I follow him inside. We go over paperwork and make copies of my license, then he shows me where the trays are that I’ll use to bus tables and which sink to put the dirty dishes in. We cover the counter up front, greeting new customers, menus, and how to mark the busy tables on the laminate map in wax pencil, as well as the register and ringing up tabs. He introduces me to the other server on shift today. It’s all pretty obvious—no rocket science required. And it’s a quiet afternoon, a good opportunity for me to practice without feeling the pressure of a rush.

I try hard to focus when he leaves me to man the counter, though I struggle to stand still. I’m grateful when a table of people clears and I can go bus it—busy my hands and mind with something other than magic tokens, greeting cards, and nightmares. But that’s when I feel something brush past me, the feeling of a stranger passing too close, their energy filling up your aura. I glance back just in time to catch the scent of peppermint. And then I see him taking a seat at a rear table. He’s wearing a red chenille bathrobe over tropical-print pants. Daniel brings him coffee, and he stirs it slowly as a grin spreads across his face. At last, he looks my way and raises his cup.

I jerk backward, spilling old coffee all over the table I’m supposed to be cleaning.

“Everything cool?” Daniel comes to my side.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry. I, um, thought I saw someone I knew.” I start trying to corral the runaway liquid with my hands.

Daniel glances over his shoulder, but the man in the bathrobe is looking down at a newspaper. “I’ll get some more towels,” he says. “Be right back.”

As soon as he’s gone, I step over to the guy in the bathrobe—the guy from the church with the peppermint schnapps. My shadow falls over his paper. “Are you following me?”

He looks up. “Catia. Nice to see you too. Do you mind? I’m trying to read.”

“Why are you here?”

“Can’t a man have his morning coffee?”

I check my mental clock. It is at least four in the afternoon. “It’s not morning. And I didn’t think you drank coffee.”

He produces another small bottle from his right robe pocket and grins, pouring a bit of its contents into his cup. “All gentlemen drink coffee.”

I can’t seem to make his words and appearance match. He speaks like he’s from another century, but he looks like he just stumbled out of a keg party.

“Want some?” he asks, holding up the bottle.

“We did this, remember?”

“Have it your way,” he says, slipping it back into his pocket.

“I’m going to ask you one more time. Are you following me?”