Clarke
Two Months to Opening Day
Who does a girl have to fuck to get some waffles?
I cringed from behind my Waffle House menu and made a mental note to put a dollar in Mama’s swear jar first thing in the morning. Hell's bells, she was going to be madder than a wet hen.
Make that two dollars.
I couldn’t help myself. All it took was a few shots of tequila (and then a few more) to bring out the filthy-mouthed, carb-loving bitch—three dollars—inside of me. The one I kept buried beneath layers of Stella McCartney dresses and sensible peach lipstick because any other shade would “send the wrong message,” according to my mama.
Mama wasn’t here tonight though—thank heavens—and as every one of my sorority sisters knew, when drunk Clarke came to play, the debutante went away. Drunk Clarke wore sequined rompers and glossy red lipstick. Drop Dead Red, to be precise.Drunk Clarke rode on the back of strangers' Vespa scooters through downtown Charleston.
Drunk Clarke ate carbs. Lots of carbs.
Which was exactly what had brought me to Waffle House tonight. At 3 a.m. On the night of my botched bachelorette party.
“Hi, honey.”
I lowered my menu to find a woman about my mother’s age with a pen and notepad in hand. I didn’t know what surprised me more, her cheerful disposition at such a late hour—or early hour, depending on how you looked at it—or her violet bob.Mama would never.“Can I start you off with some coffee or hot chocolate?”
“How about an upside-down, quad-shot caramel macchiato?”
She smiled. “Sorry, we’re fresh out of those.”
“That’s alright.” I stopped to read her name tag. “Trixie.”
Surprisingly, I had never met a Trixie before now. Beatrice, yes. Patricia, yes. I had even shared a room with a French-Canadian girl named Beatrix during my year abroad in Paris, but no Trixie until now. Nicknames weren’t a commonality amongst . . . the people I’d grown up with. And that was what they were. People, not friends.
“Do you know what you want?”
“Well, Trixie,” I said, setting aside my plastic menu, “that’s a funny story. Because for a long time, IthoughtI knew what I wanted. And wouldn’t you know it? Tonight, I found out that what IthoughtI wanted—what everybodytold meI wanted—was, get this, something I never wanted at all. In fact, come to think of it, you might be the first person to ever ask me what I want.”
“Man problems?” Trixie asked without missing a beat.
I heaved an exasperated sigh and nodded. “Life problems."
I had every intention of apologizing to Trixie for my outburst . . . and the lone trucker in the corner booth who wasclearly calculating how long it would take him to make it to the door in the event that the girl covered in Givenchy and glitter went full-blown psycho.
I would happily apologize and explain and placate—my mother had trained me well in all three—but not before I got something thick and creamy in my stomach.
That didn't sound right . . .
“I’d like some waffles, please.”
“I think we can make that happen.” Trixie winked. “Any kind in particular?”
“What’syourfavorite?”
“Well, that all depends.” She cocked a hip and brushed her purple bangs to the side. When I grew up, I wanted a modicum of Trixie’s confidence. “If you’re feeling like something sweet, I recommend the caramel pecan.”
I felt the corner of my lips kick up. Trixie’s drawl was thicker than mine—six years of dialect coaching had tapped most of it out of me. Only in the South did you hearcarra-melandpee-KANin the same sentence.
“Then again,” she continued. “We have a lovely egg, bacon, and cheese breakfast sandwich served between two waffles.”
“Which one comes with hashbrowns?”
“Both of them.”
