Permission to come aboard!”“Cut it out, Frankie.” I tried to fluff my hair around my eye patch and the funky earring indent in my cheek from my morning nap. I put on my work apron and got my order pad ready.“You okay?”“Shut up.”“What? I’m serious. Is your eye doing any better?” He bumped me with his elbow, his hands encased in plastic gloves, as he sliced his fresh bread. The bump was what I can only assume was his equivalent of a hug and a “there-there.” My covered eye watered like nobody’s business. Sometimes I missed him.“I swear, Frankie, our relationship was like you and I were reading from two different sets of Ikea instructions.”“And all we ended up with was a wobbly coffee table?”Enthusiasm followed by mistakes ending in frustration. I guess I was ready for a decent coffee table. Frankie must have been too, because he had stopped trying to get back together.People were lined up and hungry enough to not ask about my patch, though there were a couple of “Arghs,”
