Amanda “Mandy” Applegate was barely scraping by. Why she had bothered to stay in New York all these  years she would never know. It would have been easier to build a life for herself somewhere else—anywhere else—but she couldn’t bear to leave.

She was born and raised in Brooklyn and never bothered to go anywhere else. It didn’t help that she didn’t have the funds to move after ending up homeless with a baby in tow before even graduating high school.

Her daughter was now twenty-seven and living a good life in Long Island with her lawyer husband and their two-year-old son. Raising her daughter into a decent person was the only good thing Mandy ever did.

Ironically, Brittany met her husband after he was chosen to be the court-appointed lawyer replacing Mandy’s original one while she was in prison. She rotted in there for nine years all for defending her daughter’s innocence against her scumbag ex-husband.

At least Britt was grateful for what she did and still allowed her to be around her grandson. Britt, her husband Jason, and little Eli were the only light in her life. They gave her a place to go on holidays and Sunday dinners but they were pretty busy and couldn’t help her out financially.

Mandy didn’t blame them. Burdening a young family in an ever-more-expensive city wasn’t something she wanted to do. But it did mean she was stuck living with five roommates, most of whom were struggling showgirls, and had to wait tables to pay her bills.

Commuting all the way to downtown Manhattan was time-consuming but if you managed to get a job at the coveted expensive restaurants, the tips were more than worth it. That was what got her out of bed every day and made her continue to strain her back by standing for hours at a time while carrying heavy trays.

Mandy was forty-three and waitressing was a young girls’ game. If she had managed to graduate from high school on time her life would be completely different. She could have gone onto college like Mikey and made something of herself.

Sure, she had her GED now, but it had taken decades to get it. Her first lawyer advised her to get it done while she was in prison. It helped kill time anyway.

Whatever happened to Mikey? He always talked so big and made her believe that life could get better. But it never did. He went off on a full-ride scholarship and was never heard from again. Sometimes she wondered if he actually got the life he wanted or if he had failed too.

She pushed those thoughts away and focused on the people at the table in front of her. While she took their order, she caught a bit of the conversation at the table behind her.

Two classy looking guys a bit older than her had come in and sat in her section a while back and she could tell with one glance that they would be excellent tippers. Customers like those were her favorite.

“You want to fall in love? You,” one of them said in disbelief.

The other answered wryly. “They say there’s someone for everyone but somehow I doubt they included convicted murderers in that statement.”

Mandy was startled enough by someone admitting they were a convicted murderer that she didn’t hear what the customer was ordering. She apologized and asked him to repeat himself, much to his annoyance.

As she scurried away with the order, she heard the second classy guy speak again, sounding much more insincerely cheerful than before.

“No matter. I’m happy to be out in the world. There really are so many fascinating things I missed. It’s been nice catching up on them. Do your sons play virtual reality games? I can’t quite get the hang of them myself.”

It sure sounded like he had barely gotten out of prison. And that he had been in there a long time. Mandy could relate. When she finally got out, Britt had graduated from college and was engaged to her lawyer. Everything from fashion to music had changed.

She walked over with the classy guys’ wine after delivering the other table’s order to the cooks and did her usual spiel. “Here are your drinks. Do you know what you want to order or do you need a little more time?”

Mandy smiled and tucked a strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail behind her ear. She didn’t look great after getting out of prison, pale with limp hair and lifeless eyes, but her wrinkles weren’t too bad. Britt had gone to school to be a beautician and fixed her up real nice. Now she didn’t look a day over thirty-nine.

One of these men was wearing a wedding ring but the slightly handsomer of the two wasn’t. Maybe if she flirted with him a bit she could get a bigger tip.

“I’ll take a filet mignon, medium rare, and some crab cakes,” one of them said.

Based on his voice, it was the man who wasn’t the convicted murderer. Well, that made sense. He was the one with the ring and had been talking about playing video games with his sons as she walked away. He seemed like a normal, stable family man.

As for the other…he wore a carefree debonair smile on his face and looked immaculate between his designer suit and perfectly coiffed hair. But there was a familiar look in his eyes. Hungry. Desperate. Lonely.

He had the same eyes Mandy had after ending up on the streets when she was pregnant with Britt. Her foster parents at the time kicked her out the moment they discovered she had been knocked up because she said it was their teenage son who did it against her will. He vehemently denied everything and, of course, they took his side.

She didn’t think this man was the type to murder because he enjoyed it. He might be like her, who had stabbed her ex’s eye out after he pawed her teenage daughter. The divorce was granted while she was in prison because he managed to get everyone to think he was an innocent victim.

It was only because Britt was too terrified of him to testify. He said he would kill her if she told the truth so she kept her mouth shut.

Mandy didn’t blame her for it; she blamed herself for ever marrying that creep. Losers attract losers after all.

“I’ll have a T-Bone, also medium rare, and a Caesar salad,” the convicted murderer said with a slight smile. “Thank you, Mandy.”

Her heart skipped a beat when he said her name. Sure, it was on her name tag and she had introduced herself when they first sat down, but no one ever remembered or bothered to address “the help.” He seemed far too nice to have spent a lot of time in jail but hey, so had she.

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