46
Three days after Chon gets back from the Rack he and O are sitting in a restaurant in Laguna when a waiter drops a tray.
Clatter.
Chon dives under the table.
Down there on all fours reaching for a weapon that isn’t there and if Chon were capable of social self-consciousness he’d be humiliated. Anyway, it’s tough to get nonchalantly back in your chair after diving under the table with a restaurant full of people staring at you and the adrenaline is still juicing his nervous system so he stays down there.
O joins him.
He looks over and there she is, eyeball to eyeball with him.
“A little jumpy, are we?” she asks.
“A tad.”
Good word, “tad.” The one-syllable jobs are usually the best.
O says, “As long as I’m on my hands and knees …”
“There are laws, O.”
“Slave to conformity.” She sticks her head out from under the table and asks, “Could we get a refill on the water, please?”
The waiter brings it to her, under the table.
“I kind of like it down here,” she says to Chon. “It’s like having a fort when you were a kid.”
She reaches up, grabs the menus, and hands one to Chon. After a few moments of perusal she says, “I’m going to go with the chicken Caesar salad.”
The waiter, a young surfer-type dude with a perfect tan and perfect white smile, squats beside the table. “May I tell you about our specials?”
Gotta love Laguna.
Gotta love O.