The new girl? Oh my God. Jimbo was looking at her. She’d totally blown the opportunity to flee. Her feet throbbed in her tennis shoes, her knees started to buckle, and the plastic menu fused to her sweaty palms. Where was the coffee? She spotted it just behind the counter.
Each step came in slow motion. She didn’t want to trip in front of all...these...men. The noise had risen to such a level that all she heard was a collective roar.
God, why was she here? She was crazy. Crazy for letting Warren look for Cookie. Crazy for quitting her job, selling her car, and moving to podunk Cottonmouth—which, incidentally, sounded like something you got after smoking illicit green stuff.
God, Roberta was back. Full force. And Bobbie just couldn’t let her take over.
The coffee pot was a two-ton anchor weighing her arm down, not to mention the menu, pad, and pencil. She knew she’d drop something, trip over a foot too far out in the aisle, make a fool of herself, and die of mortification. Whose idea was this anyway? She didn’t even need a job.
Roberta would have wimped out. But Bobbie would not be that weak woman again. Ever. She moved away from the security of the front door.
“You’re a sweet young thing.” The man called Jimbo beamed up at her, coffee mug now firmly on the table. Waiting. She couldn’t quite remember the whole trip from the coffee machine to his table. Amnesia. Black-out. Post-traumatic stress. Whatever. She’d made it.
“I’m forty.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that.
“Well, you don’t look a day over twenty-five. Just half a cup. My wife says too much caffeine makes me constipated, but do I look constipated to you?”
She didn’t respond, but instead hefted and carefully, oh so carefully, poured. The darn stuff had a life of its own and gushed from the spout like a geyser. It was all over the table, dripping onto the floor, spewing all over her brand-new white tennies and the legs of her jeans. And would have landed smack in the crotch of Jimbo’s extra-large trousers, if he hadn’t sidled like a crab into the corner of his booth.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry. It came out so fast.” Can I just die now?
She grabbed at his used napkins, dabbing ineffectually at the lake of coffee on the table.
“Hey, sweetie, don’t cry. It’s all right. It didn’t get on me, and we can have this whole mess cleaned up in a jiffy.” Jimbo patted her hand.
“I’m not crying.” Well, if she was, they were tears of humiliation. “But I don’t know where the washcloths are.”
“In a bin under the counter by the coffee.” He looked at the still-quavering pot in her hand. “And maybe you should put that down for now.”
“Yeah.” She smiled, her eyes watering just a tad because something noxious had gotten in them.
“Billy, get out here and clean up Jimbo’s table.” A gritty voice shrieked above the racket. It was the woman named Mavis. Bobbie’s face flamed. The room went silent, broken only by the slap of nylon shoes on the linoleum.
“Never worked tables before, have you?” Mavis’s voice grated in Bobbie’s ear.
“No.”
Mavis looked at Jimbo. “Well, at least you didn’t get his family jewels.”
“I didn’t break the coffee pot either.” Bobbie pointed to the pot on the table.
More footsteps, softer, quicker. Ellie, the skinny-legged waitress, handed her something white and starched. “Here’s your apron. Sorry it took so long.”
Still clutching the menu and her pad to her chest, Bobbie said, “I don’t think I’ll be needing that now.”
“You’ll need it to hold your pad and the menu,” Mavis snapped.
Bobbie felt as if her brain had atrophied. “But I made a mess.”
“So don’t go dropping coffee all over the customers again.”
“Sweetheart, she’s desperate. And you’re cute.” That was Jimbo. But Bobbie could only stare at Mavis.
“They’ve been leering at your rear assets. It’s good for business,” Mavis announced.
Bobbie’s eyebrows shot up. “My butt is good for business?”
“Yeah.” Mavis turned. “Where the hell is that little lackwit? Billy!”
“Having a smoke,” Ellie whispered, then disappeared.
She was being hired for her butt. That was sexist. Definitely anti-feminist. And absolutely perfect.
“Okay.” She tied the apron round her middle, stuffed the pad in the pocket, and shoved the pencil behind her ear.
“She can take my order.” That from the youngish buzz-cut at the next table.
So Bobbie started her new career. With lots of mistakes, of course. But when she brought a side of pancakes instead of toast, and when she took an order for Canadian bacon and brought back steak, no one cared. When she wrote slowly and carried plates only two at a time, men waited. Patiently. And smiled. And stared at her butt.
By the end of the morning, she’d developed a system; she had the customers point to the menu so she could get the right number. It worked. Now, she was the one who smiled and made jokes while she swished her attention-getting hips. And she was loving it.
Things like this just didn’t happen in the city. Sexual harassment was a dirty word. A man wasn’t allowed to look at a woman below the neck. A woman couldn’t admit she wanted to be stared at like a sex object.
At eleven o’clock, Bobbie fondled the tips in her pocket. Her tips for her butt. Her mouth quirked in a tiny grin. That sweet man Jimbo had left her five dollars, when all she’d done was almost pour coffee on him.
Mavis crooked a finger at her. “Come back into my office while there’s a sane minute for us to talk.”
The accountant in Bobbie kicked in. “I should ask about employee benefits.”
Mavis snorted and led the way back through the kitchen. The odors of pine cleaner, grease, and male sweat hung in the air like a palpable, unpleasant fog. JJ, the cook, stared at Bobbie’s butt. Her stomach lurched. Was the difference merely whether you got tipped for it or not? Nah. JJ was slimy.
Mavis opened the door to an office only slightly larger than a closet. A cluttered desk crammed one corner, grease stains dripped down the back of the once-white door, and a calendar featuring dragons and buffed, scantily-clad women adorned a wall. The odd decoration didn’t suit The Cooked Goose. Nor Mavis.
Her new boss took the only chair, continuing the conversation as if there’d been no break. “Benefits? Like what?”
Bobbie leaned against the wall. “Well, how about medical and dental?”
“Not.”
O-kay. That was all right. She could stay eighteen months on the plan with her former employer.
“How about a 401K?”
Mavis laughed so hard, she had to wipe tears from her eyes.
Bobbie stiffened. “Maybe a SEP?”
“I don’t even know what the hell that is.”
“It’s for self-employed people.”
“Honey, this place doesn’t even make money. Why the hell would I worry about SEPs and 401Ks?”
Mavis seemed to live moment-to-moment. Not planning for retirement or any other bad thing that happened in life was an alien concept. But Roberta hadn’t planned on Warren divorcing her.
Bobbie chewed the inside of her cheek. “Well, then, I guess that just leaves the hourly wage.”
“Minimum, to start. Especially because you don’t know jack about being a waitress.”
She certainly couldn’t argue with that. “How much is minimum wage?”
Mavis just looked at her, her bouffant bubble tipping slightly to one side. “You’re kidding, right?”
Okay, so maybe she’d wait to find out on her first paycheck, if she didn’t want to appear stupid. Which reminded her. “Do you have auto-deposit?”
Mavis put her head down on the desk and cried, at least that’s what those loud snuffling noises sounded like. Finally, she looked up. “Can I ask what your last job was?”
She wondered if Winkleman would give her a good reference after the way he’d had her escorted
out, even though she did give him a two-week notice. “I was Director of Accounting at a firm in Silicon Valley.”
Then she knew Mavis was laughing, her mascara streaking down her cheeks. Hands spread in the air, she asked, “And you want to be a waitress in my restaurant be-cause...?”
“I wanted something less stressful.” It wasn’t really all that funny.
Mavis wiped her eyes. “Honey, I like you. I like you a lot. But you’re really kinda dumb.”
Bobbie thought about that for a moment and said, “Thank you.”
“You’re also a little weird. But here’s the deal. You get the day shift Monday through Friday.”
“But wouldn’t someone more senior want that shift?”
“Besides me, Ellie’s the most senior thing we’ve got.” She grimaced. “Except that Kelly person.”
Ellie and Kelly. Bobbie decided not to laugh, especially since Ellie didn’t look like she’d been out of high school more than a year. “Guess you are shorthanded.”
Mavis rolled her eyes. “That’s an understatement. But you’re interrupting me.”
“Oops, sorry.”
“There. You did it again. And that’s why I won’t trust you not to screw up my weekend tourist trade.”
“Okay.” Not that Bobbie really understood what the weekend and tourists and the fact that she’d interrupted had to do with anything. “So, at this juncture, maybe I should confirm what minimum wage is.” It really would be unwise to wait for her first check.
Mavis told her. Bobbie did a quick calc. She started to laugh. She’d just taken a job where she’d be making about ten times less than she’d made in Silicon Valley. Maybe Mavis was right—she was dumb.
But oh boy, Warren was going to have to cough up a lot of alimony. She couldn’t wait till he saw her working at The Cooked Goose. He’d be in, she knew. Because Warren couldn’t even boil spaghetti. His one culinary triumph consisted of pancakes made with Bisquick. Of course, they were very good pancakes, especially when he’d made them on Sunday mornings...a hand closed around her heart.
Mavis stuck out her hand. “Deal?”
Bobbie took it. A busy job would keep her from thinking about pancakes and Sunday mornings. “Deal. May I ask you a question?”
“Not if it’s about benefits.”
“Why do you call it The Cooked Goose? You don’t even have goose on the menu.”
Mavis slapped her forehead. “It’s a joke. Nobody gets it. The Cooked Goose. Your goose is cooked?” She threw up her hands when Bobbie didn’t laugh. “We’ll see how long you last around here, honey. Here’s an application. Fill it out and bring it back tomorrow.”
She’d last, all right. Even if it killed her.
Mavis mumbled to herself as she headed back through the kitchen. Bobbie was right on her heels.
Then she saw Warren. Sitting at one of her tables. Oh my God. She wasn’t ready, not after the unsettling pancake memories. She wanted to be looking for him when she saw him.
Don’t panic. Remain calm.
Mavis stood at her elbow. “You know him?” she whispered.
Bobbie didn’t turn. “My ex-husband. Almost.”
“Oh” was Mavis’s only reply, then, intuitively, she wandered off.
Warren’s face was thin, almost gaunt. His pale hair touched the collar at the back of his navy blue polo shirt, and the cotton outlined a surprisingly nice set of pecs. My God. He didn’t have boobs anymore. He hadn’t looked this good in ten years.
He’d lost weight. He’d stopped his Prozac. Good-bye sexual dysfunction. All for the Cookie Monster. Spineless Spivey had finally gotten it up. That...that...bastard.
Bobbie suddenly needed to sit down, before her legs gave out. But she wouldn’t give Warren the satisfaction of seeing the slightest indication of distress.
Why did he want her more than me?
Bobbie immediately squashed that little Roberta-whine. Thank God there wasn’t an Uzi within reach or he’d be a dead man.
This called for a new plan, an extraordinarily brilliant plan.
Chapter Three
The first thing Warren noticed was the new waitress’s bottom as she pivoted to grab the coffee pot. A shapely bottom as bottoms went, but he was more a breast man. As she turned, he detected a particularly delightful set, shown to advantage by a fitted sweater. When his gaze reached her face, he felt as if he’d been knocked upside the head with a two-by-four.
That couldn’t be Roberta. This woman’s hair was red. And short, with fluffy, appealing curls that softened the angles of her face and accentuated the green of her eyes. She appeared younger, though Roberta hadn’t aged badly. She’d gained far fewer lines over the years than most women her age.
It was Roberta, he saw as she marched his way. And she looked damn good. Better than he’d remembered. Sexier. Not that she hadn’t been sexy before. She had been. He’d just had trouble acting on those feelings.
But now, with Cookie, there was no problem.
“Roberta, what are you doing here?” A tense vertebrae pinched his neck.
She slapped a menu down on the table. “I’m here to take your order.”
He was dimly aware of the booths filling up around them, the noise level rising, and Mavis staring at him like he was a slug.
He leaned closer to Roberta. “I mean why are you here?”
Her painted lips curved into a wide smile. “You made Cottonmouth so attractive that I just had to see it for myself.”
“But what about your job?”
“I quit.”
She quit? Why? Emotional trauma over the divorce? She should have been all right when he left. He was sure she would be.
“But you loved your job.”
“I hated my job, Warren.” Her stare conveyed that he should have known all along if he’d ever had the decency to ask. “So, have you decided what you want?”
What he wanted was for her to go back to San Francisco. He had...other problems to deal with right now. “Pancakes.”
She let out a slow breath, then finally smiled, and said in a sugary sweet tone, “Oh, Warren, they’re not as good as your pancakes. Try the waffles instead.” She was practically cooing now. He’d never heard Roberta coo.
He was in really big trouble, especially when Cookie learned who she was. He’d just have to see that she didn’t. “Roberta, we have to talk.”
She took a small pad from her apron, her tongue stuck between her scarlet lips as she wrote. God, her fingernails dripped with red, too. “One order of waffles. With whipped cream. And the strawberries are really good.”
“Roberta.”
“Have you met Mavis, yet? She’s a doll.” With a flip of her wrist, she motioned the older woman over.
“She knows me, I’ve been here before, Roberta, we need—”
But Roberta breezed right over his words, as she grabbed Mavis’s arm. “Mavis, you’ve just got to meet Warren. He’s my ex-husband.” She shook her head, red curls bouncing. “Well, not exactly ex yet, but soon. How long did you say before I’d get the papers, Warren?”
Christ, by tonight the whole town would know she was here. Cookie would know. “Could we talk about this later, Roberta?”
Mavis drilled him with a look as she spoke to Roberta. “I thought your name is Bobbie.”
“Well, Roberta’s my old name. Bobbie’s my new name.”
Bobbie? That explained it. She was suffering from multiple identity disorder. He knew he couldn’t reason with either personality. So how was he going to find out what she wanted?
“Warren’s been such a sweetie during the divorce, haven’t you, Warren?” She turned to Mavis. “He’s letting me have all the furnishings in the house, including the big screen TV, and all the movies. Even A Man and A Woman, which was always his favorite. And my car.” She flashed him a devious look. “Oh, by the way, Warren, I traded it in. On a new VW bug. Those guys at the car dealership were just so accommodating. They took the BMW in a straight trade, even though it
was a different brand and everything. They figured they’d have to do a fire sale to get rid of it.”
“You traded the BMW for a Volkswagen bug? But that car’s worth—”
“Oh, and I put your Austin Healey in storage. There was just this one teensy-weensy little dent I made when I was trying to back it out of the garage. You know I could never push in that clutch worth a damn. Actually, it’s sort of a scratch. Along most of the driver’s side. I guess you could call it a dented scratch.”
“My Healey?” His voice cracked. His 1958 Austin Healey. His pride and joy. A painstaking restoration on which he’d spent months, including a hunt for an exact match of Healey blue. Had Roberta said damn?
She flipped a hand at him. “Oh, don’t look like that. I touched up the paint with that leftover stuff you had in the garage. It’s as good as new. Warren, Warren, are you all right?”
Spots floated before his eyes. Her voice faded in and out. He grabbed the table, afraid he might topple over.
“Is he having a heart attack?” Was that Roberta or Mavis? He wasn’t sure.
He’d never heard such a profusion of ditzy words out of Roberta’s mouth. Even the tone wasn’t hers. She was the most unditzy person he’d ever known. Hell, she even made lists of her lists.
His leaving must have affected her more than he’d ever imagined. He’d thought the divorce would be nothing more than a blip on her chart.
The blood vessels at his temples pulsed. Roberta fanned him with a menu. His vision blurred. Claustrophobia swept over him as people crowded round the booth.
Roberta touched his clammy forehead. “I think we better call the paramedics.”
Just as he was about to say he didn’t need any help, the front door burst open. All eyes turned toward the intrusion, allowing him to regain control of his faculties.
“Mavis, why aren’t the posters for the Accordion Festival up in your front window? It’s less than three weeks away.” Mayor Wylie Meade’s voice boomed out as if he were using his bullhorn.
“The Accordion Festival?” Roberta’s eyes lit up as she turned toward the mayor. Once again, Warren wasn’t sure he knew this woman anymore. “Are they going to play polka music?”
She's Gotta Be Mine (A sexy, funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 1) (Cottonmouth Series) Page 4
