Free Warmed and Bound: A Velvet Anthology by ed. Pela Via Page A

Stephanie at first, as usual. Her hair is tied in a loose, functional ponytail and she plays up the Southern-waitress charm angle, calling everyone at the table next to me “hun” or “sweetie” as she gives them their receipts. I watch the transaction as discreetly as I can, by the reflection of the participants in the dirty window, and I still almost miss it. The leather booklet she hands them, filled as it is with four people’s separate checks and credit cards, barely shows the extra bulge of a carefully-placed baggie. I smile to myself, masking it as best I can with the menu. She’s at least better than Andy.
    Andy’s code was never particularly subtle. The customer came in, picked out a movie, and brought it to the register, making the joke about how his girlfriend or wife or buddy told him that, out of five stars, they’d give it ten, or twenty, or, on a lucrative day, fifty. I kept waiting for one of them to slip up and say “grams” instead of “stars,” but Andy catered to a young, hip clientele, and they seemed to get off on the spy-film kitsch. He’d stuff a baggie, the large kind, so the shit was sufficiently spread out, into the movie case, under the counter where the well-accounted-for security cameras couldn’t see it, and gave the customer far too little change before sliding the movie to them with a warning about the due date.
    I catch her eye and she glides over. “How’r’ya doin’ today, darlin’?”
    “The accent is flawless.”
    “Why, thank you.”
    “Just brilliant caricature.” 
    She pulls out a new waitress pad, without the worn edges or phone numbers in the back, borrowed, and flips to an empty page. “Getcha somethin’?”
    “Coffee. How’s business?”
    She casts her eyes around. “Look at the place.”
    “Yeah. How’s business?”
    “Oh. It pays the bills.” She nudges my leg with her foot. “It’s a better system than Andy’s got, anyway.” I’m glad that the poor lighting has my face in shadows. I’ve decided I won’t tell her. Just let it ride. She leans in a little, like she’s asking me to repeat an order or explaining what’s in a menu item in case anyone’s watching, stalling for a little break.
    The makeup she never wears anywhere but work is caked on a little more today so the bruises under her eyes just look like she’s tired. I wonder how she manages the charm angle, sometimes, with how much she clearly hates doing this. The way I ride the movie rentals at work, though, she provides us with groceries lifted from the kitchen a few times a week. This is a bit more useful than my contribution, I suppose. I’m not saying that we wouldn’t get by without petty theft, but it would be a damned sight harder.
    She mock-scribbles in her pad. “You’re heading home, yeah? Off work?”
    I nod. “Slow day. I kinda like that job sometimes.”
    She snorts. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s peaches.” She’s turning the Southern thing back on. “Coffee’ll be up in a sec, darlin’.”
    She closes her pad and heads for the kitchen. I fold the napkin into smaller and smaller squares on the table, watching her go. She leans in through the order window and shouts something. Someone yells back, because she has to turn around and repeat herself. She touches her fingers to her temple, briefly, and I can only imagine what goes on in her head all day. She used to talk to me all the time about her coworkers, like a grand army just waiting to be mobilized. Maybe she’s right, but in this town, when you talk about a union you’re talking about the Civil War, and she left her organization behind when we left the city. She hasn’t really talked to me about it since, but it seems like she forces it down when she goes to work and plasters that smile on her face. I wonder if it’s something like schizophrenia for her, working.

    ———

    Waiting for Stephanie to get home, I realize that I didn’t tell her at the diner that I’d quit my job. It takes me a minute