Fragile Heart

Alexei

“It’s got mayo on it, doesn’t it?” I asked Nancy with a tsk.

The tiny woman with her gray hair styled to perfection for her Wednesday lunch date with her bridge club nodded with a scowl. Poor Nancy ordered a club sandwich with no mayo and a fruit cup every Wednesday for the three years I’d worked at Joe and Dot’s. The new waitress, Jenna, was still green. She hadn’t even picked out a couple of extra strawberries to round out the fruit cup either. Everyone knew if you gave Nancy a strawberry-heavy fruit cup, that tip was gonna shine.

“Sorry about that, Nance,” I took the plate from her. “I’ll fix it for you and be back in a jiffy. Anything else I can get for my best girls?”

The table of ladies practically swooned.

“Still can’t talk you into taking my granddaughter out, Alexei? Handsome boy like you needs a good girl to keep him out of trouble,” Wanda asked.

The entire table nodded in agreement.

“Alas,” I sighed. “I am married to the job, Miss Wanda.” And gay. So very, very gay. “If she’s anything like you, I doubt I could afford a girl like her waiting tables for Joe.”

Laughter erupted around the table. I had this down to a science. All people wanted was someone to pay attention to them, to be kind to them. And that was certainly no chore, considering the kindness I was repaying to the world.

When I’d left foster care at eighteen with nothing but a trash bag full of clothes and not even a “good luck,” I’d expected to be swallowed up by the world. There was no doubt that I would have been if I hadn’t used the money I’d scraped together from working every spare second to buy a bus ticket upstate. I’d ended up here, shivering in a red vinyl booth at Joe and Dot’s in clothes that had been worn out two winters before.

Dot and Joe, the couple that owned the diner, had taken me in, showed me the first true kindness I’d known since my mother died. I’d worked for them ever since, grateful for every second. They’d given me more than just a job. I felt like they’d given me somewhere to belong for the first time since my mother had left.

Weaving my way through the tables,I took Nancy’s sandwich back to the pass behind the counter. “Joe,” I called out, “it’s for Nance.”

Enough said.

“Mayo?” Joe sighed as she crossed the kitchen around the two cooks,”Rookie mistake. Jenna?”

“Yep,” I confirmed.

“I got it,” Joe snorted, taking the plate from the pass. “I’ll give it to Jenna... provided she can manage not to fuck up the walk back over to table 5.”

Ah, Joe, surliest short order cook that ever picked up a spatula.

“Hey, on your way out,”she placed a to-go order bag in the pass. “Mind carrying Harvey’s lunch over to the store for me?”

Damn, was it that time already?

I checked my watch. It was old, but a pristine classic that Harv had given me under the condition that if I could fix it, I could keep it. It was almost two. Time for me to go down the street to Melton’s Fine Watch and Clock Company to spend the afternoon at my second job, helping Harvey with watch and clock repair. His hands weren’t as steady as they used to be or his eyes as sharp, so he said, but Harv never failed to mend even the most delicate gears.

On days I didn’t have class, I worked 4:30 in the morning to 2:00 in the afternoon at Joe and Dot’s, getting the breakfast crowd and the lunch rush. I spent my afternoons with Harv. In the time I wasn’t working, I had homework from my pre-engineering courses at the local community college. In my spare time ? Well, all that was left was time to sleep and regroup to do it all again the next day. My schedule was tight, but I didn’t mind. If I was busy, that meant I didn’t have time to dwell on the past.

“Thanks, Joe,”I grabbed the to-go bag out of the window as I pushed away from the window. I side stepped Dot as she poured coffee behind the counter.“See you, Saturday morning.”

“Tell Harv I said next week I’m starting the first pumpkin pies of the season,” Dot called after me, “And start wearing a real jacket, Alexei! It’s turned colder than a witch’s tit out there.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I chuckled.

I went to the coat rack, pulling off my blue flannel shirt, putting it back on over my gray henley. She was right. I needed a new jacket. I’d sewn the lining back up in mine so many times that it was one wear away from disintegrating. After class tomorrow, I’d find my way to the local thrift store and hope that the winter jackets hadn’t all been wiped out prior to the early shift in the autumn weather.

I shoved open the diner door with a cheery jingle and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The chill of fall breeze skittered leaves down the sidewalk at my feet.My hair blew down over my eyes. I’d gone so long without a trim that my curls were damned near impossible now. I could shove them out of the way of my line of sight but there was no point. I’d given up on trying to manage it.I looked in the window of the diner at my reflection and found them a total mess, loose, pale blonde like my mother’s had been. My skin was just as fair as hers and already flushed from the bite in the breeze. The glimpse of her reflected in me made me feel hopelessly alone.

"Lyosha."

I could hear her soft voice, feel her fingers threading through my hair on those long nights when I knew she went to bed hungry just so I didn’t have to. The sweetness of her voice as she sang to me in Russian. I missed her so much but even now I could only remember fragments of our life together. I had been too young when she’d left me, abandoned on a church pew at Our Lady of the Holy Sacrament.

“I hope,” I breathed, “wherever you are today, you are happy, Mama.”

I shook it off, scurrying down the street to the watch repair store with leaves crunching under my boots. The sound of leaves crunching was one of my favorite things about the Fall and the change in the weather.The storefronts were just beginning to display Halloween decorations, orange and black crepe paper framing windows, orange and yellow mums,pumpkins grinning from beside doorways. Autumn in New Bedford was a picture straight from a postcard.

I opened the creaky old door to the repair shop. Harv had his back to the door, hunched over an old grandfather clock that he had laid out on a work table, its gears exposed. The walls were lined with antique clocks that ticked out of sync. Harvey’s gray hair was close cropped, his sweater was the one he wore at least every other day. He wore it so often because he told me it was his wife’s favorite. She passed five years ago from cancer, but you wouldn’t know it by the way he still talks about her.

He was wearing magnifying glasses. The tool in his hand was steady... for now. Ten minutes from now? This time tomorrow? Who knew? The tremor might be back, might last an hour, might last a week. One day, it would never leave. He knew it. I knew it. His son knew it. It was only through sheer stubbornness that Harv had been avoiding his son’s prodding to sell the repair business and retire.

“Be with you in a minute,” he called out without bothering to look up from his work.

“It’s me, Harv,” I called out, crossing the shop to step behind the counter,”Take a break and eat while it is hot.”

“Oh? Lost track of time, I guess,”Harvey straightened, pushed the glasses up onto his head with a grin. “Take a look at this beauty,would ya?”

“Whoa,”I whistled, leaning in to examine the clock’s exposed mechanism. “Vienna Regulator?”

“Gorgeous, isn’t it? Had a tumble during a move, the poor old girl. Owner is lucky it wasn’t worse than it is.”

“It is beautiful.” I offered him the takeout bag. “I’ll trade ya.”

“You are as bad as Maureen was,”he chuckled, “always trying to fatten me up.”

“Correction. Dot’s the one fattening you up.” I took the magnifying glasses from him, sliding into his place on the stool. “She told me to let you know next week pumpkin pie season kicks off.”

“Bout time,” he muttered as he opened the take out bag, “I’ve been waiting for that all damn year.”

I smiled, turning my attention to the clock. The gears were exquisite. I loved this work.I’d always loved putting things back together, taking them apart. When I was twelve, I’d almost single-handedly rebuilt my foster family’s old basement boiler. I knew, pretty much my entire life, that I wanted to create, to make things work, to make things better. It was only money that kept me in community college, struggling to save for an engineering school.

“How does that woman always know what I am craving?” he muttered to himself. Behind me, I heard the hiss of Harvey opening a soda. The old leather chair behind the counter creaked as he sat down.“Meatloaf and mashed potatoes.”

“Your favorite,” I grinned, diving into the gears,”You are lucky she sat some back. It was about time for the secondshifters to come in and wipe them out of the special.”

“I’d fight them for Dot’s meatloaf. I may not be as spry as I once was, but when a full belly is at stake I’d be hell on wheels,” Harvey munched. I chuckled and shook my head as I worked. We sat in companionable silence for a long time before he spoke again. “I need you to make a delivery for me, Alexei. Think you can go to the city this afternoon?”

“Yep,”I nodded.“Homework is... as caught up as it ever is, Harv. Who we taking?”

“The ’41 Patek Philippe Calatrava,” his voice was low and reverent as if he were speaking of God himself.

Shit.

That was not a watch. That thing was a fucking spectacle. Cream face with minimalist gold markers. Well worn but well cared for. I’d seen it only in passing. Harvey never let me work on it. Every time I’d asked if he needed help, he’d wave me away with a : “Not this one, kiddo.” I didn’t know who dropped off that absolute show piece but I knew the inscription on the back wasn’t in English.

“Oh?” My hands stilled over the clock. “Thought you didn’t even want me breathing around that one?”

The first time I’d seen the watch, I’d been stunned. It was not a pretentious piece, just quiet confidence. I’d taken a picture of it with my phone, googling the inscription on the back: ”For all the time you’ve stolen." The language was Irish Gaelic. Even the inscription was elegant. I wondered again, as I had since the first time I looked at that beauty, what kind of man owned it. Someone with history, someone with secrets.

“I don’t,” Harvey sighed, “But I can’t drive at night, and it’ll be plenty dark on your way back. The client just put a rush on it, and said he’d pay a hefty chunk to have it back tonight.”

The tremor in his hands was worse today, I noticed as he held his fork. Not bad enough to keep him from eating, but enough that he’d thought twice about the drive and found a comfortable excuse.

“I don’t mind at all.”

And I didn’t. A trip to the city would be a nice change of pace from my usual routine of homework, ramen, and exhaustion.

“I’ll go get that old beauty for you and write down the address.” Harvey scrubbed his hands on his slacks. “Take my car and the company card for gas.” He paused,“And for the love of God, Alexei, go home and get a jacket. It’s going to be damned near freezing tonight.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll grab my jacket on the way,” I promised,already lost in thought, day dreaming about what the owner of such a precious timepiece would be like.