“Fine! Great! Just need to pay!”
My voice is approximately three octaves too high.
She directs me to the register. I pull out cash. Hand over way too much because I can’t do math right now, I can’t do anything right now except try not to have a full panic attack in front of the decorative olive oil display.
“Keep the change,” I say, already moving toward the door.
“Ma’am, this is…”
“Thank you have a nice day!”
It comes out as one word. One long, desperate word that I’m shouting over my shoulder as I shove through the door into the afternoon sun.
I don’t run to my car.
But only because running would be suspicious.
I speed-walk. Aggressively. The kind of speed-walking that says I have somewhere to be and that somewhere is far away from the crime I just committed.
I slide into the driver’s seat. Lock the doors. Grip the steering wheel.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
What did I just do? What the fuck did I just do?
I left baked goods and an emotional napkin for a literal mobster.
And then I casually boosted his $200 pen like I was in a rom-com directed by the FBI.
I’m a federal witness who just committed a felony. Is pen theft a felony? It felt like a felony, against the man I’m supposed to be hiding from.
This is it. This is rock bottom. There is no lower place to go.
I pull out the pen.
It’s heavy. Serious. The kind of pen that says I close murder deals before lunch.
I stare at it like it’s cursed. Then gently return it to the padded cell that is my purse, where it belongs with all the other crimes I’m pretending didn’t happen.
I’m about to start the car when the restaurant door opens.
Dario steps out.
My lungs forget how to be lungs.
He’s holding one of the containers. Looking around the parking lot. Scanning faces, cars, searching.
Looking for me.
He’s looking for me.
I slouch down in my seat. Hat pulled low. Sunglasses on even though I’m in a car and that’s exactly the kind of thing suspicious people do.
He stands there for a long moment. The container in his hands. His expression unreadable from this distance, but I’m translating, suddenly fluent in “Mobster Who Just Got Surprise Cookies From His Former Snitch.”
Then he opens it.
