I finish entering the drink order and grab a menu and a water glass and walk to table four.
"Evening. Can I get you something to drink while you look at the menu?"
He doesn't take the menu. He doesn't look at it. He looks at me, not up and down, not evaluating, not the way men sometimes look at women in restaurants where the look is about the body and the face or the assessment of whether you're worth their attention. He just looks at me. My face. My eyes. For two full seconds that feel longer than two seconds should feel.
"Coffee," he says. "Black."
"Sure. You want to hear the specials?"
"No."
I wait for more. Nothing comes. His voice is low and doesn't carry beyond the table and the word "no" is all he's offering, so I go get his coffee.
At the bar, I pour from the pot we keep for the dining room, not the good stuff Javi makes for the bar customers, and I set it on a saucer and carry it back to table four. He hasn't moved. His hands are on the table, both of them, and they're the biggest hands I've ever seen. Tattoos across the knuckles and up the forearms, I can see them disappear into his rolled sleeves. Saints. I recognize a few of the images from the churches I walked past as a kid. A Madonna on the left forearm. Something with a halo and a sword on the right. The ink is old, most of it, faded and settled deep.
And there's a knife on his belt. Not hidden. Not displayed. Just there, clipped to his belt on the right side, the handle dark. I've never seen a customer wearing a knife in the restaurant before.
I set the coffee down. "Ready to order?"
He hasn't opened the menu. I left it on the table, but he pushed it to the side.
"The branzino," he says.
"Good choice. Comes with roasted potatoes and broccolini. Any allergies I should know about?"
"No."
"Okay. I'll get that in for you."
I walk to the kitchen and put the order in, and the entire interaction was maybe forty-five seconds and twenty words and I don't know why my hands feel different than they did before I walked to his table. Not shaky though. I'm aware of my hands in a way that somehow makes me feel like I need to wring them to stop the beating in my chest. Tapping a quick rhythm on the POS, I straighten my back and smooth my apron before smiling and turning back to my tables.
The branzino comes up in twelve minutes because Marco is running a tight ship tonight and the fish was prepped and ready. I carry it to table four and set it down as his hands move to make room for the plate. He handles the knife and fork, left hand dominant, the fork in his right and the knife in his left, and the grip on the knife is natural and relaxed, the angle is specific and practiced. He's held a lot of knives. I notice it without understanding why I notice it.
"Can I get you anything else?"
He looks up from the plate and studies me again, a shiver rolling down my spine at the rapt attention in his gaze.
"No," he says, and then after a pause, “thank you."
The "thank you" catches me. Not because it's unusual — plenty of customers say thank you. Because of the way he says it, without inflection, without pomp, just a simple, rough acknowledgement.
I go back to my other tables and work the rest of the shift. I don't go back to table four unless he needs something, which he doesn't. He eats the branzino. He drinks the coffee. He sits with the empty plate for a few minutes after he's done and his right hand drops to the knife on his belt and his thumb runs along the handle in a motion that looks automatic. I know about those kinds of things. I have one. Mine involves my index finger and whatever surface is closest.
He pays cash. Exact amount plus thirty percent, which is a good tip for a single entrée and a coffee. He leaves the cash on the table under the saucer and stands up. The room adjusts again because his body takes up a different amount of space when he's standing, and I'm at the bar refilling a water pitcher and I watch him walk to the door. He doesn't look back at me, he doesn't look at anyone, he simply walks out into the cold. The door slams behind him and the draft hits the dining room one more time and then he's gone.
I put the water pitcher down and walk to table four and bus the plate and the cup and the saucer with the cash underneath and I stack them on my tray and I stand there.
I stand there for too long.
His chair is pushed in. The table is empty. He left nothing behind except the money and the faint impression of coffee on the saucer. I'm standing at an empty four-top in the middle of a Thursday dinner shift and I don't know why I'm not moving. My finger taps the edge of his plate three times, and the tapping isn't anxiety and it isn't my usual idle habit.
It’s a curiosity.
A stirring, unsettling curiosity that asks the question:who was that and why did he make my stomach flip?
Pushing aside the feeling, I pick up the tray and go back to work.
Closing takes forty-five minutes. Javi handles the bar and I handle the floor. Devon handles the kitchen and we move through the routine fast and quiet because by this point in the night none of us want to talk.