If the girl was a little picky about her grilled cheese, Lisa didn’t mind. Most afternoons when the indigo girl and her buddy came in, Lisa wasn’t sure what she wanted to eat for lunch anyway. When the occasional grilled cheese order got sent back to the kitchen because it had white and yellow cheeses, Lisa was fine with that. But they never came in this late in the evening, and they never slunk through the dining area like a couple of commandos on a super-secret mission. A half-hour before the end of Lisa’s shift, the indigo girl and her companion rushed into the restaurant, crouching low and hurrying along the length of the booths to the corner beside the old phone booth. Whatever they were up to, they didn’t look like they were about to eat.

  “Hiya, hon!” Lisa called from behind the counter. “You here to see Jack?”

  Jynx held a finger to her lips.

  “Jynx, honey, your aura is on fire!”

  The indigo girl clutched at Lisa’s apron, tugging her to crouch.

  “What’s all the commotion?” Lisa asked.

  “Mr. Vickers is out there,” Jynx said.

  “He’s trying to kidnap Jynx,” Austin said.

  Mr. Vickers had always seemed a little shifty to Lisa, assuming that any man who couldn’t be bothered to check out her new tits was either gay or dead. “I knew that there was something about that guy.”

  “Can we sneak out the back door, maybe?” Jynx asked, assuming that they might be able to get out to the scrub brush behind the restaurant and sneak back as soon as the coast was clear.

  “I’ll do ya one better, sweetie,” Lisa said.

  Lisa moved to Arroyo Grande with her family back in the late nineties. The town was growing alongside the water bottling plant, neighborhoods filling even as they were built. Most of the high school kids she ran around with had a secret hideout, a new drainage culvert that ran the length of the town. During heavy rainfall, the ditch became a veritable river flowing underground at the edge of the salt flats. Most of the time, it was just a big empty tunnel that almost nobody remembered. “You kids get out back and I’ll show you the entrance as soon as I coffee my tables and drop some checks.”

  Dropping checks on her last two tables, she found old Jack making a mess of his turkey Waldorf sandwich. The pink goo spilled out over half the plate. “How in the hell am I supposed to eat this damn thing?”

  “Jesus, Jack. Aren’t we a messy boy?” Rushing to get Jack all cleaned up, Lisa forgot to mention Jynx to the old guy, and he seemed too preoccupied with the mashed cranberry and turkey all over his hands. Distracted momentarily, she pulled a stack of napkins from the side station.

  “How does anybody hold this thing together?” He glanced up from his cranberry sauce-gored fingers like a toddler.

  “Like you said,” Lisa offered, “they hold it between their knees, Jack.” But she kept her eye on Mr. Vickers as she pulled Jack’s check from her apron. “No rush, honey. I've got a few things to take care of before I get out of here. She could see the science teacher’s face glowing in the light of his phone screen, a dim blue mask hanging in the darkness of his minivan cab. As she bustled behind the counter, she herded the kids ahead of her. “Alright, Jynx. Let’s get you two out of here.” They scuttled along past the silverware trays and stacked saucers. Crouching beside a few boxes of coffee packets and cases of sugar and sweet and low they were nearly trampled by Terrence and Earl, still freshly frustrated with their bilingual interrogation. “What the hell are you kids doing?” He scowled down at them. “Get the hell out of there.”

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  Lisa glanced up from her table. “Earl honey, these kids need to talk to Angela.”

  Earl pushed his sleeves up and crossed his arms over his chest to display his burn scars. Scowling down at the pair he shook his head slowly. “There’s no Angela here,” he said flatly.

  “No, Earl, they need to see Angela.” She winked at him, letting him know it was code for something.

  Earl shook his head. “Like, there’s no Angela here, okay?” He said to Lisa as if she was missing that point.

  “Dammit, Earl.” She glanced around at the last few tables finishing their meals. She didn’t recognize any of them, guessing them to passing motorists. “That creepy Vickers guy is out there waiting in his van. He’s trying to kidnap Jynx.” As she said it, every table, strangers or not, glanced out the window at Mr. Vickers in his minivan. Mr. Vickers, upon being noticed by at least a half dozen strangers, froze in his seat.

  “Bro, that fuckin’ teacher is a pedo or something.” Terrence glared at the minivan.

  Earl glanced down at the yellow-only grilled cheese sandwich girl. “Is that true?” he asked her.

  Jynx nodded slowly, afraid that he may still be angry at her for some reason.

  High maintenance or not, the little lady was one of his customers and shouldn’t have to hide behind the counter for any reason. Earl calmly unfolded his arms and turned back into the kitchen.

  Lisa just shook her head. “Just head for the back door,” she told them, “I’ll be right there.” Plucking the decaf coffee pot off the burner she hurried back to refill the customer’s cup before she led them to the tunnel.

  Jynx and Austin were stopped short as Earl re-emerged from the kitchen wielding a formidable-looking aluminum meat tenderizing hammer like a club. “Fucking perverts,” he muttered to himself, charging towards the front door. Terrence caught the drift and pulled a long-handled mayonnaise tub pry bar from under the prep table. Weighing its heft in his hand momentarily, he charged straight out the front door behind Earl.

  Lisa didn’t even get the chance to finish refilling the cup when she saw the aces heading out to confront Vickers. “Guys, no!” She charged after them brandishing the orange-handled coffee pot.

  Octavio, having nothing to do, watched the entire scene as he silently picked burnt steak fries out of the fry bowl. When he saw Earl shatter the driver’s side window with the meat tenderizing hammer, he was sure that neither Terrence nor Earl would be back anytime soon, and he still didn’t know how to make papas fritas. Grabbing a big yellow plastic flashlight from the first aid shelf, he nodded at the kids. “Te mostraré,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. Gesturing for them to follow, he trailed them out the back door and casually across the parking lot, regarding the lights and sounds of sirens and the commotion in the front lot with a bemused smirk. Sure enough, hidden in the fenced enclosure's back corner, the dishwasher flashed his light on the manhole cover. “No es realmente magico,” he shrugged. He lifted one edge of the manhole cover. Austin helped him slide it away from the entrance. Clicking the flashlight a few times to get the lantern array working, Octavio passed it to Austin as he descended into the darkness.

  “Uh, gracias,” Austin said.

  The dishwasher shrugged. “Andale,” he said, lifting the leading edge of the iron cover, ready to pull it closed behind the kids. “Y si ves a Paco, dile que tenía razón sobre los superpolicías.”

  Austin nodded like he understood, but his two years of high school Spanish left him with little conversational skills beyond ordering another round of Tapas or shopping for a handbag in Espa?a. “Sí,” he said.