Knife Girl

Martha Von Miller hadn't meant to listen in on the conversation of the two girls seated in the booth across from hers, but what they were talking about was too juicy to ignore.

Oh, who was she fooling? Martha scribbled a few lines in her notepad and set her pen down on the Formica table. She purposely came to The Courthouse Diner to overhear the gossip and idle chit-chat of various law enforcement, attorneys, and witnesses. It was the neutral zone in the Justice Center Complex. The diner stood by its motto hand-painted on the sign hanging behind the cash register: 

Justice is Blind, and so are we. 

We serve anyone as long as you mind your manners. 

All sorts of folks ate there and told all types of stories there. A people-watching working writer's paradise. 

"…told him if he ever…" 

An unforgiving sun blazed through the diner's windows and Martha needed to move before she melted in her seat. At her age, she didn't need any additional help in the overheating department. Menopause hot flashes were enough, thank you very much. She moved and bumped the table with her knee, darn near knocking over her Diet Coke. She had to do a sticky shuffle-scoot to the end of the faux leather bench to catch her pen before it dropped to the grease grimed linoleum floor.  

Martha glanced at the girls' table to see if they noticed the commotion she made. They didn't. Their waitress had walked up carrying their orders. She set the bowls and plates in front of them, then hurried off to answer another customer's signal. The girls resumed their dialogue as soon as she left. 

Martha let out a small exhalation of breath and settled in her seat to hear the rest of the titillating tale. 

"…me again, I would…"

"You're kidding!" 

The girls' conversation floated beneath the clink of cutlery, clatter of dishes, and chatter of customers. A young mother tried to shush her obnoxious son's whining, with little success, Martha noted. Why parents felt the need to bring their children to restaurants Martha couldn't begin to fathom. 

Occasionally, ice rattled from the soda machine or the one millionth plastic cup hit the floor and obscured the girls' words. However, Martha could still hear a majority of what the two said. She took a sip from her own ice filled cup and savored the artificial sweetness. 

"…but then he said…and tried again to…"

Martha shifted her position to hear better, but not so much as to give away the fact she was eavesdropping. 

The girl who did most of the talking sat in the cascading sunlight. She was illuminated as if she were under a director's spotlight. A petite thing. Martha guessed her to be in her early 20's because of the university hoodie. She wore her coal black hair in two long braids, intertwined with electric blue strands like a modern-day Pocahontas. Kohl black eyeliner accentuated her blazing dark eyes and deep red lipstick colored her lips. The application looked more like war paint than any kind of beauty enhancement. For all her attempts to look fierce, tough, untouchable, the deep shadows underneath her eyes betrayed the facade.

Martha pondered on the girl's backstory. She brushed aside some salt granules on the tabletop as she reached for the laminated menu. She pretended to read over the choices, knowing full well she would order her usual cheeseburger with mayo, tomato and lettuce and onion rings. A whiff of the fried food in the air already had her salivating. 

Leaning forward, she raised the menu higher. 

"So, what did you do next?" the other girl said, shock evident in her tone.

"I did what any self-respecting woman would do. I grabbed the butcher knife." Her words made all the more menacing by the cool, offhand manner she spoke them, like what else would have she done?

A delighted shiver tickled Martha's spine. This story was getting better and better.

Martha lowered her menu just a smidge in order to see the expression on the girl's face. It was tight, and her lips pressed together as if to suppress an uncontrollable fury. Her long slender fingers twirled the dinner knife she held in one hand. She speared her fork into the salad with the other. 

"Then what did you do?" The other girl prompted.

Yes, what did she do? In her eagerness to hear more, Martha let the menu fall away from her face.

The alleged butcher knife-wielding girl brought the dressing-coated lettuce to her mouth and stopped–having noticed Martha peering at her. 

Martha hiccupped and her breath snagged in her throat like a mouse trapped in a cat's claws. 

The girl fixed her stare on Martha's for a beat, then pulled her attention back to her friend. Her angry expression smoothed away to playful seriousness. She leaned in closer and stage whispered, "I can't say, 'cause if I did, I would have to kill you, too." 

The girl used the dinner knife she was still holding to mime cutting her throat.

Her friend leaned back and said with a twinge of breathlessness. "Too?"

Knife Girl relaxed backwards in her seat. "No, silly. I'm just messing with you. Dickface is fine, other than that, he knows never to call me again." 

She laughed, except the edge in her voice dulled any merriment she attempted to convey.   

Then, the girl flicked a glance in Martha’s direction and winked. But it wasn't the good-natured-I-was-just-messing-with-you wink. It was we-both-got-a-secret-and-it's-nothing-nice wink. She repeated the knife cutting throat gesture.

Taken aback, Martha raised her menu again to hide her face. God, what was that about? Well for starters, she got busted spying on those girls. She shouldn't have been so careless. And sure, she also needed to learn how to mind her own business.

Except…she was a blogger and wanted to be a mystery writer to boot. Her blogging was as prolific as Agatha Christie. However, unlike the Dame, Martha remained unknown, her books unpublished. Hence, the reason she hung out in The Courthouse Diner as much as she did. How else would she get interesting ideas and the verisimilitude she needed to write captivating blog posts and stories? 

Her answer was to listen in on private conversations. Conversations that, yes, she had no business listening to. Yet, it was these very conversations that pulled up more gold than anything she witnessed in the courtroom. She kept telling herself not to do it. But…what those two girls were saying…the author in her just had to listen.

Martha let out a slow, tremulous breath and shook her head once. She had let herself get too involved in this improbable conversation. Time to focus on the here and now.

The girls' conversation drifted into banalities—normal, everyday things. 

Martha fidgeted in her seat, not seeing the words on the menu in front of her. Why did that impetuous girl wink at her? What was she telling her? That she knew Martha was listening in and everything she said was a lie, or was it something more sinister? Either way, Martha didn't like it.

"You ready to order?"

Martha crashed back in her seat, grasping at her chest. A little "Oh!" escaped from her lips.

"I'm sorry," said the waitress, a new girl, not one of the regulars Martha knew. She reached over to place her hand on Martha's arm, but Martha pulled away and the woman took a step back. "I didn't mean to startle you."

Martha scanned the diner, looking to see who might have observed the exchange. She brought her gaze last to the two girls sitting in the booth across from hers. Sure enough, they both were staring, with Knife Girl grinning a Cheshire cat grin.

An uncomfortable heat radiated from Martha as if an interrogation lamp shone down on her in a darkened, unforgiving, unsympathetic room of condemners. 

"Ma'am?" The waitress didn't reach for her again but held her notepad and pencil close to her body.

"Never mind," Martha said, putting the menu on the table and grabbing her handbag. "I'm not hungry after all." She threw a twenty on the table and scooted out of the booth. As she hurried out of the diner, she could feel the scrutiny of the other patrons as she fled the establishment.

The warm air slapped her face, and she struggled to sling her bag over her shoulder. She half ran, half walked to the parking lot. A delivery truck parked to the left of the entrance and the driver hopped out and ran inside. He left the truck running, oily tinged black smoke puffed from the exhaust pipe. 

Adrenaline pumping, Martha scanned the packed parking lot for her green Subaru Forester. Not seeing it, because the humiliation of the last few minutes played over and over in her mind. What had happened back there? Why was she making it a bigger deal than she needed it to be? She wasn't the first person in human history to eavesdrop on other people's conversations. Nor the first person caught doing so. Most people acknowledge and move on with their lives, the incident forgotten. End of story. 

Martha reached into her purse and pulled out her car keys. They jingled in her hand and she pressed the unlock button on her key fob. Her car doors chirp-clunked a few paces to her right and the yellow lights of the car flashed out of the corner of her eye. Found it. She blew out a puff of air and she hurried over. Flinging open the door, she threw her purse on the passenger seat and got in the car. She seized the steering wheel to keep her hands from trembling. 

She knew her behavior was irrational…but that girl. 

Martha was sure that girl was not just playing with her friend. She did something with that butcher knife. Kill her boyfriend? Probably not. Except…the expression on that girl's face spoke of something menacing. 

The girl was dangerous, and Martha decided that she needed to stay way clear of her. It would be best to not frequent The Courthouse Diner for a while. Make that a long while. The greater her chances of not running into that girl, the better. Perhaps she should hang out in regular coffee shops to get her gossip instead.