“No. I love Christmas. But it’s the middle of June.”
“Well… the customers love them.”
“I’ll bet. Especially the male customers. They’re skin tight.”
“That’s because they’re leggings.” Sheesh. Has he really not seen leggings before? “Rosa said to wear black pants.”
He crosses his arms and glowers at me, but I swear there’s a tiny crack of a smile in the corner of his mouth if you look reeaally hard. With a microscope.
“Next time, wear plain black. Jeans are fine.”
With that, he slips into his office and shuts the door. In my face. And so I knock.
“What?”
I crack the door open. “Um, I’ll have to wait to get paid. I don’t have plain black pants. Or jeans.”
“What happened to the slacks you wore at the wedding?”
The wedding which shall not be named. And boy, this is embarrassing to admit.
“They ripped.”
He doesn’t have to know they ripped when I fell into the cake. And he certainly doesn’t have to know they ripped right in the butt crack.
He scrapes a hand down his face, dragging skin from below his eyes into his cheeks. Then he unlocks his desk drawer, pulls out a few twenty-dollar bills, and shoves them in my direction.
“Come.”
He’s just waving the bills at me like he’s bored—like I better get my butt in the office and take it before he falls asleep. But I hesitate, lingering in the doorway, not wanting a hand-out from him or anyone.
“I… I don’t want to take your money.”
“It’s for your uniform. I can pay for your uniform.”
“Oh that’s okay. I can go shopping this weekend.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, will you get in here and take the money?” He waves his hand around more wildly, flapping the bills back and forth like little flags.
At this point, it would be an insult to refuse, I suppose, so I do his bidding with gusto, hopping in front of his desk to accept the money.
“Eighty? I can get a pair for twenty.” I try to give three of the bills back to him but he doesn’t allow it.
“Then buy four pairs of pants. Buy a few gallons of gas. Heck, buy yourself some real candy canes and sing ho ho ho. Just don’t wear those leggings to work.”
I can only stand before him, blinking lamely. My mouth might be ajar.
“Are you sure you’re not a humbug?”
He points to the door. “Get to work.”
“Roger that.” I salute him and scoot back into the dining room where I find more customers have arrived for the lunch crowd.
Today’s my first day without Bernadette here. I’ve grown accustomed to asking her a million questions, so suffice to say I’m a little nervous. But Rosa assures me I’m ready, and now that Bernadette is taking her summer classes, she’ll only be here twice a week. Depending on how busy the restaurant is, I might be able to get more hours, even when Bernadette’s here. I might even get a chance to fill in for servers at other Dos Panchos locations. I put my name in the hat for those shifts, too.
I make it through the lunch rush, only messing up once. Rosa’s quick to fix my mistake and the customer is none the wiser. Oh wait. Make that two mistakes. But the second one wasn’t entirely my fault. There was this scary, burly, bald guy. He had tattoos all over his face and neck, and wore a permanent scowl. He didn’t care for my candy cane leggings, so take that as a sign of his character. Before I could even bring his beer from the bar, he’d devoured all his chips and salsa. He called me over, waving the chip basket in the air.
“Mas pan,” he’d growled.