, 'High Point Cafe,' and inside--these colors, the lava rocks, the curves and angles... raw Americana!" She concluded, "This place is perfect."
"That's the idea," he said. "We're not exactly in the middle of nowhere, though.
She craned her neck to peer through all the windows, but all she saw were trees and a two-lane highway. "Really?"
He pointed his thumb toward the kitchen. "That lake there behind us is the Powhatan Reservoir."
"Let me guess..."
"Flake, New York," he told her. "Population eight-thousand-something; government shipped them out in 1957. This is the only building left, because--"
"It's the high point." She shook her head. "That's kind of tragic."
"It's not like I was here when it happened."
When he turned to gaze outside for a second, she knocked the shaker over, but since he hadn't noticed, she decided to play it cool and pretend it never happened. "So," she announced, "I think I might be up for dessert today. How's your cherry pie?"
"We're all out of cherry pie," he confessed.
"No problem," she replied. "I'm sitting in Americana, I can be all-American. How's the apple pie?"
"We're all out of apple pie."
"What about the lemon meringue?"
"We're all out of lemon meringue."
"Blueberry?"
"We're all out of blueberry pie."
"Strawberry rhubarb?"
"We're all out of strawberry rhubarb pie."
"I've always been more of a cake person, anyway. Do you have carrot cake?"
"We're all out of carrot cake."
"Chocolate?"
"We're all out of chocolate cake."
"I've obviously caught you at a bad time," she said. "I'll just settle for a bowl of ice cream."
"We're all out of ice cream."
"In that case," she breathed, "what do you have?"
He smirked. "Why don't you come on back to the break room and I can show you?"
She bit her lip, sucked in a lungful of air, and braced herself on the stool. "Oh, Nick," she moaned, "you are just oozing with charisma, aren't you? What did you roll for that? Sixteen? Seventeen?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Right. You probably don't have a lot of role-playing games at the bottom of the lake, do you?" she replied before picking up the water glass and slamming it onto the pile of salt. "Com essa união da terra e do mar, gaiola ele," she commanded.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm keeping this piece of Formica between you and me," she explained. "I mean, this has been here the whole time, so it's not like our relationship has changed, really."
Nick turned to dash for the kitchen, but stopped when she cleared her throat.
"I already sealed up the rest of the building," she told him. "Let's talk."
"Are you some kind of witch?"
"Yes."
"Who the hell do you think you are?"
She leaned forward to shake his hand, but withdrew when he didn't offer his back. "Rafaela. Torres," she said anyway. "Rafaela Torres. I probably should have introduced myself earlier, but do you have the slightest idea how distracting you are? Of course you do; that's your thing. Anyway, it's nice to meet you." She tapped her left breast. "Nick is short for Nykkjen, am I right?"
He nodded.
"Good." With theatrical flair, she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. "Because if you were just a regular cute waiter named Nicolas instead of a homicidal Norwegian water nymph, this would have been really awkward."
"I don't murder people," he growled. "I just do what I'm supposed to do to live."
"What you're supposed to do," she clarified, "is lure humans into the water to drown."
"As you said, it's my thing."
"What if there was another way?" she asked.
"There is no other way."
She frowned in concentration for a moment, and then asked, "Do you feed off the seduction or the death?"
"I don't know."
"Then let's find out," she said. "Maybe there's a way to get you off only on the flirting. Or, if you absolutely, positively must kill something, maybe it doesn't have to be so sentient?"
"What makes you think you can change me?"
"Trust me," she replied with a grin, "I'm beyond amazing."
"And what if I don't want your help?"
Her hand whipped over to her messenger bag and returned, twirling a butterfly knife and slamming the blade into the counter.
He didn't flinch.
"I'm giving you a choice, Nick," she explained. "You can pick up my athame..." She indicated the knife just in case he didn't know what that word meant. "... and swear on it that you'll never take another human life. Or you can pick up that tall drink of water and you'll be free." She waved her hand over both objects. "Deixe o prisioneiro decidir."
"You'll just let me go," he clarified. "No tricks?"
"I came here today to stop you from killing people, Nick," she told him, "one way or another. Just take the knife, and we can fix this."
"There's nothing to fix."
"Nick, I will end you."
"You're really cute, ma'am," he laughed, reaching for the glass, "but you're not my first witch."
"Please, Nick..."
He tipped it over.
Three minutes later, she pried her athame off the counter with a disappointed sigh and retrieved her messenger bag.
"There's just no telling some people," she muttered.