"Hey, who took my crayon!" wailed the insufferable daughter of my father's friend as our server cleared away all of the empty dishes from our table. I glared at her, irritated that she had disrupted my wandering thoughts.
"The devil took it and now he's going to draw all over your dress with it," I muttered loud enough for only her to hear. To my simultaneous satisfaction and annoyance, she wailed louder in a state of panic.
"B-but I like m-my d-dres-s!" she screeched. Her father jerked his head towards her, suddenly aware that she was pissing off the entire restaurant.
"Come on, baby, your crayon's right here." He grabbed it off the table from where it had rolled off to and let her snatch it from his hand as she continued to sob.
I rolled my eyes and glanced around the rest of the table. My dad and his friend were engaged in an intense conversation about Who Cares. My little sister was reenacting a soap opera with her silverware while my mom played Temple Run on her phone. I sighed. Why did they have to take my phone away?
The server returned to our table with the check and a pile of fortune cookies. One by one, he began passing them out to everyone at the table.
"And a very special fortune cookie for you, ma'am," he murmured in my ear as he slid the last fortune cookie in front of me.
"Uh, thanks," I said and glanced up at him. He was already bustling back to the kitchen.
I sighed again and opened my fortune cookie, anticipating a cheesy, vague prediction about fortune and happiness.
Imagine my surprise when the message was nothing like that at all.
My jaw dropped as I read and re-read and re-re-read my lucky fortune of the day: "Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately and never return. Repeat: say nothing."
I whirled around and glowered at the group of waiters that had gathered around the cash register, expecting red faces and big grins and loud laughter. Instead, each of them regarded me with wary expressions.
Before I could speak, the owner of the restaurant strode out of the kitchen and hurried towards the waiters, where he stopped and whispered into the ear of the man who had waited on my table. When the owner slipped behind the door next to the register, I saw that the waiter was staring at me, eyes wide in horror, mouth hanging open. I twisted forward in my seat again and looked at my hands, cheeks burning.
A moment later, the waiter materialized next to me and grabbed at the fortune cookie in front of me. "I am so, so sorry, ma'am, but I believe you received the wrong fortune cookie..."
His voice faltered when he realized that it was already opened.
He grabbed my chin and jerked it towards him. "Where is it?!" he shouted, his voice rabid, mouth inches from mine. His eyes were wild with panic.
I batted his hand away. "Don't touch me," I growled.
Suddenly he was gone and I could breathe again. I hadn't realized that I had stopped breathing.
"If you touch my daughter again, I will carve a third eye into the middle of your forehead," my dad snarled. Startled, I turned around and found my dad with his pocketknife at the waiter's throat. The poor guy was shouting for help. I swallowed. This again? When had he gotten up?
The owner barged out of the room by the register and flew towards us. "Get your hands off my son!" he cried, reaching for my dad's collar.
Oh, how I wish my dad had listened. Instead, he whirled around and jammed his elbow into the owner's nose. Next thing I knew, blood was everywhere and people were shouting. A hand tugged on my elbow and I looked up into my mom's face. "We're leaving," she said. Indeed, my sister was clutching her other hand and my dad's friend and his daughter were nowhere in sight. I opened my mouth, intending to argue, but closed it again when I noticed the determined set of her jaw, the weary eyes, her lips pursed in a disappointed line.
I glanced at Dad and back at her. She just shook her head and turned towards the door.
For the third time that evening, I sighed. As we left the restaurant and went home and spent the night waiting for the inevitable call from the police station, all I could think was how my dad had broken his promise again.
