Page 2 of Monster Diner

She strode out the door. She didn’t expect Steven to try and stop her, but she was shocked at what a relief it was walking away. The only things in that apartment she wanted were her antiques. She sat in the driver’s seat of her old car and realized she didn’t know where to go next. She didn’t know anyone in the city—she moved around too often and worked too much overtime to maintain old friendships, and making new ones were rare in your forties…

She contemplated her next move as she stared at the cracked and faded leather steering wheel. The fuzzy seat cover’s elastic was worn and slid each time she fidgeted in her seat. She supposed she should call her mom and ask to crash at her place, then store her furniture in her mother’s garage until she got her life together. But the prospect made her stomach churn. They’d gone through this before. Lizzy would end a relationship or quit a job, uproot her life, and go back home to reset. Her mom would lecture her about her wasted potential and the pointless uphill battle of dating past forty. Maybe her mom was right, and it was time to be single.

Before Lizzy could work up the courage to call her mom, the phone rang and her heart dropped. Steven was going to try and weasel his way back in.

She picked up without looking at the caller ID.

“You’re not convincing me to come back,” she said, deadpan.

The other line was silent for a beat. She’d never known Steven to be stunned into silence.

“How did you know I was going to ask that?” a deep voice rumbled.

Her face flushed with embarrassment as she straightened up in her seat and put on her customer service voice.

“Sorry, I thought… Who am I speaking to?” she chirped.

“Ah. My name is Victor. I don’t know if you remember me. We went to high school together.”

“Victor Shelley?” Her high school friend hadn’t spoken to her in over twenty years. It was natural to lose contact over the years. They’d tried keeping up with each other online after she’d moved away from Pumpkin Hollow, but they’d drifted apart. Even their mutual love of Hero Club couldn’t keep them in contact. They’d been total opposites in school—he was a hot jock, valedictorian type and she was a nerd who loved English homework and history class.

“Yeah.” He gave a small, self-depreciating laugh.

Lizzy felt as if she were high, or drunk, maybe both. That was the only thing that could explain this truly bizarre day.

“Why are you calling me?” It came out blunt, but she felt too detached to care.

“It’s about your father, Frank. I, uh…” He paused.

“What does Frank Jr. want?” She was instantly suspicious and even more confused. She never heard from Frank outside of a brief ten-minute phone call on her birthdays. And her birthday was months away. Had he tracked down her high school friend as some convoluted attempt to talk to her?

“Well, he’s…ah…dead,” Victor replied.

Lizzy held her breath for a few beats, waiting for him to say just kidding.

“What?” she said.

“Yeah, I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you. It was rather sudden… a heart attack.”

“Thank you for telling me. Is there someone at the hospital I need to talk to?” The numbness threatened to drown her. She should be screaming, crying, but she felt as if she were floating underwater as she focused on what needed to be done. Keep moving.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“You don’t have to worry about that. He didn’t want a funeral, and his will stated he’d be cremated. It’s being handled.”

It was a simple phrase, but hearing it in his deep, soothing voice caused something to pop inside her, and all her feelings flooded in like a dam gate being opened. “Thank you.” Her voice cracked, and a sob ripped out of her. She tossed her phone down onto the passenger seat so as not to cry into Victor’s ear, as all the anger and grief burning in her throat erupted from her like lava. She slammed her hand against the horn, and it gave a meek little beep. And that led to hysterical laughter rising out of her. She seemed to swing between all the emotions at once. Her body couldn’t decide what to feel—anger, grief, frustration.

“I’m here if you want to talk.” The voice from her phone cut through the noise buzzing in her head.

She stared at the phone as if it were a physical threat. She hated burdening others with her feelings and had assumed he would hang up. Who was she but practically a stranger? Then, like a faucet being turned off, the numbness came back as she stuffed down her feelings to accommodate Victor, who was guiding her through perhaps one of the worst moments of her life. He didn’t need to do this; she had no idea why it was him, of all people, breaking the news. But she was thankful for the friendly voice on the other line. She took a few calming breaths to compose herself and picked the phone back up.

“Sorry. This is shocking,” Lizzy said.

“Yeah. I was surprised too. He’d been working a ton. No sign anything was wrong…”

A thousand questions buzzed in her mind. But she didn’t want to waste any more of his time.

“Thank you for everything.” She was grateful it was him, someone friendly, instead of some exhausted overworked nurse or someone from the city asking her to pay for an impersonal burial. Her father had never remarried and had no other siblings, and his parents were long gone. All he had was her.