Stay With Me by Garret Freymann-Weyr Page A

translucent."
    He's in luck that this is a frequent adjective from
Tender Is the Night.
I've had to look it up and figure out that in the book, when a person or an event is described as translucent, it isn't a good or a bad thing. It's more that the someone or thing is important. Prized and rare. This is quite possibly the nicest compliment I've ever gotten, even if he doesn't mean exactly what the book does.
    "Thank you," I say. "That's lovely."
    He just looks at me.
    "Anyway, my name's Leila," I add. "Even if it doesn't fit."
    "Eamon," he says, standing up and holding out his hand. "Eamon Greyhalle. It's very nice to meet you, Leila."
    I shake his hand and take my tray to the kitchen, ignoring the zing-zang-zoom which his skin sent shooting up and across my body. That I did not expect, as I've been shaking hands since forever. Until I was thirteen, I had to shake hands and curtsey with everyone I met. My sisters had had to do this too and always thought it was ridiculous.
    I didn't mind it except for when people would look at Da and say,
Ob, my, can you make her do that again?
As hard as it is to meet strangers, I've always felt protected by my knowing how to do it. You look someone straight in the eye, hold their hand with a firmness that doesn't threaten to break it, and you smile.
    There's no zing-zang-zooming involved. I'm pretty sure that's against the how-to-meet-someone rules.
     
    When I tell Ben, Clare, and Raphael about Acca, I leave Eamon out entirely. Instead I focus on how the job is easy and fun. I am, as I knew I would be, really good at it. In more ways than I care to count, I tell them, I'm the perfect waitress.
    "It's because you treat people well," Raphael says. "You've always been like that."
    "You're perfect at a lot of things," Clare says, which is nice.
    "You're lucky you haven't dropped anything yet," Ben says, which is funny because I once dropped a cup of soup in his lap and all he said, very quietly, was
Hey.
Ow.
     
    A few days after we shake hands, Eamon asks about
Tender Is the Night.
    "So you're always reading by the phone," he says. "What has such a hold on you?"
    "You've seen me do that?" I ask. "I'm only allowed to do that when no one needs anything."
    "Well, sometimes I look for you when I don't need anything."
    And we're back to flirting. I like how conversations with Eamon veer around from the normal to the silly.
    "It's a book I'm reading twice," I say.
    "What book is that good?" he asks.
    "I'm not sure it's good," I say.
    "And so you're reading it twice because?"
    He has a way of making me believe that everything I say, from
Coffee?
to
I'm reading,
is of great interest to him. When I worked for Rebecca last summer, she told me that the reason flirting was fun was that no one meant anything by it. So maybe Eamon is not really interested in what I say, but I go ahead and tell him how the book happens off the page. How I really liked that he called me
translucent
because of the book. How I wish the story made more sense to me.
    "I read it in college too," Eamon says. "But I don't remember if it made sense. I'll have to go back and look."
    I want to ask him what he's reading in that binder, what the notes are for. What's written on the ring and why he comes here. But I'm a waitress. And I'm not exactly sure how much one can ask a strange man about himself. About anything. No matter how polite he is or how nice his hands look holding his coffee cup.

Twelve
    W HAT'S IMPORTANT IN ALL THIS, what makes me attach Eamon to my story, happens the next week or the one right after. He isn't at Acca that Monday, which I don't realize until Wednesday when I see him sit down in the café's other section. I smile hello and then turn my attention to two women trying to decide between an éclair and a napoleon. I gather they're going to split it. They ask which I prefer and I say,
    "Maybe I can ask the kitchen for a plate with half of each."
    I feel a tap on my back. It's Drew, who works the shift with