The streets of Ruby are busy, and the sound of her footsteps is lost in the rumble of the trucks and cars whizzing past her. Everyone is in a hurry to get home. Home. So they can enjoy the twilight, the brief rosy wash of quiet before evening brings its own busyness. She slows her pace and searches for that feeling, a fluttering hint she remembers, so she must have known it once. You can’t remember if it never happened.
There are things…
She is grateful…grateful…. Mama holding her, wiping tears and hair from her cheeks when she has her first period on the bus and Kenny Beeson announces it to everyone. Mama whispering and cooing over and over again that she is a woman now and Kenny is nothing but a jerk-off little boy. Grateful. Mama, bragging on the phone to Aunt Nadine that Zoe is five-six and still growing, Zoe with silky black hair, Zoe with eyes that can stop traffic. Mama said those things. Grateful. Mama, leaning over, so slowly, tenderly, kissing Daddy’s cold lips when Zoe couldn’t even walk up to the coffin. Mama. Beautiful Mama.
Grateful.
Fifteen
“Easy on the mayo!” Zoe reminds the cook. It’s on the ticket, but if he forgets, she is the one who will pay the price, and tonight more than ever she needs the tips. Her voice is cheerful. She cannot sound like a nag, either, or her pleas will backfire. She walks a tightrope as thin as spaghetti as she turns, smiles to the sleazebag at the counter who cannot keep his eyes off her off-limits breasts, and asks, “More coffee?”
“If you’re offerin’,” he says, “I’m takin’.” His voice suggests everything his eyes ask for.
Zoe pours. She knows where she would like to pour it, but that would probably nix her tip. Maybe. She moves on to table seven, three elderly women who are finishing up soup, rolls, and water. Not a high tab, but Zoe knows how they tip anyway. Fifty cents from each of them, no matter what they order. It’s the same routine every Thursday night after their Bible meeting. She pours them more water and lays their bill on the table. At table six she refills a young couple’s iced teas and lets them know their Island burgers will be right up. She smiles, maybe even from somewhere deep, at least as deep as a beef patty can take you. Island burgers in the middle of Ruby. A few months ago it was Fiesta dogs. That one didn’t last. You had to love Murray.
Her tables have been light tonight, but she can’t complain. Charisse and Deirdre have had even fewer tables. Zoe has kept count. Every time Murray seats someone she notices. She has to. The counter
is seat yourself, though, divided half and half between Charisse and Zoe. At dinnertime most folks want to sit at a table, so it is not too busy. Only the sleazebag on Zoe’s half and another customer occupy it now. Zoe wishes she had the other customer. She glances at him when she can, notices his worn blue jeans and his clean white T-shirt that fits him way too nicely, but his attention is held by a thick book open on the counter beside him. She guesses he must be twenty or so, maybe Hispanic. His hair is dark, and his arms are the same rich color of the toasted almonds she nibbles from the top of Murray’s coffee cake. He alternately scoops forkfuls of mashed potatoes and chicken-fried steak. She wonders what could be so damn interesting in his book that he can’t be friendly, and then she wonders why the hell she cares.
She returns to the sleazebag and, though she hates to ask, she knows she must before she can lay down the bill. “Anything else I can get for you tonight?” Her voice is pitch-perfect, her smile sterling, and she knows if Reid were watching he would applaud her. She has never worked so hard in her life.
The sleazebag shifts in his seat. He grins. She can tell he is so pleased with the setup. She supposes she shouldn’t give him another thought. He probably has the teeniest, weeniest penis, and this is his way of making up for it. We all have ways of compensating, she thinks.
“What else have you got for me, honey?”
She scrutinizes his oily face. He has to be twice her age, somewhere in his thirties at least. His hair is thin and stiff, sprayed in place so his scalp won’t be revealed by an unexpected breeze. He holds his hands oddly, like he doesn’t know what to do with them. They are large and meaty and awkward and don’t match his thin, angled body. What else have I got for you?
“Just what’s on the menu,” she says.
He leans forward and lowers his voice. “Is that all? I thought maybe you had some special desserts you wanted to tell me about.” He says “special” like he has invented the word. Like he is a come-on genius and she will melt.
It must be so small, Zoe thinks. No bigger than a gherkin.
“No,” she says. “Just what’s on the menu.” She stays cheerful, happy. Oscar-worthy. Reid would be proud. Oil changes take priority over humiliating dirtbags.
“Then I think I’ll pass. Maybe next time.”
“Sure. Next time,” she says, and she slides the bill across to him. “Have a good evening.” She hurries away to deliver the Island burgers to the young couple before he can say anything else.
After she has delivered the burgers and gathered her dollar-fifty tip from table seven, she catches Murray at the cash register. “Hey, Mur, any chance of me picking up a shift on Saturday night? I could really use the money.”
The squint of his eyes and the tilt of his head answer her question, but he goes ahead and explains anyway. “Pretty top-heavy already, Zoe, and you’ve seen how it is tonight—Saturdays haven’t been much better. Between the new Buffet Basket in Cooper Springs and the grand opening of the Rocket Gourmet in Duborn, I’m getting squeezed from both ends like a rat in a snake’s belly.”
“You’re no rat, Mur,” she says. “Things will get better. No one has chicken-fried steak like you. You’re a landmark in Ruby.” She’s sorry she asked. She already knew things were tight, and now she has rubbed it in deeper with Murray. He added Tammy Barton to the payroll last month when her scum-licking husband ran out on her and their two kids. Tammy can’t balance two plates on her arm to save her life, but Murray knew she was desperate. There aren’t a lot of jobs in Ruby. Most folks commute to Abilene or even farther. Zoe knows she is lucky to have this job—especially with a boss like Murray.
“But if someone calls in sick, I’ll be sure and call you first.” And then, like he has arrived at a better solution, he adds, “Or maybe we could let a few rats loose at Buffet Basket—that might send more customers this way.”
Zoe forces a smile, struggling to keep up her Oscar performance but only thinking how broke she is, how alone, and how there is no one to help. It seeps into her, weighing her down like a sinking boat. She lifts her voice, for Murray’s sake and maybe for her own, too. “That’s what I like about you, Mur. Always thinking. Island burgers one day, rats the next.”
Three customers walk in the door, and Murray whispers to Zoe, “Ix-nay the at-ray talk. We don’t want to send ’em the other direction.” He grabs three menus and welcomes them, leading them to a booth. At the same time, the sleazebag arrives at the cash register and Murray asks Zoe to ring him up.
“Sure,” she says, noting her poor timing. Seeping. Sinking. But why should anything go well for her today?
He fans a fat wad of bills, pulls out a twenty, and hands it to her along with his tab. She notices his hands again, thick, heavy, and clumsy, resting like two hams on the counter. “So, things are a little tight, huh?” he says.
“Good hearing,” Zoe answers.
“I’m good at lots of things,” he says.