Ghosts of July (Shamans of the Divide, Book 1)

Chapter Two

Somehow I'd managed to survive the night of the living flesh stench. When I'd asked Nana the next morning if she noticed anything strange from the night before—either the crazy looking girl in the diner or the nastiness from the dumpster; she didn't have the slightest idea of what I was talking about.

That morning I had an email from Taylor.

To: giggles3398@mailbuddy.com

From: taysmashw@mailmud.com

Time: 11:35 p.m.

Sorry. Lost phone Thursday night plus

am really busy at the club with my dad.

 Found a job in the clubhouse giving

lessons to kids. Sucks, but its good money

 and the MILFS love me. Call you soon.

 xo, TW

 

No matter how hard I tried not to obsess, I felt a panic bubble up. xo? Hug and a kiss?

What kind of crap was that? Taylor always signed off with a "love you always" or an "i love you baby!" And had he just mentioned MILFs hitting on him? Where was my boyfriend and who was this d-bag country club prince who'd hijacked his smart phone?

I stewed for two days. On Tuesday, he called for a few minutes. It was great to hear the old Taylor again, even if his new boss was yelling for him to teach some kids a back swing. He even told me he loved me when hanging up. It was enough to keep me going for a few days without acting like a complete fool and stalking him on social media.

Even so, I was beginning to realize something was way out of balance. I was becoming one of those obsessive girlfriends who always gets dumped in the movies. If this were a chick flick, the scene would cut to him driving around the country club in a golf cart with some big-boobed woman in a tube top hanging on him, both of them laughing at me.

When a girl in a movie felt the way I did, she was hardly ever wrong.

No, I was being silly.

I'd agreed to work at the diner today to show the new girl around and to teach her the cash register. Lem's just-as-ancient and just-as-pudgy twin brother, Lou, was working the grill today. He was good at what he did, but he was fussy and if you didn't write the tickets in complete sentences with proper spelling and punctuation, he'd have a fit. Abbreviations didn't fly in Lou's kitchen and the new girl would sink if someone didn't show her the ropes right away. We'd gone through four new girls in two months. Lou was a tough nut to crack.

It was a little after four in the afternoon when a slow trickle of drivers came in, all looking to make it to San Francisco before the end of the pay week. The new girl, Lara, was just a few years older than me and nice enough, it seemed. But she wasn't happy to be working at a diner. To me, she looked like she had dreams of going to school for a couple of years and earning her "Mrs." Degree.

"So that's about all there is to the tickets," I said as we were finishing going over the menu. "Lou's real particular about the abbreviations thing. Just don't do it. And make sure he can read your handwriting or he'll call you back and have at you in front of everyone. It's happened to me a few times."

Lara looked surprised.

"Doesn't, like, yer mom own the place?"

"No, my grandmother does," I said.