Smart Mouth Waitress (36 page)

Someone asked me if I was still breathing, and if I needed her to come over. I'd forgotten Haylee was still there, on the other side of the web cam.

I tilted the lid of my laptop so my side's image was just the top of my forehead, not showing my face. “Color me the last to know,” I said.

“Why don't you come over and hang out with me and Andrew tonight?”

My hands and legs were shaking. “I don't think I can drive.”

“We'll come get you,” she said.

“Okay, I'll pack an overnight bag.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were parked out front, texting me. I left a neutral-sounding note on the kitchen table for my father, telling him about the chicken in the fridge as well as that I'd be at Haylee's.

I couldn't locate my cell phone, so I left home without it.

With my bag on my shoulder, I walked to the front door, past our hallway full of framed family photographs. As I glanced across the row of professionally-shot pictures documenting the four of us every year, each picture took on a new, second meaning.

The image of my mother and father holding hands in front of the fig tree in the back yard became a portrait of unhappiness, two people putting on a good image for the business of raising children.

The Christmas photo of us—from the year I'd had terrible acne and cried all morning before the shoot—was no longer part of a series of holidays counting up, but holidays counting down. It was our third-to-last Christmas together. And last December's photo, which had only been hung on the hallway wall a month earlier, was our final one, our final Christmas.

No more family.

I stepped out, locked the front door and walked to the waiting car, Andrew's beat-up Honda Civic.

Haylee climbed into the back and insisted I take the front.

I'd never been so happy to see Andrew, whose presence was comforting.

“Let's go watch the sun set,” he said.

Andrew drove us west, to Kits beach.

The spring weather was holding, though the air had a chill there, near the ocean. The sun hung heavy in the sky, as cold as the moon.

The three of us sat on a log with Haylee in the middle. In a few months, the beach would be busy, full of people sunbathing and socializing, but that night it was mostly locals, walking their strollers and dogs.

Haylee put her arm around me, and Andrew gave me his jacket when they noticed I was shivering.

“I'm not cold,” I insisted, but I was, and I didn't know if I'd ever be warm again.

Andrew said, “No matter what, your parents still love you.”

“I know. They just don't love each other.”

“My parents split up when I was fifteen,” he said. “Things will get normal again. Not like how they were before, but a new normal.”

I fidgeted with my eyebrow piercing. After seeing the photos of my mother and her new boyfriend online, the piercing, and painting my room blue-green and Garnet's room black didn't seem so dramatic. It was just paint, in a house.

The house.

Who was going to live in the house? My brother and I would stay there, of course, but which parent would remain? If Dad stayed, I'd be stuck cooking dinners every day until … forever. If Mom stayed, she'd look after us, but would she move her new boyfriend in?

As the sun washed down into the sea, I put my head between my knees and threw up in the sand. My chicken and risotto dinner had moved beyond my stomach, so it was just bile and spit, though it tasted of chicken.

Haylee rubbed my back as I dry-heaved.

After a few minutes of silence, I said, “Why'd they even get married? Anyone can see they're not a good match.”

“They seemed happy to me,” Haylee said.

“My father puts up with way too much shit,” I said angrily. “He needs to grow a spine. Oh, man. You guys, I just imagined him trying to date. It's so pathetic.”

“I'm not gonna lie,” Andrew said. “Seeing your father go out on a date is pretty traumatic. Mine gave me a high five the first time he got laid.”

Haylee said, “I didn't know that.”

Andrew pretended to sniff and said, jokingly, “What happens in therapy stays in therapy.”

“You saw a therapist?” I asked.

Andrew confirmed that he had seen someone for nearly two years, once a week. I covered the spit-up between my feet with some loose sand and we moved to the next log over while he told us about his therapist.

She had an office that looked like the exact opposite of what you see in movies or on television, and during the sessions, he'd sat on a La-Z-Boy knock-off chair with wood over the armrests—the type of hand-me-down furniture people leave in alleys.

At his first visit, he'd expected she would declare him totally healthy and not in need of treatment, but he'd broken down and cried for the first time since he was a little boy, and they both agreed he could probably use “a couple of sessions.”

She was always trying to get him to put names on his emotions. She'd ask how he felt about something his mother or father was doing, and he'd simply say “bad.” One day, he finally lucked into the correct word and admitted he'd been
scared
, and the therapist had been unable to hide her delight at his progress.

From there, they talked about fear, anger, jealousy, anxiety, sadness, and also joy. At their final session together, after he was doing much better at school and sleeping through the night without bad dreams, they'd said goodbye and he'd hugged her.

Every session, he'd wanted her to hug him, and when it finally happened, he felt so good, and he knew he would carry that feeling of absolute love and acceptance with him for the rest of his life.

There was a goodness in other people, and he'd never understood it until that therapist had showed him compassion. Yes, she got paid to do her job, but he knew it had meant something to her, and that he was worth saving.

When Andrew finished talking, the sun had gone down and the sky was cold and blue. Tears were trailing down my cheeks.

Haylee asked me, “How are you feeling?”

“I don't know,” I said.

They helped me stand and we went back to the car.

When we got to Haylee and Andrew's apartment, they both apologized for the mess.

“We're going to do a big cleaning soon, but as you'll notice by the lack of housewarming invitation, we've kinda put that party on hold. We may wait until we're somewhere better, our next move,” Haylee said.

“This isn't bad,” I lied, moving some food-encrusted plates off their cream-colored sofa, which was looking a little grimy around the two indentations where they sat to watch television, play video games, and—apparently—eat dinner.

Haylee sat next to me while Andrew scurried around, tidying up.

“If you guys ever have kids, you'll make good parents,” I said.

Andrew said, “Ew, babies. They pee and poo on everything.”

Haylee explained, “My sister is potty training her little one, and they're making him aware of his bodily functions by keeping him out of a diaper. Or pants. Or anything.”

I hugged my arms around myself. “Does he come over here like that?”

Andrew said, “Hah!”

“Just once,” Haylee said. “But don't worry, we threw out that pillow.”

I did a disgusted shiver from head to toe. It felt good, so I did it again, until I got a laugh from Andrew.

Haylee grabbed the remote control. “How do you feel about gore today? Are you caught up on all the episodes of
The Walking Dead
? It's getting so good right now. Or, if you aren't into zombies, and frankly, some people just aren't, are you down with torture?”

I grabbed a couch pillow and hugged it to myself. “Let's see what you've got,” I said, and I actually was
excited
.

For the first time in my life, I was stoked about watching some guts spill out and heads get chopped off. Anything to take my mind off my problems seemed like a great idea.

In the morning, Andrew and Haylee were still sleeping when I crept out the front door to go to work. The night before, Andrew had offered to drive me, but their apartment was near Main Street, so it was easy enough for me to catch the Number Three bus to work.

I was in such a daze, I didn't realize it was Monday until Marc walked in the door, newspaper in hand, open to the crossword puzzle.

“Hey,” he said as I stared at him. “I can go up the street if you're angry with me.”

“As long as you keep your hands off my mother, we're good,” I said, showing him to his regular table.

“Is that a joke? I don't get it.”

His cute glasses were filthy, covered in specks of grime, so I took them off his face. “I'm washing these for you.”

At the sink behind the bar counter, I cleaned the glasses with soap and hot water, then wiped them off with a fresh bar cloth.

Back at Marc's table, I gave the glasses back and he thanked me. “I was blind, but now I see,” he said.

The restaurant wasn't very busy, with only three tables in my section, including Marc, and the other two were under control, so I broke one of the major waitress rules. I ran back to the coffee machine, grabbed two mugs of coffee, then returned to his table and sat in the chair across from Marc.

I said, “Pretend everything's normal.”

“You seem sad,” he said. “Listen, Perry, I think you're really cute ...”

“Have you seen the pictures and stories about my mother getting it on with some douche in LA?”

He did a double-take and cupped one hand around his ear. “No, why would I? Oh … I remember now, she's that musician. She's Jade. You look a bit like her.”

One of my tables whistled for service. After I gave my coworker Ginger a feeble look, she took over for me, bringing them water and whatever else they needed. I didn't care. I wanted to go home, but also not go home, since I didn't have a home, in the sense of a loving set of parents.

I explained what had happened—what little of it I knew at the time, considering I'd left my cell phone at home—and Marc listened, fidgeting with the utensils in front of him.

When I was done, he said, “If they aren't happy, splitting is for the best.”

“Everybody says that, but is it really true?”

He frowned at his coffee mug like it held a thousand secrets. “Take it from someone whose parents hate each other, but are still stubbornly married.”

“That's horrible.”

“My grandparents hate each other too, at least the ones who are still around. I come from a long line of unhappy marriages.”

“You'd better not get married,” I said.

He squinted at the window as a tall dude with a black mohawk walked by. “I'd like to think we make our own destinies, but Cooper's always talking about that evolutionary psychology stuff. We may be completely helpless, prisoners of our biology.”

I smiled, remembering the conversation with Cooper, with him pointing out my pleasing hip-to-waist ratio.

“Today's a new day,” I said, feeling a little sunnier.

The music on the stereo stopped, between songs, and I heard a grumbling noise—Marc's stomach. “Should we order?” he asked. “Whatever they're cooking on the grill smells great.”

And then, it happened. He made a very small gesture that was almost lost on me at the moment, but that I think about almost every day now, whenever I see a newspaper. He glanced over at his crossword puzzle, sitting on the table to his right.