Chapter 4: A New Hope
Princess Leia, where are you tonight?
And who’s laying there by your side?
Every night I fall asleep with you
And I wake up alone. –Blink-182
The graveyard shift at KittyCat’s is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because Ms. Kitty Wright hardly ever works after 11 pm. A curse because on the weekend, all of the drunk twenty-somethings from Club Proof stumble in for coffee and breakfast food when the club closes at 4 am. Me and the other waittresess/waiters who are working start making pots of coffee around 3:30. We’ve found that everyone is usually so drunk and hyped that the freshness of the coffee is low on their list of concerns.
It’s around 3:45 when Officer Goodwin walks in all sleepy eyed and bushy haired. He’s young and handsome though, with a set of the straightest white teeth I have ever seen. He always reminds me that he never had braces—God just gifted him with two perfect rows of choppers. Ms. Kitty Wright hired him from the police department after the other waitresses and I kept reporting sexual harassment from the wasted club-goers, not to mention the countless drunken tiffs and the Halloween Night Brawl of 2013. Although Goodwin is a little too lazy and never misses a chance to flirt with the women in tight dresses and low cut blouses, he has saved me and the other girls from some unwanted groping many of times.
I know that Officer Goodwin has a small crush on me; he never tries to hide it. But he’s pompous and ditzy and is my older brother Adam’s best friend. Yes, he was my first kiss after a no-fair-dare from Auden a couple of summers ago, but that is where the romanticism between us ends.
“Hey, Charlie. Been a long time since you worked the graveyard shift,” Officer Goodwin says as I pour coffee beans into the coffeemaker.
“I work it once a week like I always do, Officer Goodwin. Every Saturday.”
“You can call me Joey, Charlie. I want a pretty girl such as yourself to only call me Officer Goodwin in the bedroom.” He winks and sips from the coffee he took the liberty of pouring into his Ocean City police department mug.
“I wonder what Adam would think if he knew that you were coming on to his baby sister,” I ask him, tartly, as I put the pot on top of the burner.
Goodwin grins and reaches over me to turn the coffeemaker on. His body isn’t touching mine, but his proximity is enough to make me feel irritated.
“His baby sister isn’t a baby anymore. And what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Goodwin steps away and gives me an arrogant look that reads “I know I got you all hot and bothered” and I give him a look that I hope reads, “not a chance.”
By 4:05, the inebriated townies start spilling in. They are loud and wreak of sweat and booze and demand their coffee before they even sit down. The other two waitresses, Liz and Karyn, and I are throwing trays of coffee on tables like it’s going out of style. Mostly everyone wants our Hungry Kitty platter which includes two eggs (scrambled or fried), three pancakes of your choice, a choice of breakfast meats, and hashbrowns smothered in our special Kitty sauce (horseradish, sour cream, and dijon mustard) which either ends up being upchucked in the bathroom or not even touched because they realize if they eat it then they will probably end up upchucking it in the bathroom.
I’m putting in another order of the Hungry Kitty platter when above all of the noise I hear, “RIVER I’M SO DRUUUUUNK!” I turn around and River Sommers is sliding into a booth with a terribly loud Chantel Arroyo. Chantel graduated a couple grades ahead of me, but you’d have to be a recluse not to know who she is. Chantel was always rumored to get around, but her easy nature was confirmed when two of her sex tapes went viral last year in the same week. One was with the mayor’s son, Collin Willard and the other happened to be with the lead singer of the up and coming band, Wandering Heights, Adam Reynolds.
Yeah, my older brother.
It was the town’s hottest scandal, well until the car accident came into the rankings.
“There’s another couple in your section, Charlie,” Liz alerts me as she grabs her order from the window.
“Thanks,” I say quietly as I muster up the courage to approach them. Again, my stomach feels south of upset, but I will myself to not throw up again in front of River Sommers. I will act cool, professional, and like he’s not the guy who walked me home three days ago or the brother of my best friend who’s lying in a coma because of me.
The happy couple is drunkenly flirting when I cautiously walk up to their table.
“What can I get you guys to drink?”
River looks up with unfocused eyes until they focus in on mine.
“Charlie! I… I… order…. Me… Biscuit” Man, is he drunk. He’s so red in the face that you'd think someone just pulled his pants down in front of a crowd.
“Charlie Reynolds? Charlie! How is your dick brother?” Chantel isn’t as drunk as she assesses me with low cast eyes.
“Doing well,” I say, biting back a snarky remark along the lines of “How’s your reputation? Still shitty as ever?”
“Can’t say that I’m happy to hear that,” Chantel sneers. I ignore Chantel and look over at River who’s looking at me like my face is a kaleidoscope. And then he’s puking. All. Over. Chantel.
What’s that they say about karma again?
“OMIGOD OMIGOD OMIGOD!” Chantel keeps chanting even after River slumps over in the booth.
I jump in the booth behind them and try to pick River’s head up as quickly as I can. Chantel must be in shock because she won’t move out of the booth and keeps shaking her hands as if that’s what he threw up on, but her hands look like the only part of her that he missed. Liz and some of Chantel’s friends come over and try to calm Chantel down, but now she’s speaking in fluent Spanish and yelling at River who is falling in and out of consciousness.
Officer Goodwin runs over and begins to yank on my shoulders. “Charlie, get away from him! I’m calling in for back up. I’m putting this kid in the drunk tank.”
“No,” I say, immediately. “I know him. Just please help me take him home.”
