Coma

“Ems, table five wants to speak with you,” Stephanie said, walking into the kitchen carrying a tray of dirty dishes with her. Stephanie had worked at Emma’s restaurant since it opened and she was Emma’s best waitress.

Emma sighed as she stopped working on the dessert for table fifteen. “Good or bad?” she asked, wiping her hands on her shirt.

Stephanie shrugged. “They just said, and I quote, ‘I would like to speak to the owner and head chef of this establishment,’”

Emma muttered under her breath as she threw off her hat then washed her hands. It had been a week since she came back from California. Everyday she would wake up around eight, get ready for work, go to the hospital to visit with Mark for about an hour, go to work until closing, go home and change, walk Eugene, and then go back to the hospital until around one in the morning. Being away from work for so long made Emma realize that she needed to be doing something constructive and not just moping around at the hospital.

Emma walked quickly to table five; she had the whole restaurant arrangement memorized. “Hello, I am Chef Graham, was there something unsatisfactory in your meal today?” she said as nicely as she could.

A man with light brown hair and blue eyes smiled up at her. “Finally!” he exclaimed, “I’ve been to every restaurant in Baltimore trying to find yours,” Sebastian said.

Emma raised her eyebrows in confusion. “You’ve been looking for my restaurant?” she asked.

Sebastian nodded. “Well yeah. When you said you owned your own fine dining establishment, I was intrigued. I had to know if your food was good or not.”

“Well, was it?” Emma asked, hopeful.

“My complements to the chef,” Sebastian said in an Italian accent, kissing his fingers. Emma laughed.

“Well, if that’s all you need,” she said, turning away, “I really need to get back to work.”

“Wait!” Sebastian called, stopping Emma in her tracks. She turned around to look at him with an expecting glance. “Do you happen to have a job opening?”

“You don’t have a job?”

Sebastian grinned sheepishly. “Well, I have two in fact,” he said, “but I’ve never worked in a fancy place like this.”
Emma smirked. “I’m sorry, we’re not hiring at the moment, but if you’d like to put in an application, you may,” she said in a very professional voice.

Sebastian smiled at the strawberry blond. “Well shucks,” he said, “and I was really looking forward to working here.” Sebastian said, standing up. He placed money on the table to pay for his meal and grabbed Emma’s hand. “No matter, I will be seeing you again in the near future, m’lady,” he said as he kissed Emma’s hand. He bowed before he walked out of the restaurant, leaving a slightly confused Emma standing in the middle of the restaurant. She shook her head before she returned to the kitchen.

“He went to every restaurant to find you?” Amelia said as she examined a dog at her office the next day. Emma had gone to talk to her about the ordeal with Sebastian.

Emma nodded. “Yeah, he said I had intrigued him so he had to taste my food.”

“Interesting,” Amelia mused, checking the dog’s eyes.

“Don’t you think that’s a little, I don’t know, strange?” Emma asked.

Amelia looked up at her friend. She noticed that Emma had that same glow about her like she did the first day she met Sebastian. Amelia noticed something different about her best friend, but she couldn’t place her finger on what it was. “No, it could be just what he said; he just wanted to try your food.”

“But then he said ‘I’ll see you in the near future,’” Emma said. She had been thinking of nothing but the strange person who was Sebastian since he came to her restaurant yesterday. She tried to forget about him, but she couldn’t. As hard as she tried, she still thought about how free he was and his lifestyle.

“Emma, you’re looking too far into things,” Amelia said, “You know how I am when I meet people and he seemed fine. He didn’t seem weird, well, abnormally weird, and he doesn’t seem to be a stalker like you think he is,” Emma blushed when Amelia said that; she had been secretly thinking that very thing. “Just forget about it, you’ll probably never see him again even if he said that.”

Emma smiled a bit, “Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m just over analyzing things. Thanks Amelia.” Emma hugged Amelia and then left, heading for the hospital. When she got there, she walked briskly to Mark’s room and took her seat next to him. She held his lifeless hand and sighed. She wanted things to be back to before he was in a coma. Emma missed Mark terribly. “Wake up,” she muttered, “I need you.”