Oh, no. She didnot.
My face begins to heat, and I mentally curse Dave with a plethora of rarely used vocabulary words. I’ll admit to mistakes I’ve made, but humiliation at the hands of my manager and an overgrown playground bully were not on today’s bingo card.
Today’s card is full, with an eight-page paper on “The Psychological Effects of Criminal Justice in the Media,” a mostly dead vehicle, a pound of salt between the booth seats, and my fiancé having a child with a married woman. I bingoed an hour ago, thank you very much.
This is random and not about me.
At least I’m keeping Lainey out of it.
I will neither cry nor commit murder.
I continue my inward peptalk as I say, “You’re correct.”Not remotely. “My mistake.”For working here.“I’ll cancel the ticket.”Because Dave is a weenie.“Have a good evening.”Anywhere but here.
Purse Packet Banshee finally gathers her little monsters and stalks out into the night. Daniel’s already parked to the side of our dark lot, so I try to hurry.
I throw my arm around a traumatized Lainey and assure her, “Kiddo, there are always going to be people like her. She got her way, so she’ll probably be back, and she’ll keep disrespecting people like us. I’m sorry you were caught in the middle. I thought she’d accept the truth when she saw the bill and move on with her life. Most people do.”
“I get it,” she says timidly. “But I wasn’t expecting it since I didn’t know how the Sprite got on her ticket.”
“I take full responsibility for that. I should’ve told you and taken over right away. My dad used to lecture me about the rules, but he never backed me up with customers. I’m not in charge here, so I can’t control everything.”
“You got that part right,” Sweaty Dave spits out at me. He must’ve realized the coast was clear and came out to lock the door. Heaven forbid he face a customer himself or let me touch the keys. “It would be great to have one night without you up on your high horse picking fights with customers. Is that too much to ask? Are you bored or something? Table three is covered in salt. How about you put some energy into handling that.”
“I’m on it,” I chirp as I bat away cobwebs and try not to think about what’s making my shoes stick to the floor of the maintenance closet while I excavate a Shop-Vac that’s possibly been here since the ’70s.
Holding my crap together is a superpower I have perfected. This is menotrelinquishing control or showing weakness, because I know power-hungry underachievers can smell fear.
I shall not be moved.
I wash up and prep six more strawberry pies for the next day, which leaves my hands a little pink, but maybe smelling like strawberries will make me seem like a less likely suspect when I finally snap. Or maybe it’ll be the evidence that convicts me.
Probably the latter.
Luckily, I already swept and mopped, so the obnoxiously loud vacuum is enough to finish the job. I wipe down the last table and the prep counter, then reluctantly join Lainey and Dave at the register to get our tips for the night.
We did fairly well, despite the nonsense of the last hour. Dave counts out two stacks of bills, and I watch him dramatically pull thirty dollars from my stack.
“Since you wanted tohandlethat customer so bad, I let ya cover what it cost me,” he says with his sweaty neck vein bulging.
Dude’s gonna have a stroke one day.
I want to snap back that I hope he factored in the cost of the Sprite and ketchup, but I’m starting to lose the will to live, and Daniel’s been outside for at least a half hour.
“Cool. Thanks.” I turn away, rolling my eyes. “You ready, Lainey? Grab your stuff, and I’ll walk you out.”
She gets her sparkly purse, and I pull off my ball cap, freeing my frizzy waves from the opening in the back. I need the hat to hide the subtitles that roll across my face, but it’s been a long day, my head’s busting, and quite frankly, I don’t care.
My eye rolls qualified as a workout tonight.
We walk out together, saying nothing to Dave, but I hear the door push shut and lock behind us. Daniel pulls his SUV closer to Lainey’s little Kia and nods to let us know he’s watching out for us. We won’t leave until she’s safely in her locked car and moving.
“That one’s a keeper,” Lainey says wistfully. “Your whole face relaxes when you see him. I’m glad you aren’t out here by yourself with your stupid dead car.”
I shoot her a smirk. Of course she thinks he’s cute. She’s not wrong.
“Everyone needs a friend like DC. Five stars. Highly recommend.”
“Friend? Oh,that’swhat you call him? Okay, then. Say hi to yourfriendfor me.” She giggles, giving me a confused silly smile.Brat.
