Stand by Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’m setting up my own company.’
     
    ‘Really?’ She looked at him in astonishment.
     
    ‘Absolutely,’ he told her. ‘That’s the only way forward. Things will pick up in this country, and having your own company is what’ll make you money.’
     
    ‘What’ll you build?’ she asked.
     
    ‘Houses,’ he told her. ‘Lots of them. And I’ll make a big profit from it.’
     
    She laughed. ‘I hope someone buys them from you, so.’
     
    ‘They will,’ he said confidently.
     
    ‘Everything all right?’ Kirsten Jacobs, the supervisor, came over to the booth and looked at Dominique with a degree of irritation.
     
    ‘Absolutely,’ said the customer. ‘My fault for delaying your waitress. I was debating what to drink. You know what? I’ll have two of those milks.’
     
    Kirsten looked from one to the other and frowned.
     
    ‘You sure?’ asked Dominique.
     
    He nodded.
     
    ‘Well get to it,’ said Kirsten as Dominique hesitated.
     
    When she returned with the two glasses of milk, he apologised for getting her into trouble.
     
    ‘Sorry, Domino,’ he said.
     
    ‘What?’ She was startled.
     
    ‘Domino.’ He grinned at her. ‘That’s what you reminded me of as you walked back to me, all dressed in black with your white specs and the two white glasses of milk in front of you. A little domino. It’s a good game, dominoes. You need luck and strategy and a willingness to take a chance to play it well.’
     
    ‘That’s so weird,’ she said slowly as she put the milk down on the table in front of him.
     
    ‘It’s not. It’s a very old game,’ he told her.
     
    ‘No. I don’t mean that. I mean - what you called me. It’s ... it’s almost my name.’
     
    ‘Really?’
     
    She nodded. ‘I’m Dominique,’ she said.
     
    ‘I prefer Domino,’ he said. ‘It suits you better.’
     
    ‘Why?’ she asked.
     
    ‘Oh, because I think you’re someone who would be willing to take a chance,’ he said.
     
    ‘Depends on what I’m chancing,’ she said.
     
    He laughed.
     
    ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
     
    ‘Brendan,’ he said.
     
    ‘Not a very chance-taking name,’ she chided and went off to get his burger and chips.
     
    She was prepared to chat with him again, but he’d opened his newspaper and was engrossed in the sports pages when she came back. He looked up briefly and thanked her but he didn’t engage her in conversation. She was vaguely disappointed. But later, when he was leaving, he waved goodbye to her and called, ‘See you, Domino,’ even though she was taking another order at the time and so couldn’t reply.
     

Chapter 2
     
    Brendan sat at one of her tables every Friday. He always ordered the mushroom burger, cremated, even during December, when she tried to persuade him to have the turkey and cranberry special. He’d looked at her in horror when she’d suggested it and told her that there was no need to run that by him again, the mushroom burger suited him just fine. Although, he added that day, he did rather like the fact that all of the waitresses in American Burger were wearing Santa Claus hats. Hers, he told her, suited her just fine. She was the prettiest girl in the restaurant, he added, which made her blush to the roots of her newly styled hair.
     
    ‘I have something for you,’ said Brendan on the Friday before Christmas when she brought him his bill.
     
    She looked at him in surprise as he put a small, gift-wrapped box on the table.
     
    ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Open it.’
     
    ‘Really?’
     
    ‘Of course.’
     
    She glanced around the restaurant. But Kirsten Jacobs was busy and nobody was watching them. So she picked up the box, tore off the gold foil paper and lifted the lid. Inside was a delicate coral necklace. Her eyes widened as she looked at it.
     
    ‘Happy Christmas, Domino,’ he said.
     
    ‘I can’t take this.’ She looked at him in dismay. ‘It’s . . . well . . . they wouldn’t let me.’
     
    ‘And why