Little Monsters

“Calla, what are you doing?”

“I’m crouching down in preparation for an earthquake. What do you think I am doing?” Calla whispered harshly up at Josh.

She would not look over the counter. She just fine where she was, spine pressing up against the extra plates, the special plates that Margaret told her when she first started. They were for the couple, or table of raging elderly complaining about how their food was taking too freaking long for an order of fries and cheeseburger that had limp lettuce hanging to the side. Because getting a fancy plate with cold food really showed how much the neon diner in the middle of nowhere cared about you.

Shrugging, Jake glanced between the counter he was clearing away and her, smiling at the man that came by every week with his little girl. He gave nice tips ever since they started asking for extra cherries for their banana splits.

No, that wasn’t him, Calla told Jake with her eyes up at him, along with a glare. It was none of his business. His only business was to sponge up the ketchup spills and get paid his minimum wage each week.

He didn’t seem to take it into much consideration.

“If you are waiting for an earthquake, I wouldn’t be hiding there. Not when the special weird plates are going to come crashing down. Plus,” He whispered, “I wouldn’t put it past Maggie to take the measly pennies out of your pay, and we wouldn’t want that now would we?”

“Shut up.”

“No one is going to peek behind the counter. If anything they are going to wonder why the hell I am talking at a chick on her knees-” Throwing the dish bucket onto the back counter to go to the sink, Jake flicked his dark hair back to nod at someone leaning across the bar. “Be there in a minute, man.”

Calla squeezed her eyes shut. Squeezed them so that her lashes crinkled against her cheeks brushed with sun kissed freckles the same way her hands clutched the hem of her fifties shirt with the iron-on poodle. Air was no longer a resident within her tattered lungs.

Breathe.

In. Out.

It was a pattern that she had grown accustomed to over the years after escaping the rooms full of clouded smoke, breaking into air of smog that never felt more pure.

The air was full of clouds again.

“What can I get you, man?” Jake said, wiping his hands off on his jeans.

“Hey,” The sound of folding paper was torn from the man’s pocket right above her. She could see it happening, the way his callused fingers caught on the edges. “Have you seen this girl around here recently?”

Jake paused. The entire diner paused with him. Eyes scanning the piece of paper, whatever old and water damaged polaroid that was dug up from somewhere or another. Probably the depths of hell itself.

Cracking her eyes open, Calla watched the way Jake pursed his lips. He seemed to stare at it forever though it had been only a few seconds.

“Nope,” He shrugged the same way he did whenever she asked him for help her fill orders, “Sorry. Friend of yours?”

“Something like that. You sure you haven’t seen her around?”

Lips perking up, Jake huffed a laugh. “Trust me, around here I wish I woulda seen some looker like that. Not just any face I’d forget.”

Calla felt an acidic gag rising in her throat.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Anytime.”

The weight that hung around her neck were beads of bricks. Another dripping like rain each second. Until the christmas bells above the door chimed.

Calla slumped further against the wall of plates.

“Tsk, tsk, Calla. Haven’t we been naughty. Let me guess, jealous ex?”

She wished. Oh god, she wished so far to the moon and back to be anything or anyone. Even though the coast was clear for late night party goers, she still peeked her eyes over the ledge. They used to play peek-a-boo all the time. Sometimes it would become more than a silly game, but a competition to see who could catch who first.

And her metal of pearls clung to her sticky neck.

Most of the time, she feared they were still playing like children, hiding like monsters under the bed.

Little monsters.

Not so little anymore.