by Lindy Zart
“Can I take your orders?” The waitress asks, smiling politely. The red uniform dress is to her knees and an orange apron is tied around her trim waist. The colors clash with her hair. Being a redhead myself, I know how that is. My mom is always getting on my case about wearing certain colored clothing with my hair, like I care.
We order, Jessie telling the waitress I’m picking up the tab for him and Catherine. I turn and stare at him. He smiles winningly, showing off two rows of straight teeth. Dickhead. I had more money saved up for the trip than him, only because I don’t blow my paychecks like he does. It figures he’d pull something shady like this.
“What’s the plan today? Hang out at the waterpark, check out the Strip, and split in the morning?” Hannah wonders, taking a drink from her water glass.
“You know it,” Jessie replies like they didn’t just look like they wanted to rip each other apart. “It’s going to be a blast. Water and half-naked chicks.”
Dickie looks less than enthused about the waterpark. “I thought I might just read in the motel room while you’re all at the waterpark.”
“Nah-uh, no way. That is not an option, buddy. You’re going.” Jessie points a finger at Dickie. “I didn’t still steal my brother’s car, and a shit load of beer, for you to be a drag and sit in the motel room.”
“I could drink the beer while I read,” Dickie allows, his eyes twinkling.
Hannah looks up. “I thought you didn’t steal anything?”
Jessie scowls. “Just the beer.”
“And the car,” I add, laughing.
“Shut up, Sam,” Jessie says with a smile.
And just like that, our little world is okay.
Our meals arrive, and all is silent and peaceful while we devour the food. The pancakes taste like fluffy goodness, and smothered in maple syrup and butter, they melt on my tongue. Breakfast food is my favorite. I drink two cups of coffee, not especially liking the taste, but wanting the caffeine. A large glass of orange juice follows, tart and sweet.
“What do your parents do, Catherine?” I ask, wanting to know all there is to know about her. She’s Jessie’s newest girlfriend—she can just as easily be his newest ex-girlfriend. It’s a thought that I don’t feel bad about.
She pops a grape in her mouth and chews before answering. “My father is a neurological surgeon and my mother is a secretary for a law firm.”
I swallow a bite of bacon, feeling the gap of our social settings. My dad works as a car salesman and my mom is a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home. They’re not exactly rolling in the dough.
“Oh? Any brothers or sisters?”
“One younger sister. Melanie. She goes to a private school like I did.” Catherine smiles, adjusting her headband.
I finish the last of the pancakes. “What are your plans in the fall?”
“Seriously, Sam?” Hannah mumbles, scowling at her plate of half-eaten food.
I ignore her.
“I got accepted to a college in New York. My parents are upset that I haven’t picked a major yet. I really like theater, but they tell me that’s not a responsible career path.” Catherine jabs at the fruit in the bowl with a fork, her eyes downcast.
Jessie possessively drapes an arm across the back of her chair, making sure I take notice. “She’s out of your league, man.”
“And she’s in yours?” I reply, eyebrows lifted. Jessie turns to stone and I look at Catherine. “Dickie’s going to college there too. Maybe you’re going to the same one.”
Politely giving Dickie her attention, Catherine says, “That’s neat. Which one are you going to, Dickie, and for what?”
Dickie turns into a red, stuttering mess, his words unintelligible and full of pauses. It gets so bad that Hannah rescues him, drawing Catherine into conversation even though it is clear she’d rather swallow needles. I smile at her when she glances at me, and Hannah sticks out her tongue before answering a question Catherine voiced.
* * *
I take my check from the waitress toward the end of the meal, surprised when Dickie reaches over and removes it from my hand. He does the same to Hannah.
“What are you doing?” I demand, lunging partially over the tabletop to get it back, but Dickie shoves the tickets in the front pocket of his tan pants before I can get to mine. I sit back. I’m not rummaging around down there.
“I’m paying for breakfast. It’s fine,” he says when I begin to protest. “You paid for the gas.”
“I didn’t pay for any gas. I can pay for my own meal,” Hannah says, diving for Dickie. She lands on the floor beside him, fighting off his hands as she attempts to dig in his pants. “Give it back, Dickie. I’m paying for my own food.”
I stand, knowing this isn’t going to end well. “Uh…Hannah?”
“Get away! Stop it. Hannah, stop,” Dickie cries, his face frozen in horror. He vaults upright, showing off an erection, and the table falls silent.
“Holy shit, Dickie. You’re stacked,” Jessie finally whispers in stunned awe.
Not that I want to stare, but I can’t seem to stop. Dickie is definitely gifted down below. A sound leaves Catherine, and I tear my eyes from Dickie to look at her, taking in the flushed skin and appreciative expression on her face. Interest sparks through her blue eyes, and my lips turn down. Hannah crouches near Dickie’s chair, her mouth hanging open in shock. She’s making little choking sounds, like she can’t get air into her lungs.
Dickie looks at us all, one at a time, and then he runs from the restaurant, faster than I thought possible, taking out a busboy with a pan of dirty dishes as he goes. He shouts an apology and keeps going. Dishes and silverware crash and clatter to the floor, the room momentarily pausing at the sound and sight. It sounds like a few of them break.
Hannah snickers, then claps a hand to her mouth. She swallows, and giggles some more. Then she guffaws, loud and obnoxious.
She pulls herself up and plops down on a chair. “Wow. I never would have…bow down to Dickie Dean, you two pansies.” She points at me and Jessie, her face split with a triumphant grin. “He deserves nothing but respect from this day forward.”
“He has the check,” I say faintly, when my brain decides to get past the monster package Dickie’s sporting. I feel like I should have known about it, like he broke some kind of man-code when he kept that information from me and Jessie. “We can’t pay without the check.”
“I’ll get it,” Catherine volunteers with a raised hand, eagerly spinning around and striding for the exit.
Jessie frowns after her.
“I think you’re in trouble,” Hannah tells him.
“Yeah, right,” he snorts, but a crease of worry is between his eyebrows.
A scream rings out, and I turn in the direction of the sound. People are dropping to the floor, hands over their heads, and it takes me a moment to see why. A male stands near the back of the room, a clown mask on his face and nylon covering his hair. He has a gun in his hand, waving it around as he shouts commands. I look from him to the door, and then I realize Jessie is the closest to him, and that at any second now, the man is going to notice we’re standing while the rest of the room is lying down.
“Jessie, move toward us. Slowly,” I say softly, not moving anything but my lips.
“What kind of a dumb-ass robs a restaurant?” he hisses, walking toward me.
“Get down, Sam,” Hannah snaps, pulling at my jeans as she sinks to the floor.
I put a hand on Jessie’s muscled shoulder and push him down with me as I go to my knees, looking over the tabletop at the man. I can barely make out what he’s saying, but he’s agitated, and that’s not working in favor of our continued safety.
“He’s not that big. I could take him,” Jessie says from beside me, his eyes above the table like mine.
I move my gaze to his, seeing the warped heat in his eyes. The adrenaline junkie is excited about the thought of taking down a criminal. Only Jessie would get a thrill out of tempting death. “No. He h
as a gun. Don’t try anything.”
“What about Dickie?” Hannah asks, looking toward the exit with panic on her face. “What if he decides to come back in?”
“He won’t,” I assure her, my eyes following hers. There’s no movement on the other side of the door. That’s a good sign. “He’s humiliated right now. No way will he come back.”
“That leaves Catherine.” Jessie’s face takes on a greenish cast. “If she walks through that door—”
“She’ll stay with Dickie. She’s safe. Don’t worry,” Hannah says soothingly, awkwardly patting the back of Jessie’s hand before moving her hand away and discreetly wiping it on her shorts. I guess when people are in a tight bind together, unlikely, and temporary, allies are formed.
“You don’t know that.” Jessie’s jaw shifts from side to side, impatience and the need for action making him restless. “What are we going to do then? We can’t just sit here and do nothing. Someone’s going to get shot.”
The man moves toward us, our red-haired waitress’s arm tightly gripped between one of his gloved hands. She looks down and meets my gaze, hers full of terror, and I shoot to my feet without thought. Maybe it’s because we’re both redheads, maybe it’s because she’s a woman and shouldn’t be manhandled by some robber asshole. Maybe it’s because I’m dumb, a thought I have just before the gun is aimed at my head. My skin turns unusually damp from the waist down, and I pray I didn’t just piss myself.
“Get the fuck down! Get down. Now!” the robber calls in a hoarse voice, his hand shaking around the metal it wields.
I’m grabbed from behind, Hannah pleading with me to move as she tugs at my tee shirt, but I am frozen, looking down the barrel of a pistol. I’m not really thinking anything, but I feel things. Regret, mostly. For everything I planned on doing and didn’t. For my friends who are going to be traumatized with seeing me shot, and possibly die. And anger at the dickhead standing before me, scaring people and being an all-out prick.
“Let her go,” I say in a thick voice, my bravery faltering when the beady gray eyes visible through the clown mask find mine.
“Don’t be a hero, asshole,” the man advises.
“Sam,” Hannah cries, clutching me from behind.
“We don’t want any problems. Just take what you want, and go. No one will fight you,” I say softly, lifting up my hands, palms out.
“Shut the fuck up.”
“What do you want?” I ask, my hands trembling. “We’ll help you get it.”
“You should have listened and shut your mouth.” He levels the pistol at my chest and clicks off the safety.
Hannah shoves me to the side as, with an insane, unintelligible shout, Jessie leaps in front of me. The gun goes off. Screams ensue, people jumping to their feet and running, shoving people of out of their way, others crawling, some getting trampled. It is chaos, the potential madness of a world contained to one building. I pat myself down, searching for a bullet hole, wondering why I’m not in pain and bleeding.
Hannah is beside me, her palms running across my body and face, her eyes wide with horror and relief. “Are you okay?” she shouts, her voice faint among so many other louder ones. She sounds muted, far away even as she stands directly before me. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” My throat is dry, my tongue thick. “Where’s Jessie?”
The front door bursts open and Dickie is sprinting for the robber, his face red and dripping with sweat. He roars at the top of his lungs as he closes the distance. I watch him, unsure who I am looking at. It’s Dickie but it’s not. The gun goes off again. Dickie ducks his head and rams into the masked man’s stomach, taking down both him and the waitress. Sirens penetrate the vicinity from outside, squawking as they get closer. More shrieks pierce the air, and the place is overrun with police officers.
Handcuffed and groaning, the almost-robber is dragged to his feet, the mask ripped from his face. I blink at the sight of the clean shaven man with an unlined face. He’s young, not much older than I am. He looks at me with contempt and spits on the floor near my feet before he’s hauled out of the restaurant.
“You think you did anyone any good here today?” he rasps, straining his neck to look over his shoulder. “You didn’t!”
I’m enveloped by arms, a female voice thanking me over and over. For what, I don’t know. I didn’t do anything except shoot off my mouth. It’s the red-haired waitress, and when she pulls away, she gives me a tremulous smile and a kiss on the cheek. I nod, numbness cloaking me.
Dickie is standing in the middle of a crowd, people thanking him as he abashedly takes it in, nodding his head and swallowing. He catches my eye and shrugs, a helpless look on his face.
I turn and there’s Hannah, watching me with no expression on her face. Her skin is bleached of color, making her eyes seem black and overly large. “You could have been shot. You almost were shot.”
“Where’s Jessie?” I ask again, my insides clenching with trepidation. There were two gunshots, and I didn’t see him after the first one was heard.
People are shuffled from the restaurant, officers directing them where to go and informing them that they’ll have to give statements. An officer tells us the same. Medics rush through the room, checking those fallen or otherwise injured, and the twisting in my gut worsens. Where the fuck is Jessie? I replay images in my head—Hannah pushing me, Jessie jumping in front of me, the gun going off. I cover my face with unsteady hands, feeling like I’m going to throw up.
“Man, what a riot. Good first day of our vacation.”
I whip my head to the side, and find Jessie sitting on a chair one table over, his face white with sweat covering it. He clutches his left shoulder, blooding dripping from between his fingers. It’s red, and violent looking, and shouldn’t be there.
“Let’s hope the rest of the trip is as exciting.” He tries to smirk.
“Shit.” I push past people, trip over an upended chair, and stumble to a stop near my friend. “Shit, man. Shit.” My eyes bore into Jessie’s. “You got shot.”
His mouth twists into a grimace. “Yeah, but you should see the other guy.”
“You got shot. For me. You took a bullet for me,” I say slowly, fury and fear tightening my features. “You fucking dumb-ass!” I punch his good shoulder and Jessie grunts.
“I didn’t know he was going to pull the trigger right that instant! Trust me, I would have let you take it if I’d had a choice,” he returns. “Easy on the arm, man. I hurt. Everywhere is connected to my arm and it hurts. All over.”
“We need to get you to a hospital. We need an ambulance.” I start going left, and then move to the right, not sure what I’m doing or where I should be going. I grab my hair and pull, swearing loudly.
Jessie chuckles, it turning into a groan.
“He needs help,” I call out to no one in particular. “He’s been shot! Over here.” I point to where Jessie sits, frantically waving when a medic looks my way. “He’s been shot,” I repeat.
“Jessie!” Catherine calls as she runs at us, falling to her knees beside him and covering his face in kisses. “Dickie and I saw what was going on from outside—I called the police from a payphone. You were shot? You poor thing! Are you in a lot of pain?”
“Just keep kissing the pain away, baby,” he murmurs, closing his eyes.
When two medics arrive and I know Jessie is going to survive, I find Hannah. She is by Dickie, looking like a proud mother as he retells the story for police officers and the restaurant patrons who haven’t been ushered from the building yet.
I latch my fingers onto her bicep and tug. “We need to talk,” I tell her in a hollow voice.
“Just a minute.” She absently pats my hand, her attention on Dickie.
I lean down and put my mouth close to her ear, wisps of curly black hair tickling my face. “Now, Hannah.”
Hannah upturns her face and frowns at me, her eyes trailing over my features. Our faces are close enough that I can see the gold flecks i
n her brown eyes and the small inch-long scar on her forehead from when she ran into a barbed wire fence while on her sled one winter. Her face got cut up pretty bad and I was terrified she was going to die. We were seven.
She nods. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s go.” Hannah turns to Dickie and tells him we’ll be waiting outside.
We walk to the car, bypassing the organized mayhem of city officials and reporters. It’s louder out here than inside, dozens of voices vying to be heard over others, people gawking as they walk and drive by. The sun is out with a vengeance, burning my skin.
I’m happy to find I did not piss myself, new sweat mixing with old as we stop beside the Renault.
Hannah leans an elbow on the hood, posed nonchalantly. Her fingers play with the jacket zipper, belying her calm. Up and down it goes, the longer the whizzing sound continues, the more maddening it becomes. I slap a hand to hers to halt the movement. Hannah pushes my hand away and glares up at me.
“Are you going to say anything or just look at me?” she demands, her hands on her hips.
I think of her in the restaurant, shoving me out of the way a second before the gun went off, and my stomach constricts. Hannah was willing to sacrifice herself for me with no thought of her own well-being. I would do the same for her, but she can’t do it for me. That isn’t how it works.
The image replays in my head, again and again, until my whole body is shuddering and I want to shake her, or hug her, and then shake her. She could have been shot. She could be dead, lying on a floor and bleeding out, right now, instead of standing here before me. I put a hand on the car to steady myself.
“You could have been killed,” I finally say, my voice thick and ragged.
Hannah’s eyes soften. “You could have been killed too.”
“What the hell were you thinking?” I holler and pound a fist to the roof of the car because my throat is tight and my chest hurts and I need anger right now to stay sane.
