flashquake Editor's Pick — Debi Orton

Waitress
by Tracy Rubert

There's something very primal, very territorial — and very real — about the relationships in this story. I tended bar for almost a decade and I saw stories like this played out nearly every night. The author has hit this nail squarely on the head, capturing the characters and the melieu perfectly, giving us a lesson in human nature along the way.

The house is in a poor section of Hollywood. Peeling green paint, yellow lawn hedged by clots of dead hydrangea. She doesn't live here, I know. She lives in Echo Park. Travis and I walk up the gravel driveway. Above our heads palms toss in a hot wind, fronds clicking together like something amphibian, prehistoric. My skirt, still sticky with beer, flaps at my thighs. I walk two paces behind, watch his shoulders move under a Metallica T-shirt, narrow hips in droopy denim. There is a rickety back door we enter through, a laundry room smelling of old dishrags.

"This is the crib," he says in a voice one notch from cocky. Television sounds drift from another room, muffled masculine laughter. Roommates? In his bedroom plywood dresser drawers gape like mouths. The bed is unmade, its sheets whipped into faintly dirty peaks. On the nightstand is a glass of water, a crumpled tissue, a pair of dice. The carpet smells of feet. There is also a harsh, loamy smell — ah, bong on the window ledge.

He stands opposite me. Breeze lifts the window blind. His seduction is clumsy, hands perched on hips, head bobbing dumbly. The disaffected face. Good-looking, regardless, but men don't have to be good-looking to do hurtful, impetuous things. He gazes drunkenly at a spot somewhere between my chin and sternum, moves toward me, chest rising with short, uneven breaths. His lips press mine, tongue slips into my mouth. Stale tobacco layered with mint. Alcohol wafts off his skin. I curl my fingers into the hair at his nape, silky and humid. He pushes me onto the bed.

Later through the cracked door of the bathroom I hear him snore softly. I slip back into my uniform then gently open the high window above the toilet, moonlight streaming in, dusty and bluish. Inside the medicine cabinet is a flattened tube of Crest, tin box of bandages, empty aspirin bottle. Things generic and male. Desperate, I flip open the cabinet under the sink hoping for a makeup pouch, anything of hers. There is a toilet brush and a mildewed Penthouse Magazine. A box of tampons.

I think of her behind the bar last night cutting pineapple garnishes, sleeves of her starched white shirt rolled up her forearms. Bitter mouth, glaring eyes. The palest blue, those eyes. Hair the color of black plums, tiny dragon tattoo curled between her thumb and forefinger. Me, only rougher. Older.

Nobody was sitting at the bar but Travis, which isn't unusual. He often waits for her, watches her for hours. They argue and then go home together. He sat with his jaw clenched, arms crossed over his chest in a way that suggested something coiled inside. I turned away to talk to a customer, left my tray and cash caddy on the bar for only a moment. It contained three hundred and twenty-seven dollars in sales, plus sixty-three dollars in tips. When I turned back, the cash-caddy was gone.

I glanced at Travis. Then at her. I waited.

She blew a wisp of hair off her forehead and said, "What are you looking at?"

Her eyes were lighter than I'd ever seen them, like the pigment had been drained.

"You took my money," I said.

She shrugged. "Have Daddy pay your tuition."

"Why did you take it?"

She leaned over the bar and pushed her face close to mine. "I don't like you," she said. For the first time I noticed a scar, a jagged angry slash running from the corner of her lip to the base of her nose. Pity blossomed in my chest.

"Do you need help?" I asked her. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

Travis smirked over his beer.

She said, "I'll do whatever it takes to make you leave this job, Bitch."

At the end of my shift I had to write a check to the bar for three hundred and twenty-seven dollars. I went home and thought about this. Over and over I pictured the ugly distortion of her mouth when she spoke to me, the way her lips drew back over her teeth. She flipped me the finger as I was leaving. I thought: symbols, gestures. Terms she can understand.

From the other room I can hear Travis shift and mumble. I don't have much time. This box of tampons may not belong to her — could belong to the roommate's girlfriend — but they are my best shot. I take the nametag from my blouse. My name is printed on it in white letters with a red background. She has one just like it. I pull out a plastic-wrapped tampon, pin my nametag through it like a dagger, and place it neatly back in the box.

Why does she hate me so? I suspect it has more to do with her than with me, but the sheer intensity of her loathing renders my speculation pointless. Maybe sometimes there is no reason. Now, at least, I have given her one.

Copyright 2002 by Tracy Rubert

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