Free Undeniably Yours by Shannon Stacey

and hang it right there, over the bar.”
    “Never gonna happen.”
    ***
    “Excuse me, but I asked for this well done.” Beth eyed the burger her customer was waving in her direction. It looked more like a hockey puck than ground beef. “See this fleck of pink here?”
    No, she didn’t see a fleck of pink. “I’m sorry. I can have them make you another one.”
    “No, I’ll eat it.”
    Then what was the point of complaining, other than advance justification for the crappy tip he was probably going to leave her. She made nice for another moment, hoping to salvage something, and then moved on to the next table.
    Her section was almost full and most nights she would have been happy about the potentially full tip cup. But she was tired and out of sorts.
    And the problem with getting pregnant on their first date was that she couldn’t pinpoint the exact start date or cause of her irritability. Was it the baby…or the baby’s father?
    “Miss, can I get some more coffee?”
    She poured and fetched and carried for another hour before it was time for her break. After filling a coffee mug three quarters full of decaf for the baby and a splash of the real stuff for herself, she made her way to the small table shoved into the back corner of the noisy kitchen.
    The granola bar tucked into her apron pocket would get her through to the end of her shift and, if she took small bites and chewed slowly, she could almost convince herself it was satisfying. She’d only lived over the bar a few days and the Jasper burgers were already going to her waist.
    Julia joined her when she was chewing the last bite. Rumor had it the salt-and-pepper-haired woman had been waiting tables there since the restaurant opened in 1976. Beth didn’t know if that was true, but it was remarkable if it was because Julia was a bit cantankerous for the business.
    “What’s wrong with you this week?” Julia asked by way of a greeting.
    “Just a little tired. I moved and you know how it is trying to sleep in a new place.”
    “When’s the baby due?”
    It was a good thing Beth was done with her granola bar or she would have choked on it.
    Julia gave a short, smoke-roughened laugh. “I’ve got three sisters and two daughters and they’ve all had kids. Sometimes you get a faraway look on your face and put your hand over your stomach. Probably think you have cramps if not for the dreamy expression.”
    She hadn’t wanted anybody to know yet, and that went double for her coworkers. And their employer. Not until she had a back-up plan in case they fired her.
    They wouldn’t fire her because of her condition, of course. They’d find another reason to let her go because, right or wrong, a lot of people weren’t comfortable being waited on by a visibly pregnant woman. Made them feel guilty.
    “June twenty-eighth,” she said when Julia made a come-on gesture. “Please don’t tell anybody. I…it’s bad luck.”
    “Hell, I won’t tell anybody, honey. You make sure you eat right and take your prenatal vitamins or you ain’t gonna get through the day.”
    “I will.”
    “By eat right, I mean more than a granola bar, by the way. But I better go out back and have my smoke. And, if you don’t want anybody to know you’ve got a bun in the oven, keep your hands in your pockets.”
    Beth smiled, but it faded as soon as Julia walked away.
    It weighed on her constantly—the question of what she would do if or when she couldn’t do this job anymore, whether because of her pregnancy or because she’d been fired.
    The idea of not having an income was so repulsive it made even the benign granola bar roll in her stomach. She wasn’t used to being responsible for anybody but herself, and her needs were pretty simple. A baby’s weren’t.
    But now she had Kevin, the mini devil on her shoulder whispered. Kevin wouldn’t evict her and he wouldn’t let her go hungry or without medical care. The plus sign on the home pregnancy test had seriously rocked her