Free The Fortunes of Indigo Skye by Deb Caletti Page B

takes off his jacket and hangs it over the chair next to him, and he's right, it is hot in here. I have an eye on everyone and I'm pleased with myself,
because it's the point in waitressing that I love--it's all going. I'm handling
everything like a conductor handles an orchestra, or maybe more like a
kindergarten teacher handles a room of demanding, messy five-year-olds. They're
all right there in my hands and everyone's happy and has just been fed their
snack. Things are running as smooth as can be. I'm God's gift to
waitressing.
    65
    The Vespa guy sets his cup down, nearly empty,
and I'm heading over and I'm smiling and everything's cool, the pot of coffee is
in one hand, when I see something that just flips my mood. It's that fast, fast
as Luigi's wrist-flick of a bubbly pancake from dough side to brown side. It's
that coat hanging over the chair that gets me. This beautiful creamy suede coat
with a satin lining, slits for pockets. It's what's sticking up from one slit
that starts this curl of anger. A square cellophane-wrapped pack.
    Cigarettes.
    You see people smoking all over--kids at
school, guys standing around outside the Darigold plant, women in cars with one
arm out the window. I am always revolted and marginally pissed, annoyed with
that low-slung irritation you feel around stupidity. But this time, I am one
notch over into really mad. The Vespa guy, he's perfect. He's supposed to be
perfect. And now look how he's letting us all down.
    I pour his coffee, my lips pursed with
disapproval. I am doing a Mom, where I'm trying to communicate with the vast
vocabulary of my silence everything he's done wrong. But he's not listening,
because when I tip my pot back up, he gives me only that smile, which is suspect
now. I'm thinking it is perhaps insincere.
    I just stand there wanting to speak, doing this
yes-no, yes-no, yes-no thing in my head, and then, before I even realize the
debate is over, I'm at yes and I'm talking to him.
    "I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't care
about your health and well-being," I say, and suddenly I'm channeling the spirit
of my mother, and she's not even dead. "But do you know there are over four
thousand toxic chemicals in cigarettes?" I gesture with my chin toward his
jacket pocket. "Carbon monoxide, for starters.
    66
    Cyanide, formaldehyde, ammonia ..." I count
them off on my fingers. "Should I go on?"
    Well, I guess I might as well have just hooked
Vespa guy up to numerous electrodes and shocked him with twelve thousand volts
of electricity for the way he just stares at me, blinking.
    "If you care about your health and the health
of others," I say.
    "Well," he says. "Well."
    "It's only because I'm worried about you," I
remind. "Thank you for your concern," he says. "Your concern ... ," he
repeats.
    And then, oh God, something awful happens.
There's this pause, and then his eyes--they get glassy, wet. He blinks. My God,
I think he might be about to cry. He blinks some more. Shit. Shit! I've made the
Vespa guy cry.
    He clears his throat.
    "Are you all right?" I ask.
    "Yes. Yeah. It's just..." He coughs.
    Oh, man. Shit, Indigo, I think. Now
you've gone and done it. I made him feel terrible. I couldn't keep my
goddamn big mouth shut. "I'm sorry," I say. "I shouldn't have ..."
    "Sorry? Don't be sorry. Lately ... I
don't know." He gives a laugh that isn't a laugh.
    "What?"
    "I don't know why I'm telling you
this."
    "It's okay," I say. "This is waitress-client
privilege. Purely confidential." Except for all the Irregulars listening in, of
course.
    "I go to work and everyone's 'Yes, Mr. Howards.
Of course, Mr. Howards. Can I get you anything, Mr. Howards?' And no one means a
goddamn word they say. It's unreal." He runs his fingers through his
hair.
    67
    "Maybe it's time for a job change," I say. "I
haven't heard a sincere expression of concern in five, six years."
    "A lifestyle change, then," I say.
    I'm taking too much time here, I know. The
ladies