Random

Chapter FOUR

I don't have ordinary-good clothes or apply-for-work clothes or going-out-to-dinner clothes. I stare critically at myself in the mirror, wishing for a magic wand to make me look exactly right for the part of server at the Musical Spoon.

On the mirror of my dresser is a picture of my mom. It's just before she met my dad, and she's sitting on a beach in New Zealand, long-legged and tan in a tiny bikini. Her hair, like mine, is long and blonde, and she's laughing and beautiful. My dad walked up right after he took that picture and asked her to go to the movies with him.

Just be yourself.

That was her advice to me whenever I felt shy, which was a lot. Serving has helped, because you have to be friendly and talk to strangers all the time, but I can still feel paralyzed when I have to do something new like this.

Bottom line is, I need a new job. I kick off the clogs and slip into the flat sandals. My feet are tan, and the sandals look pretty. It's a boho look, which might not be hipster enough for the Spoon, but it's what I've got. I leave my hair loose and stick a comb in my pocket.

In the car, I blast P!nk to give myself some courage and watch the mileage to the restaurant. It's just over five miles, 5.4. Walkable if I had to, but I couldn't do it both ways. The buses run downtown, so that's an option, too.

Gas is the pain in my ass lately. The price is so unreliable, day to day, that it's hard to budget. I had to pay nearly four bucks a gallon the other day, and my old Kia is pretty efficient, but still-that's a lot of money. The car, like my phone, belonged to my mother. I like to think she's with me, too, that when I'm driving, she's in the passenger seat.

There's a parking spot at a meter right in front of the Spoon, and I do wonder how we park-is there employee parking? I can't be paying $6 or $8 a shift in one of the garages. For today I plunk some quarters in the meter. A guy in a plaid shirt and black horn rimmed glasses is smoking a joint against the wall, watching me. He just stares, doesn't smile, and it makes me nervous all over again. Humming "you are perfect" under my breath, I push inside.

It's a little dark, so I have to stand there for a couple of seconds, blinking. The air smells of sugar and cloves and something I think might be patchouli, like it's a coffee shop from some other time. When I blink away the sun spots I can see that it's not busy at all-there are a couple of tables of single people drinking tea and beer, working at laptops; a young guy at the bar; and two women by the window in deep conversation over a pot of tea. The pot is big and fat, painted ceramic, the tea cups mismatched. The floors are wooden, worn smooth, and books line the walls. I want to take every single one of them off the shelves to read, or at least leaf through them. There are old books with weathered spines, yellowed paperbacks, tall books and short ones, red, blue, brown; some I guess are probably leather. Classics and science fiction from the sixties and romances from the eighties, and everything else in between. I once read a whole, admittedly tiny, novel here in one afternoon, a sad story about a woman who wanted to be an artist and had to get married instead.

"Can I help you?"

The bartender is in her mid-twenties, with short, dyed black hair and studs through her lower lip on both sides. Her striped t-shirt dress fits her closely, outlining a long, lean body.

"I...um..." I step up to the bar. "I came to apply for a job."

"You can do that online, you know."

As if everybody has a computer. "Yeah," I say. "Well, I'm here."

Her eyes are long and black with heavy lashes. She blinks slowly. "We don't really have any openings right now."

"Tyler sent me."