by Jean Oram
"Do I smell? The skunk burned out my olfactory system and I can't smell anything anymore and I don't want my uniform to take on the smell if I do still smell because polyester never lets go of smells and then it would smell like this forever but I have to go back to work today. I can't stay off sick any longer." She gave him her best please-help-me-look. "Please? Will you smell me? Please?"
Frankie gripped her arm with both hands, holding it in the air. Meeting her eye, he narrowed his eyes in a way that left her feeling spooked. He slowly inhaled his way up her arm, tearing her nerves apart, making her body tremble.
Shit.
That was way too intense.
"Frankie..." She caught herself leaning in, reaching out to touch him. She shook her head at herself and took a large step back.
"You should get to bed. You don't look well." She zipped herself back into her fleece jacket and asked, "Can you even smell anything with your cold?"
Frankie turned away to cough. "You smell fine. Vanilla." He turned to look at her as though there were other things he wanted to say.
She directed Heart's momentum in a half-circle as he bounded onto the step, his paws dropping clumps of mud. As she re-aimed him toward the garage she called over her shoulder, "Thanks! I'll bring you soup later."
"A thousand tomatoes lost their lives for a good cause," he said. "I declare you cured."
She smiled, relieved he'd gone back to joking with her, the look gone.
The tension she'd felt with him over the past few days would melt away as it always did and they'd bounce back to being friends. He wouldn't tell her how she could have any man and to get over her ex and she'd stop projecting her needs and desires onto Frankie. Holy hell, it had been a long time since she'd been laid and it was messing with her head. He was her best friend. Fantasizing about him was wrong. So wrong. Just because a door had shut with her ex, it didn't mean she had to go looking for another one to open.
She locked Heart in the garage and headed to work, slipping in the back door. In the tiny staff room, she cringed as she shrugged off her jacket, the skin on her arms tender after days of obsessive exfoliating.
She quickly checked herself over in the staff room mirror before reapplying lip gloss. These pants. She hated these pants. What on earth had Benny been thinking, giving them uniforms? This wasn't some awful fast food chain, it was a real restaurant and the wait staff should be wearing black pants and white shirts. Not a mandated fashion atrocity. She unbuttoned the top few buttons on her shirt, exposing a hint of cleavage. She adjusted her push-up bra and smoothed her shirt. She had lost wages to make up for and a little cleavage guaranteed at least an extra five bucks an hour in tips from the middle-aged coffee crowd, due to arrive within the hour.
Gloria bustled into the room, bringing a blast of cool, fresh air with her.
"Well, howdy do! Look at you. Feeling all better, are you?" she asked, yanking her bulky coat down on a hook. "'Cause whatever you had, I don't want it."
Mandy dabbed at some wayward gloss with the tip of her index finger. "Did I miss anything?" Other than the opportunity, of course, to loll around at home for days on end, replaying all the ways my life's gone wrong since graduating high school.
"Did you?" Gloria flopped onto a chair, which Mandy was certain would give out from the abuse someday soon and send Gloria sprawling. The woman, using both hands, heaved off her boots, plunking them onto the floor before snatching her stretched-out shoes from under a broken table. "You missed Mary Alice's birthday bash!"
"Damn." Mary Alice's parties usually led to enough in tips that she could come away with at least one item from her favorite designer's sample sale in the city. Last year, she'd come away with a lovely calfskin handbag and the leather jacket—which she'd had to throw away after last week's skunk incident.
"Mary Alice got in the rum."
Damn, damn and double damn.
Gloria nudged Mandy out from in front of the mirror so she could begin the daily process of fluffing up her hair and tsking at it as if the sounds would somehow transform her bad haircut into something better. "Don't worry, there's always next year. Besides, it's not like you don't have enough clothes, anyway."
Mandy sat down and sighed. Next year. Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days of the same-old same-old. She'd end up here forever like Gloria, or even worse, like her mom who had nothing but a brain-dead job and her soaps.
Mandy watched Gloria fuss with her hair and tried not to stare at how the pinched uniform stretched over the woman's serious junk in the trunk.
"Gloria, is that the same uniform Benny gave you when you first started?"
Gloria smoothed her hands over her hips. "Still fits, fifteen years after the fact!"
"What do you think about black pants with a white shirt instead of the uniform?"
"And why would we want to wear that?" Gloria turned to face Mandy.
"Because, um, well, we could wear whatever we wanted and mix it up a bit. Aren't you tired of the same old uniform?" She stood and rubbed the material of Gloria's sleeve.
Gloria let out a laugh and began her ritual of applying way too much lipstick. "Can you smell that? Smells like skunk. Can still smell it in the square, too."
Mandy slowly tucked her arms at her sides and eased away. Evidently, even Frankie had lost the ability to smell skunk. He probably smelled it everywhere, as she did, and here she was, out in public, and stinking up the place.
Gloria reached into her shirt and adjusted her bra's strap before going back to stabbing at her lips with bright red. She met Mandy's eye in the mirror. "You know, wearing our own clothes to work is a bad idea, Mandy. I fought for these uniforms. When you have young kids of your own, you'll be thanking me." A pause for another couple of jabs and stabs with the lipstick. "Polyester cleans up nice and easy and dries fast. White shirts are awful. You go through five of 'em a month because of stains. Plus, cotton's a bitch to iron and never looks as crisp as these." She shot Mandy a warning look and capped her lipstick. "It's a single mother's blessing, that's what a uniform is. Free clothes to wear forty hours a week."
She pointed her lipstick at Mandy. "I know you have Benny's ear, but don't try and sway him on this one or you'll have me on your ass." She waited, eyebrows raised, until Mandy sighed and tossed up her arms.
"Fine. Maybe we can update the mismatched décor instead." Realizing that she'd likely released skunk scent by moving her body, she quickly lowered her arms and stalked out of the room. How was it that this life, which had seemed perfectly fine a week ago, now felt stifling, unfulfilling and boringly predictable?
She flicked on the dining room's lights and cruised the large, mismatched room, eyes peeled for sticky fingerprints on chairs, spilled salt, and the like. Gritting her teeth, she noted all the sugar and salt shakers were low. Napkin holders—ditto. Why was she the only one who made sure those kinds of details were taken care of? No wonder Benny paid her a little extra per hour. He'd be lost without her.
And where was Gloria's pride? How could she act so complacent? So satisfied with being some small town waitress and nothing more?
Mandy plucked three sticky menus from the pile and smacked them on the counter. She bent over and sucked in a couple of deep breaths, wondering where her sudden, body-shaking anger had come from.
She would never allow herself to become like Gloria.
And she would never, ever become her mother. It was a knockdown fight worth the energy and struggle.
She would do more with her job. Just as she had when Oz dumped her the first time.
Oz.
That son of a bitch.
Eight years.
Eight bloody freaking years of leading her on and then dumping her. How had she let herself get sucked into thinking it was real?
She took another angry breath.
What kind of son of a bitch did that to the woman he said he loved?
And why the hell was she thinking and wishing about Frankie right now?
Why?
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br /> Why?
Why?
* * *
Mandy splashed cool water on her face and pushed through a few slow, deep cleansing breaths. Much better.
Okay, not at all. She was a blink away from slipping down the slope into Gloria's life or her mom's and she didn't have a clue what to do about it.
She shoved her way out of the washroom and took another deep breath, steeling herself as she returned to the dining room. She needed to pull up her pants and find a way to return the color to her own cheeks—not leave it up to someone else. It was all on her to prove she wasn't a dried up old nothing. She still had a chance to make something of herself. All she had to do was figure out what it was and go for it.
She forced a smile, hoping her brain would get the message and order up a trainload of dopamine to help lighten her mood. She snatched sugar shakers off the empty tables, trundling them to the small table near the front doors and register.
First step: carry on like nothing was wrong.
Second step: keep her eyes and ears open for a way to become something more.
Anything more. Greedily more.
And to do that, she'd need to completely dissolve the awkward business going on between her and Frankie since their kiss in the garage.
Oh, God. That kiss. Her eyelids fluttered shut and she lightly touched her neck.
The window banged and she jumped as if she'd been goosed.
Jesus Christ.
Her mother waved as she walked by, laughing at Mandy's expression.
Mandy checked her watch, trying to ignore how hot her cheeks felt. She must have looked like a lovesick dork. She needed to get a grip. Her fantasies were getting out of hand. Okay, okay, not fantasies. More like...totally inappropriate daydreams in which she was enjoying her best friend's body in a more-than-friends kind of way.
Thank goodness exes didn't get married every day or she'd be completely out of control.
That was it! She'd challenge Frankie to a race around the meadow after work. He had that old beater with the 440 Magnum engine he'd been itching to race against her beefed up 4x4 truck on the dirt track. By now, it would be a fabulous, challenging bog with bits of firm, frozen sections interspersed with muck. That would remind them both that more-than-friends didn't do that kind of stuff. They didn't go for the adrenalin of racing in the dark. Just friends.
His car had better have damn good tires.
She entered the kitchen to get sugar and salt to refill the shakers, and the grills sizzled hello as Leif prepped it.
"Hey!" she called.
"Mandy! You're back." Leif, a former police officer who decided he'd rather have the stress of running a kitchen than deal with bad guys, came over and gave her a quick, one-armed hug, his cologne just about choking her while his barrel chest knocked her away. At least he wouldn't be able to catch her scent over his own. Small miracles, she thought as she gave a little cough. "Gloria was gloating about you missing a big tip night."
"Yeah, she already got in her digs."
He glanced at her, raising his eyebrows at her exposed cleavage. "Well, you should make up for it fine. If Benny doesn't try and stop you."
Mandy gave him a playful smack on the shoulder, feeling slightly embarrassed that her motives were so transparent.
He laughed, moving back to the protection of his grill. "You're so cute when you get embarrassed."
Mandy put her hands on her hips. "It's a woman's right to flirt...and stuff."
"I never said anything!" He raised his hands in defense.
Mandy flashed him a smile she knew he'd clock as fake and turned on her heel. After grabbing the jug of sugar off a nearby shelf, she headed out of the kitchen. She dumped herself into the chair in front of the sugar shakers and sighed. How had she become that obvious? But if she was...why did it work if everyone knew what she was doing?
She brushed away her worries, knowing that Leif, as a former officer, could read people like they were the ABCs. That was all. And it wasn't a big deal to flirt to get what you wanted. Businessmen had their boys' clubs and women had their bodies.
So what was she going to do when her body went? When she was no longer young?
She wiped under her lashes for errant mascara and sighed. When Oz dumped her—the first time—she'd got this job and learned the ropes of running the place. Now she did the weekly deposits, the cash register receipts, and lately, even some of the food ordering. But what was left? Where was there for her to go from here? What was here for her in Blueberry Springs other than this?
She was one step away from morphing into one of those small town waitresses waiting for someone to come along and sweep her off her feet with a winning lottery ticket.
Unable to clear her mind, she set to work uncapping a row of sugar containers, then filling them before recapping them all and starting on the next line.
Gloria plopped herself into the chair across from her and let out a gusty breath. "Woo. I'm all out of breath. Make sure you get the right white stuff in the right shaker there, Mandy."
"Ha-ha." One mistake seven years ago... Wasn't the woman ever going to let her live it down?
Mandy pushed half the sugar shakers across the table. "Make yourself useful."
Gloria laughed. "Is that you asking for help?"
"Gloria," Mandy said, barely refraining from rolling her eyes, "it's our job."
"You're asking for help, Little Miss Mandy-Do-It-All-Herself." Gloria's voice and eyes danced and Mandy resisted the urge to shower the woman in sugar.
Gloria crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward. "Soooo?"
Mandy wished a customer would come in right now and demand she describe every item on the menu, because she knew exactly where this conversation was heading and that unless there was a lengthy distraction, she was not getting out of it. She capped shakers, keeping her focus off Gloria. "What's Amber up to, Gloria?"
Gloria paused for one wonderful, blessed, quiet second. "Amber's found a nice man, it seems."
"You must be happy, then," Mandy said, luring Gloria into talking more about the subject she loved most—her daughter and her love life.
"Yes. Quite happy. He's a lovely man. A newscaster in the city, you know."
Mandy raised her eyebrows and nodded, encouraging Gloria to continue. "Very cool. What's he like?"
Gloria shrugged. "Haven't met him." She reached over and stilled Mandy's hands, which were rapidly twisting lids back onto sugar shakers. "But how about you? How are you holding up?"
"I'm great." Mandy stood. If great meant having your high school sweetheart dump you after a zillion years, and right when everyone else was stepping up to the altar, leaving you unfashionably single in a town that valued hooking up above all else. Oh, and then faking a pregnancy scare because you were scared to let him go. And everyone seeing through it. And then, after all that time, when you finally felt as if you were getting the hang of your life, having him break up with his fiancée and hinting that maybe the two of them had had it right all those years ago. And then maybe sharing a kiss or two in the square, which indicated...
She sighed, trying to blot out the way her hopes had skyrocketed and how she'd slipped right back into believing it was real. Only to be sloughed off like the mistake she truly was so her ex could turn around and marry someone else. Public humiliation served up cold.
Her skin crawled at the thought of what the town must have been whispering behind her back.
She'd probably had it coming. For being that naive and trusting.
And still, despite it all, she'd waited. Waited in case he changed his mind again.
And now everyone thought she was crushed because she'd been sick for days since his marriage. There was no justice. Or rather, there was a very pointed and real divine justice with one hell of a backswing.
But here she was. Right back where she'd started. Same spot. Same uniform. Looking at the same faded décor, and living her single, pathetic life.
Just like her mother.
Only in a restaurant instead of a convenience store. And without an addiction to soap operas.
No future. No dreams.
Nothing more than some feeble hope that a man would somehow create a life for her to live and that hope was so pathetic it made her want to gag herself with a spoon. A man was not the answer. Not until she tried something. Something daring. Something bold. Something passionate and thrilling. She needed to become a big fish in this small pond and get herself a real life that matched her wardrobe.
"Well, you don't look great," Gloria stated bluntly. "A mother knows." She tapped her forehead as though she was turning on her ESP or something.
Mandy laughed, despite herself. "You're not my mother."
"Your mother's a big chicken finger. She wouldn't know you had a problem unless you came right out and told her and I'm guessing your pride is too big for those britches. That woman shut down the day your daddy moved across town to live with Rubber Tits and nobody's been able to jumpstart her since."
Mandy let out a guffaw.
"What? Just because she's my cousin, you think I don't know fake tits when I see 'em and would feel the need to keep 'em a secret?" Gloria shot her a disgusted look. "Look. You need to shake it off." She shook her head, her voice growing tight. "Men don't have half the courage we give 'em credit for. Remember that. You have to have enough for both of you if you want to have a hope in hell. We need 'em but we've got to live our lives, too."
"Yeah, maybe."
"But you know...if you and Frankie are going to have something—"
"Oh my God!" Mandy exploded, shoving away from the table. "Why can't people be happy with us being just friends!"
Gloria laughed and banged the table with a hand. " 'Cause the two of you are always wishing you were porking each other!"
Mandy gasped, heat tearing through her veins. "Gloria!" She whirled around, unable to make her mouth form words as she slammed her way into the kitchen, cringing when she realized she'd just confirmed exactly what she was trying to hide.
* * *
Mandy eased her way into the dining room with a stack of menus she'd de-goobered, pausing when she saw Gloria finishing up the salt shakers.
