Trapped in Forever

46 ~ A Waitress with a Nervous Smile

A/N: This chapter is unofficially dedicated to Noelle and Iris because of the beautiful new cover Noelle made that your eyes are probably wandering to right now, struck with beauty, and to Iris, for risking time and boredom to interview me.

When we finally arrived at Mo’s and maneuvered our way through the silver bumpers, dented license plates with mud clinging to the corners, and protruding side-view mirrors, smudged with the dried ring of water droplets, I could already hear the droning of deep, irritated male voices echoing through the glass door and finding its way to us, standing on the curb, keys jingling in his palm and my sneakers crushing dried leaves that scraped against the concrete sidewalk as the wind guided them from store front to store front. Through the front windows on either side of the glass door, the OPEN sign slanted, as always, as if it were impossible to straightened it against the glass, I could see the infamous businessmen crowding together in the dining area, the gleam of sun against the window glass running across their suit jackets, either draped on their shoulders or held by their index finger and slung over their backs. The glinting of the silver backs of iPhones caught my eye as Orion reached forward and grasped the handle, giving it a faint shove with his side as it scuffed against the checkered floor, and he glanced over at me as we heard one of the men, sitting alone in a booth with an open MacBook propped in front of him on the table, white papers with thin black lines running across it cluttering the table, with a cellphone clamped to his ear and his elbow high in the air, snapping at the person on the other line. “No, no! That’s not what I said.”

“There’s some kind of convention apparently,” Orion explained after a moment, through the sounds of chair legs scraping against the already wearing floor tiles and the clink of forks hitting the ceramic plates and the voices of men, with loosened ties around their neck, trying to stifle their agitation as they ordered.  Across the dining area, Sarah-Anne stood in front of a small, round table with two men on either side, slouching in their chairs with the barred backs digging into their bodies, and cellphones not pressed to their ears, but laid on the table by their glistening glasses of water. She was scribbling something down, her eyes barely glancing up as they pointed to things on the menu. “Come on. The uniforms are in the back.”

I turned away from Sarah-Anne and her weary expression as she angled her head, a lock of auburn hair falling out from behind the back of her ear where it had slipped out from her ponytail, to look at what one of the men was pointing to with his hairy index finger and she nodded, her lips moving as his finger lowered down to the prices. “Uniforms?” I repeated as I watched his back beginning to disappear in the sea of patrons in black, navy, and brown suits and multicolored ties that spun together like kaleidoscopes as you walked. He was heading toward the kitchen, his hand already extended to press on the silver, worn plate.

“Mmm hmm,” he replied as he turned around, turning his back away from me and facing me, smiling faintly, and he walked backwards into the swinging door, the hinges creaking as the door extended and he held the door open with the toe of his shoe. The kitchen smelled like it always did—like icing sugar, frying oil, and warmth, if that was somehow a smell. The florescent lights always glowed a golden hue in here, and the silver of the strays and utensils, and the muffled sounds of conversations seeping in under the door and through the walls, the clanging of dishes and sizzles private to this room. It felt like a secret place only me and Orion knew about—well, me, Orion, Albert, the dish washer, and the other cooks, that is—and as if this place was the definition of Safe Haven. “You may not work here,” Orion stated as he slipped his foot out and let the door swing forward, out into the dining room, and then back, hinges creaking, “but people kind of like when the person who hands them their food wears a uniform.”

“Does a uniform stop me from spitting in their food?”

He grinned at me, tossing his keys aside with a series of clangs onto one of the silver countertops and his hands reached for the hem of his hoodie, his arms forming an X over his abdomen, and he started to pull his sweatshirt over his head. The fabric of his white T-shirt, stained faintly, of course, rode up along with the hoodie, clinging to its dark fabric, and exposed the tanned skin of his stomach, golden hair circling around his belly button and trailing down until it reached the black waistband of his Calvin Klein underwear, just faintly poking up from his jeans. He wasn’t like one of the guys at the modeling agency with six or eight abs rippling down their stomach, leaning against the backdrop and aiming erogenous looks toward the snapping camera lenses, but he wasn’t out of shape either. As he maneuvered his arms to slip the hoodie over his head, it almost looked like he had four faint abs protruding under his skin. When he finally pulled the hoodie over his head, his blond hair pointing in the air with static, as if he rubbed a party balloon across it to make it stick to the walls, I felt my cheeks beginning to burn, a sweltering fire lighting underneath my skin. He tossed the hoodie aside, onto one of the metal chairs, the one where I normally sat, talking about movie soundtracks, and tugged down the hem of his T-shirt and glanced at me as he walked toward one of the two doors in the back of the room. His eyebrows were raised. “You still okay?”