text: Logline: A young man has a summer romance with a much older woman who is in a dangerous marriage, it will be a summer of firsts. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ My name is Gerald Rice, in three months, I'm going to be 18 and off to college, what a wild three months it's going to be. I guess it all started when I got my first job, at Giuseppe's, a family Italian restaurant, known for their meatballs. They started me off with minimum wage, bussing tables. I didn't mind the job; it was a mindless task; I just needed the money. The first time I met Amber Watts, I didn't think anything special; I barely saw her. Amber was a waitress in the restaurant, much older than me; she was going to be 43, three days after my eighteenth birthday. I'd been working there for three weeks, the first time we were put on the schedule together. A closing shift, a closing shift is a shift that begins with a lot of employees and then ends with only a few, because staff can go home with fewer and fewer customers remaining. There are a lot of downtimes; you can get to know the people you're working with on the closing shift. Amber had a bubbly personality, an infectious laugh, and was fun to work with, especially at closing time. We would play little games, like, how many times will this guy send back the steak, will this baby have to be brought out to the car, and our personal favorite, how much of their dinner will these kids put on the floor? We were a good team, by our third shift together, we had all of our side duties done by the time the restaurant closed, this allowed us to count our tips and get out of there. It was also, on this shift, that we had our first moment. One of our duties at the end of the night was to combine ketchup bottles. Giuseppe still uses glass ketchup bottles, and one had broken in Amber's hand while she was trying to combine them. I immediately sprang into action, grabbing a cloth and applying pressure to the small cut on her the side of her hand. I could tell that Amber was a little embarrassed, but she said to me that I had a gentle touch, and we looked at each other in the eyes for an extended period. Neither of us wanted to look away, it was like a staring contest, except, there were emotions involved. I was beginning to develop feelings for Amber, and I believe she was starting to develop feelings for me. Right from the start, I had seen that Amber wears a wedding ring, but it never came up in conversation, and I was not assertive enough to ask myself. A couple of nights after the ketchup bottle incident, I caught Amber crying in a booth towards the back of the restaurant. Naturally, I sat down to see if I could comfort her, she was complaining about her husband, they had gotten into a fight before work, and he was sending her nasty text messages all night. I told her that she deserved better, she was a beautiful, smart, and funny woman, and that anyone who couldn't see that, didn't deserve her. Amber laughed, she said I was so wise for a young man, as we got up from the booth, she hugged me, the hug lasted a long time, I was never in a hug for that long before, but it felt good feeling her body pressed up against mine. A couple of nights after that, the restaurant remained busy all night, we didn't have a chance to do our side duties, which meant we would have to stay after the restaurant closed. It was a late one, and eventually, Amber's husband came down and was having a tantrum in the lobby. Amber went out, and he screamed at her. Finally, she came back to work in tears. I did everything I could to try to comfort her. Amber said I knew how to make her feel good. As we were bringing up takeout containers from the basement of Giuseppe's restaurant, she stopped me before we returned to the main restaurant floor, and she kissed me. On our next shift together, Amber asked me if I wanted to hang out after work today. Me, still living at home with my parents, asked her what she wanted to do. She said she wanted to have a little fun, and that she knew of a motel near the airport, where we could talk. After the shift was over, we got in my old Honda Civic and drove to the motel. We talked about everything under the sun for about an hour, and eventually, we started kissing. I had one girlfriend in high school, but we never went all the way, that night was my first time. From that point on, every night that we worked together, we would hang out after work, which was code for meet up at a motel, club, or bar and get it on. I didn't think much about her being married, the couple of encounters I had with her husband, he didn't seem like a good guy. We started to get riskier, one shift, she left me a note to meet her in the basement where the takeout containers were, we made love up against some styrofoam containers and soda cup lids. We enjoyed the danger, knowing that if anyone were to come down there, they would fire us on the spot. One shift we were supposed to work together, Amber didn't show up, and I was concerned. Since working together, she had not missed a single shift. I tried calling, texting, and social media, but Amber wouldn't respond. I asked our manager if she had called and said anything, and he told me he hadn't heard from her. Concerned for her safety, about halfway through my shift, I told our manager that I wasn't feeling well, and I left, looking to track Amber down. She told me where she lived, and that's the first place I went. I drove by three or four times; her car was in the driveway; I didn't know what to think. Eventually, Amber saw me doing laps on her street and came out to talk. She came out with a black eye; she said she couldn't speak the long, that she had to get back in the house, and that she would be showing up for her next shift. I was furious, I wanted to go in there and beat them up, but she wouldn't let me, she said he was a police officer and would try to ruin my life. The next night, we went to the motel again, we sat in bed, in a post-sex snuggle, and she told me that she was going to leave her husband. Amber admitted that he was the one that gave her the black eye because he suspected that she was cheating. She was cheating with me, but that didn't give him any right to give her a black eye. On our way back to Giuseppe's, in my Honda Civic, I found that a black truck was trailing us from behind. Amber was scared right away; that was her husband; we were caught. I went down several side streets, but he followed me every step of the way. I started to worry about my life. If this man was able to give his wife a black eye, what he would do to the guy who was sleeping with her. After trying to lose him to no avail, I knew that the police station was coming up on the right side of the road, Amber told me it wouldn't matter, he was a police officer, but, when I pulled in, his black truck went straight. Amber said he would be waiting for us when we got back to Giuseppe's and insisted that she take an Uber back to the restaurant and deal with it on her own. I told her that this day was coming, and I had to face it, but she wouldn't let me go. Amber got into the Uber, which would take her to the man who was going to kill her. I did what I was told; I went home. Later, I found out that Amber was all right, and she told her husband that she wanted a divorce. Amber told him that the love in their marriage was gone. Amber never worked in the restaurant again. I saw her a few times the rest of the summer. I never saw her again once I went to college. I loved Amber, I still do, and our time together is going to give me happiness for the rest of my life. Maybe, I was just an excuse to get out of that marriage, but perhaps it was more. Either way, I don't regret anything, in the end, I had a chance to spend time with a beautiful woman, and Amber got out of the torment she had to suffer in that marriage. Amber once said that we are supposed to meet each other. I like to believe that this is true and that everything in life has its meaning. Wherever she is, I hope she's happy, living the life that she wants to live.