Savages

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.