Kris and Zac walked into Johnny’s around four o’clock, Chicago time. It was still two back in San Francisco, so she had plenty of time to relax. The clerk looked up. “Oh my God!” Kris ran over and immediately hugged him. “I thought I’d never see you again! How have you been?”
“I’ve been great.” She smiled and sat down at the counter.
“Guys!! Guess who’s here!” The guys from the back came out, and all were astonished to see Kris there. She hugged every one of them. “Hey Zac, you can hug me too. I haven’t seen you in forever either.” Zac hugged them all too. “How’s Stanford?”
“The food there sucks.”
“Of course, it’s not here. We have the best food in all the world!” Kris laughed.
“Yeah, you do. I don’t like it over there. I want to come back here.”
“Kris, you can’t do that. You’ve got to finish college, then come back here. I don’t want the smartest girl to ever grace my presence to drop out of Stanford U because she doesn’t like the food.”
“Come on, I’m not that smart.”
“Kris, you’re in one of the top schools on a full academic scholarship. You don’t pay a dime to go there. Don’t lose it, okay?” She rolled her eyes. “And don’t roll your eyes at me, girl!”
“Why are you still working here?” Kris said. “Haven’t you found something with better pay yet?”
“It’s family here. I could never leave. They could shut this place down, but all we would do is build another one again. The same people, the same way of cooking it since we did in the beginning. I don’t care about the pay. It’s enough to keep me going. I work here long hours for not that much, but it’s my life here and my family here.”
“That’s why I want to come back. I’m your number one customer.”
“So, what’ll it be? Usual?” the clerk asked, looking between Kris and Zac. They nodded. “Gimme their usuals!” he shouted out.
“Okay!!”
“These guys are my brothers. Why would I ever want to leave them?”
“I don’t know why I asked. It’s just you’ve been here longer than I have. It’s nice to come home to an old face.”
“I remember the first day you came here. You were four years old; your daddy had to lift you onto the stool. You ordered what you wanted in a very shy, quiet voice, and you’ve been eating the same thing ever since. How old are you now?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Damn, you’re old enough to drink now. You best not be ordering any here, cause I’m not getting any for you.” She smiled. “You’re got the same fire in you as your father.”
“You knew my father?”
“Yeah, he was my best customer before he fled. Then it was just you coming along here, by yourself. Six years old and romping around the city of Chicago like you owned the place. You could barely open the door, but you came in here all the time.” He sighed. “Yeah, Cynthia was never the one to come in here. She was too high class for a run-down place like this.”
“That’s her alright,” Kris said. “She can’t dine out without having a dress on.”
“How long you in town for?”
“Until tonight,” she said. “Zac insisted he fly me out here just to pay a friendly visit to my favorite restaurant.”
“I’d hardly call this place a restaurant.”
“I do. It’s every means a restaurant to me. You serve me, there’s tables and a counter, but the problem is I have yet to pay.”
“You know we can’t let family pay! And you’re family, Kris.” She smiled. “You and everyone you bring. We’ve grown up with you. Through Brian, through Taylor, and now Zac…what is up with you and your screwed up life?”
“I don’t know. Don’t tell Zac, but I think he’s a loser,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth, trying to act as if it was a secret.
“Okay, I won’t say anything.”
“Funny,” Zac said. “I’ve always thought you were a loser too.”
“Then we agree. We’re both losers.” Kris looked at the clerk. “Where’s my food?”
“It’s coming, it’s coming, keep your pants on.”
“I’ll try. The seem to fall off when I wait.” She gave him a look. “That is such a weird expression.”
“Still, keep your pants on.” He backed away. “I’m gonna check on the food. I don’t want to see any funny stuff when I come back, okay?”
“Okay,” Kris said, saluting him. He walked into the back. Kris looked around. “I’ve forgotten how long it’s been since I’ve been here. I love this place so much and then I just cut it off of my life so fast…”
“Yeah, but we’re back now, aren’t we?”
“We’ll be leaving in a few hours, Zac. I hate going away so fast. There’s so much I want to do, what I want to say. I just want all these things to happen and yet I know it won’t because I don’t have the time.”
“We’ll come back. We have Christmas off. I’ll come back here with you, alright?” Kris nodded. “It’s only four months away…”
“Oh God, I don’t think I can handle four more months of the shit classes I’m taking. This semester is the absolute worst semester yet. It’ll get better, but right now all my classes are horrible.”
“Why?”
“All my teachers have monotone voices.” Zac made a face. “And all they do is talk, and talk, and talk. I can’t keep notes because I can’t understand a word they’re saying. They won’t let me record the lecture, so there’s not much I can do about it. Independent study can only go so far…”
“You’ll get better, Kris. Four months until this semester is over. And you don’t have classes every day.”
“True.”
“It’ll pass like no time.”
“I don’t feel good.” Zac looked at her, concerned.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know; I just don’t feel right. I’m all disorientated. I’m probably getting the flu.”
“That’s always fun.”
“Yeah, I know. By tomorrow I’ll probably be coughing and sneezing and leaking all over the place.”
“I really didn’t want to know that, Kris,” Zac said, slightly smiling. She looked over at him. “Are you contagious yet?”
“I dunno…”
“Well, I’ll take it as a no. You best not get me sick,” he said, and kissed her. Just then, the clerk walked back in.
“Hey! I said no funny stuff!”
“This isn’t funny,” Kris said. “This is very serious.” She tried to look serious, but only ended up giggling. The clerk set their food down in front of them.
“Here you go, eat it all cause the rats are getting sick of it.”
“You know,” Kris said, “we joke about the rats all the time, but for the seventeen years I’ve been coming here, I have yet to see one.”
“That’s because they’re all back in the kitchen.” Kris gave him a look. “No, I’m just kidding. There are no rats.”
“Good.” Zac started thinking.
“You know, you’ve been coming here as long as I’ve been alive.”
“That’s weird.” She thought about it some more. “Oh God! Stupid young person.” She turned to the clerk. “He’s still seventeen!”
“Zac, there’s no way you look like you’re seventeen. You look mid-twenties. Are you ever going to turn eighteen? I bet you two are just itching to go copulate.” Zac and Kris exchanged looks, then went back to their food in an awkward silence. “No! Don’t tell me you’ve done it already. Kris, you’ve been eighteen since you started dating. You’re illegal!”
“Shh…in two months it won’t be illegal anymore. If we just hush until then, we won’t have to worry about anything,” Kris said. “And it’s not like either of us are going to complain. Who’s gonna say anything? Diana? I’ll beat her ass.”
“Excuse you, that’s my mother,” Zac said.
“I still will. I don’t care.”
“I dunno Kris, this is so unlike you.”
“Oh, everything’s unlike me lately,” she said, and waved it off. “It gets annoying after a while. We’ll deal. It’s not like anything bad is going to happen. No one will find out if we all keep mum about it.”
“When would you guys do it anyway? You’re always sharing a room with zillions of people,” the clerk said.
“Last night.”
“Oh really? That recent.” The clerk gave her a look and took a sip of her drink. Kris crinkled her nose and grabbed her drink back. “Loser.”
“It was the first time last night.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, first time with Zac,” Kris said. Zac looked over.
“I love how you include me in these conversations.”
“Zac, you don’t care. I know you don’t. All you care about is the fact that your food might be getting cold while you have a conversation with us. Eat your food, hun.” Zac smiled.
“You’re right; I really don’t care.” He went back to eating.
“So who before? Since I’m just so interested in the sex life of someone I’ve known since she was four.”
“I fucked Taylor at Milani around four years ago.” The clerk gave her a shocked look. She thought about what she said. “Oh my God that was so vulgar!” She immediately scolded herself. “I can’t believe I said that!”
“Well I can tell how much it meant to you.”
“We were both drunk. It was in the bathroom.”
“That rumor is true?” the clerk asked, his eyes lighting up. “I’ve been hearing that once ever since the accident! That really happened?”
“Yeah. We deny it wherever we go, whoever asks that we don’t know well enough. Not very many people know it’s true, and I intend on keeping it that way.” Kris leaned her head against Zac. He stopped eating.
“And what do I owe the pleasure of having your head on my shoulder?”
“Cause it’s heavy.”
“Sure…” Zac gave her a look.
“You two are too much,” the clerk said, and went into the back room, leaving them alone. Zac put his arm around Kris.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, honey.”
“Fill me in on this, why must we tell him about our sex life?”
“Kris, why do we have to do this? I don’t want to,” Zac complained as they stepped up to the front door of a house.
“Oh shut up, we’re doing it.” She rang the doorbell. “I just hope they never moved.” They waited in silence for a short while before someone opened up the front door. Zac bit his lip when he saw the girl standing there.
“Oh my God!” Misty said, then immediately wrapped her arms around Kris. “I haven’t seen you in so long!” She looked at Zac. “You too!” She hugged him. “Why are you guys here?”
“Well, Zac’s here for whatever reason he’s here. I don’t know what they do all the time that they go traveling everywhere, but he’s here. And he took me along with him to come here, I’m going back to San Fran later tonight.”
“Come inside, we can chat.” They walked into Misty’s house, in which Kris actually had never been to, and followed her into the living room. Zac knew the way quite clearly; he even knew the shortcuts.
Kris took the time from the front door to the living room, which wasn’t very long, to look around. Her house was beautiful, simply beautiful. Kris couldn’t think of another way to put it. Misty sat in a recliner, sideways, putting her feet over the armrest. Kris and Zac sat on the couch, Kris deciding to sprawl out with her feet on Zac and her head against the armrest.
“I don’t want your feet on me.”
“Too bad.” She lightly kicked him in the stomach.
“Hey!” Zac tried to pout, but she only kicked him again. “Misty! Kris is kicking me.”
“She sure is.”
“Well thanks for your concern. I could have a discombobulated organ system right now.”
“She didn’t kick you that hard,” Misty said, slightly grinning. “At least I know you haven’t lost your whiny nature.”
“I don’t think it’ll ever go away,” Kris said. “And when he has kids, it’s just going to elevate.”
“Note she said he and not we,” Zac said to Misty.
“What makes you think we’re going to get married and have kids together?” Kris asked.
“Nothing, I was just clarifying it for Misty.”
“You two are so sure about that?” Misty asked, a bit confused. If they were so happy now, how do they know they won’t be happy together forever in the future?
“Oh yeah,” Kris said. “We’ve let each other know that we won’t be getting married.” Zac nodded, agreeing.
“Yeah, we’ll have our nice long relationship, but we’ll inevitably break up. We’ve made sure of that.”
“Why?” Misty said. “I love you two together. I want to see what your kids look like. They’ll be so adorable.” Zac and Kris exchanged glances.
“No,” they said together.
“Oh you guys are no fun.”
“Yeah, we’re no fun cause we don’t want to get married and have kids.” Misty looked at them.
“Then what’s the point of this whole relationship? Why are you so together and in love with each other when all you’re going to do is say goodbye and find someone else?” she asked. “I don’t get it.”
“Misty, we’re in love right now. That’s all that matters. Neither of us feel that we’re going to be together forever.” Kris and Zac looked at each other, then back to Misty. “We came to terms with that a long time ago.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“We love each other now. In the future we’ll find someone else. It’ll suck is we decide that we’re gonna live happily ever after and get married, have ten kids, then find out when we’re thirty that we made a huge mistake and end up in a divorce.”
“I don’t know. I don’t get it. If I know my relationship is going nowhere, then I end it and move on.”
“We don’t want to do that,” Kris said.
“You did it with Taylor.”
“No, with Taylor it was a different story. I knew he wanted a long relationship and get married with ten kids, a dog and a white picket fence. He had the whole thing planned out. I don’t want that right now, and I sure as hell didn’t want it then when I had just turned eighteen. That’s why I told Zac I wanted to break up with him. Then he found out, and that whole episode happened.”
“Did it have anything to do with you being in love with Zac?”
“Partly.”
“What time is it?” Misty suddenly asked. “Do you have your watch on, Zac?” Zac looked at his watch.
“It’s eight-thirty.” His eyes grew. “And Kris’s plane leave in an hour. We have to go.” The two got up. Misty eventually got up and hugged the both of them.
“It’s good to see you two again. Come back soon, alright, Kris?” Misty asked.
“I will, don’t worry.”
“I’ll see you later. We can do something while I’m here,” Zac said. Misty smiled and nodded. “Alright, bye.” Zac and Kris left for the airport quickly.
“I don’t understand the whole being there an hour early thing. I know I don’t fly much, but all that ends up happening is you hurry up to go sit and wait,” Kris said, after they both got into the car.
“I don’t know, but I just like being cautious.” Zac started the car and they drove to the airport in silence. We would be so bored if we ever took a road trip, Kris thought. It was impossible for them to ever have a conversation without getting too involved in it. So the whole car ride, they sat and thought about what they were going to talk about when they were out of the car.
Zac had something bugging him. It sprung into his head about halfway through the trip, but it was the worst thing he could say in the car. From moment one it would be very involved, but it was so annoying that he couldn’t wait to get out of the car. He sped up a little and started tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.
“What?” Kris asked, the tapping getting to her.
“I have something to ask you, but I can’t ask you here because I’ll be thoroughly distracted.”
“Well do something about it, that tapping is getting to me.”
“We’re almost there.” He stopped tapping and passed a few cars. He just wanted to get to the airport, get checked in and settled so he could ask his question. Or he could just ask it in the parking lot. Unconsciously, he started to tap again.
“Stop it!”
“Sorry.” He drove with one hand and kept the other by his side. The silence was getting to him. He’d mentioned that they were almost there, but they really were a good fifteen minutes away. “I can’t handle this silence.” He turned on the radio and searched for a station, while trying to keep an eye on the road.
“Let me do it. You’re going to kill us.” Kris put on a station. Suddenly Zac found his ears filled with his own voice. “Ugh,” Kris said, slightly smirking. “They’re gay.”
“Now that’s not a very nice thing to say when one of them is driving.”
“You’re such a loser.”
“No, you just think I am.” She switched the station. “Hey! I was enjoying listening to myself.”
“Oh really? I can’t handle seeing anything I do.”
“Well, that’s the difference between you and me. I’m really egotistical.”
“I could have told you that.” She grinned. She found a station she knew they both enjoyed, and sat back.
The rest of the ride was more pleasant now that they had something to listen to besides the swirl of the tires against the asphalt beneath them. The ride seemed to go quicker, and in three songs they were at the airport. Zac parked, but didn’t get out of the car.
“What if we didn’t break up?” he asked, turning to her.
“Is that what you wanted to ask me?” Kris said. “What if?”
“Yeah. What if we didn’t break up? We never found someone else better, never let that love between us die out. How many years would we have wasted with the thought that we were just going to break up as soon as we found someone better? And when we get older, we just look at each other and ask ‘Why didn’t we get married when we were still young?’”
“Zac, you know that’s not going to happen.”
“How? How do I know that’s not going to happen. I don’t. For all I know we really could be together forever and waste our lives away, thinking that something is going to happen when it never will.” Zac looked right at her, but her eyes were looking away. “You already know that other someone, don’t you?”
“This is stupid. It’s inevitable that we break up, but there’s no way I’m going to do it anytime soon. One of these days I’ll find him.”
“No, you already have.” He leaned in and studied the troubled look on her face. “It’s Taylor, isn’t it?”
“I kissed him last night.”
“You did what?”
Instead of answering him, she got out of the car and started to walk to the elevators. He got out and ran after her. He stood in front of her, stopping her. “W-What? Why? Why? Why did you do it?”
“Well, it was more that he kissed me.”
“What is that supposed to tell me? When did this happen?”
“I told you, last night.”
“When last night?”
“In the car on the way to the hotel. We were having a conversation about…nevermind.” Zac stopped her from walking away again.
“About what? You’ve never held anything back from me before, so don’t even think about starting now. You’ve already mentioned that you kissed him—”
“He kissed me.”
“Whatever. I don’t care. It still happened. And obviously it meant something to you or you wouldn’t have had the guilt in you that you had to say something to me!” Zac sighed, looking at her with saddened eyes. “What were you talking about?”
“Whether or not I still love him.”
“Do you?”
“I don’t know yet.” She pressed the button for the elevator, and the doors opened immediately. Zac followed her inside.
“Do you think you do?”
“Listen, Zac, I don’t want to have this conversation right now. I’m leaving. I don’t know when we’ll see each other again. I don’t want to leave you with a fight.”
“This isn’t a fight, I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed with you.”
“That’s twice as bad.”
“I’m disappointed that you kissed him, but I’m even more disappointed that you kissed him last night. Of all nights it had to be last night. The one night you gave everything to me, you gave something to him.” She put her hand through her hair and sighed. The doors opened again and the two of them stepped out.
“If it means anything to you, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to do it, and I’m completely regretting it now.”
“Yeah, it means something to me.” He took her hand in his and kissed it. “I love you so much, Kris. All this talk with Misty about us breaking up; I really don’t want it to happen. It may very well be inevitable, but I don’t want to think about it right now. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been when I’m with you.” She slightly smiled.
“I love you too.”