Oscar spooky diaz's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

The door trick worked, but the tables stayed half empty. Sadeyes cleared strangers fast now. Marisa cooked without freezing. Still, only a handful of regulars came each night. Oscar counted the register after close. He did the math three times. The numbers did not move. Rent came due in three weeks, and he was short. He sat at a back table with a pen and the lease. His abuela's gold ring hung on a cord at his neck. He would not pawn it. That ring was clean money, the start of an honest life. But an honest life cost more than he had earned so far. The birria was good. The word just hadn't spread. Marisa came out of the kitchen wiping her hands. She saw the papers. She saw his face. "How bad," she said. Not a question. "Bad enough," Oscar said. "Three weeks. I'm nine hundred short." She pulled out the chair across from him and sat. "I can cover it." Oscar looked up. "You make server wages." "My family has money," she said. "Real money. I left it behind when I ran, but I can still reach it quiet. Nine hundred is nothing to them." She met his eyes and did not flinch. "Let me put it in. I want this place to live." Oscar held still. He read her the way he read every face. No lie. No angle. Just a woman offering to save the thing she helped build. The easy answer sat right there. Take the money. Make rent. Breathe. He shook his head. "No." "Oscar—" "I gave the Santos eleven thousand dollars back so no man could hold this place over me," he said. "I took my abuela's ring instead. Clean start. Nobody's leash." He tapped the lease. "If I take your money, you own a piece of me. And your money leaves a trail your man could follow straight to that door." He looked at her scar without meaning to. "I won't buy three weeks and hand him your address." Marisa sat back. Her jaw tightened, then loosened. She understood. "Then how," she said. "We fill the tables the honest way." Oscar stood. "Free plates. Tomorrow. Anyone who walks by eats one bowl on me. They taste it, they come back paying. It worked once outside my house. It works here." The next morning he propped the front door open. A lean stray cat sat on the step, ribs sharp under rough fur, watching him carry out a tray. He set down a scrap. The cat crept close and ate. Oscar figured people were not so different. Feed them once, they trust the hand. By noon the smell pulled a line down the block. Strangers came. Sadeyes cleared them at the door. Marisa cooked steady. They ate free, and half of them left cash on the way out, promising to bring friends. That night the register held more than the day before. Not enough yet. But climbing, and clean. Oscar locked up short on rent, still his own man.