by Stasia Black
STELLA: Don’t fuck this up.
I roll my eyes and turn off my phone without replying. I swear half the shit I get into isn’t even my fault. Okay, sure, half of it probably is, but the other half? I’m totally innocent.
When the documentary came out and Chandelier was an off-the-charts success, okay sure, I was a horny fucker in my early-twenties. Chicks throwing themselves at me left and right? Hell yeah I was cashing in on that. Life was a constant party if I wanted it to be.
But unlike all those bastards rich from birth, I still had shit to do the next day. I had a job. I was running multiple businesses. I knew better than anyone how quickly everything could be pulled out from under you. So I did the drinking and screwing every hot chick who wanted to throw herself on my dick routine for a while, but it got tiresome pretty quickly.
Well, except the hot chicks part. Aka, the mess that got me in my current dilemma. I shake my head. But really, I’m done landing a different chick every night. All of them are just like the brunette, users wanting a piece of the Kennedy Benson. I don’t need that crap. Still, that didn’t mean I was going to put up with Heather’s constant relationship-rollercoaster drama bullshit. I shudder. Nothing was worth that.
And because I didn’t want to deal with her hitting the roof by breaking up face to face, I thought I’d take a less…confrontational approach. Finally, thank fuck, it was over.
So then, well, I celebrated.
I wince. Yeah. Less than classy on my part.
And now I’m here. I look around the grimy kitchen and grimace. There’s no way this place would pass the health code inspections that my restaurants’ kitchens regularly go through. I pride myself on making perfect scores on that shit. If we don’t, I’m famous for doing regular drop-ins myself to test the kitchens until we pass perfectly every time. I expect excellence of my staff and push myself just as hard if not harder.
Which means I better get my ass out to the ‘dining room’ and get this shit done if it means doing damage-control for whatever harm I might have brought on the Benson’s brand. My shoulders fall, but I’ll man up now even if I didn’t with Heather.
I walk over and grab the huge pot of…whatever the hell it is and head through the swinging doors. Long tables are set up as a make-shift cafeteria with volunteers standing every few feet. They’re already serving a long, serpentine line of the homeless stretching out the door of the church activities room.
The shudder that starts at my neck and travels down my spine is involuntary. I grit my teeth and stand up straighter. Just twice growing up was I hungry enough to come to a place like this. I was eight and Mom was still mobile enough to get around the house. Which meant there was never any food left for me. After the first time I came, being surrounded by the piss-smelling homeless and eating the tasteless slop they served, I was so humiliated and freaked out by it all, I swore never again. That vow lasted about three months until Mom had eaten everything in the house again and was hoarding what was left. I was so hungry, I had no pride left and went to another soup kitchen. When you’re starving like that, any hot food will taste good, and I remember scarfing down everything on the tray. But there was this lady who sat down beside me and looked at me with such pity. Asking me where my parents were and if I had a place to sleep.
I never went back, no matter how hungry I got.
“You,” barks an older woman, wearing a shirt that reads Jesus Saves along with acid-washed mom jeans. “There.” She points me toward an empty half of one table in the middle.
I shuffle over and set down the giant soup pot. The other side of the table is occupied by stacks and stacks of…well, they’re shaped like pizza slices and have cemented circles of what might be pepperoni on them, but they smell like dog shit. And if that’s cheese, it’s so far removed from the cow that it might as well be dried glue.
I try not to gag.
The volunteer beside me laughs at my reaction. He’s an older hippie-looking guy with long, white hair in a ponytail and a beard that would rival Dumbledore’s. “Hey man, pizza is pizza to these fuckers. Pizza joints donate their pies at the end of the day. We freeze ‘em and reheat ‘em and this is how they turn out.”
Then he shrugs. “Plus, it’s the end of the month. Food stamps are all blown by now. It’s this or nothing.” He glances down at my hands. “But make sure to put gloves on. You don’t want to catch nothing. Swear I’m always itching for three days after I leave here, sure I’m walking away with lice.” He rubs his bearded chin against his shoulder.
“I’m Bob, by the way,” he says as he pulls a pair of plastic gloves from a box underneath the table and hands them to me. I quickly don them.
“Kennedy,” I offer back.
“That soup?” asks a woman who’s missing a couple of front teeth as the line passes by our table. She gestures at my pot.
I hesitate just a second as I look into the pot, but then nod. She waves a knobby, gnarled age-spotted hand at her tray. “Well gimme some. What the fuck are you doin’ jus’ standin’ there like a dumb fuck?”
I grit my teeth and smile, ladle the mystery stew into a chipped plastic bowl, and set it on her tray. She harrumphs at me and then snatches two pieces of pizza before Bob can offer them.
Our next ‘client’—that’s what Bob says we’re supposed to call them—is a cool middle-aged dude who quietly takes his food and moves along down the line. We get all sorts over the next hour and a half. Loud, belligerent, talkative, fucking nuts, you name it.
Lots of the last two categories—the crazy and talkative seem to go hand in hand.
“Trump stole this election, I’m telling ya,” says a greasy-faced man who might be in his forties. His skin is so weathered by the sun and, I assume, substance abuse, that he could actually be a decade older or younger and I just can’t tell. “Trump said it would be rigged and for once, he wasn’t tellin’ a lie. You know them Russians.” He looks over his shoulder and then leans across the table to Bob and me. An unfortunate stench follows him and I pull back.
“They’re always watchin’. You can’t have nothing digital. Facebook, Insta-twit—they’re watching. Big Brother, he’s fucking real. They’re making lists. Lists and lists of everybody’s name. Any day now, it’s gonna come.” He smacks his hands together, eyes wide and wild. “Boom and the government’s putting chips in your kids’ arms. Bam”—another dramatic hand clap—“and no one’s getting medicine’s less they got a barcode on their goddamned forehead.” He smacks his head repeatedly with the palm of his hand. “It’s all gonna be yes, commandant and no, commandant because Russia’s gonna move in and… Man, just last week, some government agent was tryin’ to take my shit and lemme tell you, I—”
“Here’s your soup, sir.” I smack the bowl on his tray. “Now, would you like some pizza?”
The man jerks back at my abrupt motion. He eyes me suspiciously. “Are you tryin’ to silence me? ‘Cause I got rights. I know about the first fuckin’ commandment! I got free speech!” He looks around to the room and yells louder. “I got free speech!”
Jesus Saves lady frowns and lifts her phone. I don’t know what the normal protocol for this kind of thing is. Maybe she’s just texting one of the other volunteers?
“Hell yeah you do,” I say to the dude, figuring the path to de-escalation won’t be to remind him that the first commandment is actually about God, not free speech. “Beautiful thing about this country of ours.” I smile affably. “Where are you sitting? Maybe when this line is through, I can come sit by you and we can chat some more?” I lean over the table. “I just know everyone behind you is hungry, too. I always like talking over food. Me and my uncle used to talk politics over a big meal. Still one of my favorite things to do.” I pull my plastic glove off and hold out my hand for a shake.
The man’s wary expression disappears and a wide grin cracks his face. He grabs my hand and gives it a vigorous yank up and down. “I just knew when I saw you, I said to myself, now here’s a man who knows sens
e when he hears it. I’ll be sitting right over there by that big window. I’ll save you a seat.” He shakes my hand one last time and then he salutes me before continuing down the line.
I keep up my smile just in case, and sure enough, he looks back at me. I give him a thumbs up. When he turns around again, I wipe my hand on my thigh and put my glove back on. Fuck’s sake. I’ll have to disinfect my goddamned hand with Lysol when I get home.
“That was really great,” says a soft voice. “How you handled him.”
I look up, ready to paste my patented smile back on, internally counting the minutes until I can get out of this hellhole and—
Holy shit.
There’s a fucking angel standing in front of me.
I shit you not.
Gorgeous, cherubic face. Porcelain skin, rosy cheeks. Heart-shaped pink mouth. White-blonde hair wrapped in braids around her head with little tendrils escaping here and there. She looks like she was dropped right out of a Grimm’s fairytale and straight into the den of the Big Bad Wolf. Because looking at her, I feel very, very hungry. Not that she’s wearing anything revealing. The total opposite in fact. She’s got on a thick, flannel shirt and shapeless, oversized overalls. Even though everything she’s wearing looks worn, she’s tidy and clean. She seems utterly out of place amid the grime and stink that surrounds her.
“Hello?” she laughs and gives a quick little wave.
“Um. Yeah. Hi. I wasn’t lying about the uncle. He was a crazy bastard. Um.” I shift on my feet. “Soup?”
What the fuck? Did I just really stumble over my words like a little bitch there? What am I? Fourteen and talking to a hot chick for the first time? I’m Kennedy fucking Benson. I flirt as easily as breathing.
She laughs and I swear it’s like the tinkling of little bells. I wasn’t kidding about this being some fairytale shit. “Yes, I’d love some.”
I blink a second before registering she said she wanted some soup. I ladle some and am proud of myself when I manage not to spill it all over her damn tray. But then I wince as I hand it over. Usually I pride myself in not serving anything I’m not positive is the best quality. “Sorry about this. I’m not sure it deserves the title soup. It’s hot, but that’s pretty much all it’s got going for it.”
She smiles, flashing a gorgeous set of straight, white teeth. “I’m not picky. Hot soup on an autumn day is all I’m looking for. Have you been outside today? It’s insanely beautiful out there. I was in the park earlier and even saw a couple trees that had leaves changing color.” She sighs and her smile turns wistful. “It’s the only thing that bums me out about living in this part of the country. I’ve always thought it’d be so romantic to live in a place where the trees turn colors and then all the leaves fall. And then snow.” Her eyes light up. “Snow always looks so magical in movies. I’ve never lived where there’s snow.”
I scoff lightly. “I grew up in New York. Believe me, it’s overrated.”
Ten points for me. I managed to say something intelligible.
Damn, her eyes are blue. Like, blue blue. The kind I thought only happened in photos that had been retouched in Photoshop.
She laughs and nods. “Isn’t that the way it always is? Grass is always greener and all that? Besides, I’m sure if I ever moved somewhere cold, after one winter, I’d be fed up with it. Having to dig my way out of my own driveway if I wanted to go anywhere?” She shakes her head, but then a soft look takes over her eyes again and she tilts her head sideways. “But doesn’t it make such a lovely picture in your head? Drinking coffee and looking out the window while the snow falls?”
I find myself nodding. Yes. Yes, it does make a nice mental image, but only because I’m picturing her through that window. She looks absolutely gorgeous as she sips coffee and watches the snow, thinking beautiful thoughts. And then maybe I come in from the cold and sit down beside her and—
“Oh my gosh.” She looks embarrassed, glancing over her shoulder. “I’m holding up the line. My mouth just runs away with me.”
“No, it’s fine,” I say, talking over her as she says, “Oh.”
She laughs, tilting her head again and smiling at me. Damn, those eyes. Bright, intelligent blue eyes. Fuck me.
“Nice chatting with you.” She nods and lifts her tray. “Thanks for the soup. Have a lovely day.”
And with that, she’s moving away.
My heart starts hammering. She’s tall in spite of how thin and otherwise tiny she is. I can tell despite those ridiculous clothes she’s wearing. Her hands were so delicate when she took the bowl. If she let those braids down, how long would her hair be? And more importantly, why the fuck does she have to get food from a soup kitchen?
“Hey. White boy. You gonna give me some soup or I gotta jump this table and get it myself?”
I break my gaze from staring after…shit, I didn’t even get her name. I continue serving the rest of the line. In between clients, I search for a head of white-blonde braids. But I don’t see her sitting anywhere in the crowd of tables. Damn it. Where’d she go?
Maybe I can just cut out early. This is all bullshit anyway. I go to pull off my gloves…and that’s right when the goddamned photographer shows up.
Stella will kill me if I blow this off. I call her my PA because she still runs my schedule, but she’s actually a partner. She bought into the company and liaises with our chief accountant more than I do at this point. She thinks this public relations shit is important. And what would I say if I left? There was this mystery beauty that I just had to get to know? Stella wouldn’t just punch my shoulder. She’d go straight for the balls.
So I put on the smile and amp up the charm as I ladle my little, cold plastic heart out. The pap thought it’d be great to get some shots of me cleaning up in addition to just serving. Jane, the Jesus Saves lady smiled big when she overheard that. She handed me a mop and said I was on bathroom duty.
Do you know what homeless people do when they get access to bathrooms after not being welcomed by any other establishments all week? Let’s just say it’s not pretty. I don’t think my Salvatore Ferragamos will ever be the same.
I scrub at my forearms with soap in the back kitchen after I’m finally finished with the bathrooms. It’s my third round of washing with water so hot there’s steam rising from the sink. But Christ, when I get home, I’m burning everything I’m wearing and will turn the shower to scalding to get rid of the filth I feel coating my whole body.
I turn off the sink faucet with my forearm. But fuck if I feel like any of the towels around here are actually clean. Well, up to my exacting standards of clean. This whole place is a cesspool. I saw a cockroach climbing over the coffeepot earlier.
Stella better be satisfied with the shots the pap got of me scrubbing crap off the bathroom walls because I’m done with this in-person humanitarian bullshit. I throw money at problems. That’s my M.O. She should know that by now.
I give up searching for a towel and just shake my hands to get the water off while I head for the back door. I reach into my pocket and pull out my Bluetooth headset. It barely finishes ringing before I start talking, right as I slam open the doors to the outside. “Stella, I swear to Christ they better have some great pictures out of this because—”
“What’d I say, bitch?” a man’s voice demands. “Gimme your fuckin’ money.”
I jerk my head to the side and see four men at the far side of the church parking lot that leads into an alley. Surrounding a small figure with white-blonde hair. The fairytale woman from earlier.
No. My stomach hollows out and I take off at a dead sprint toward them.
She cowers with her hands up covering her face and screams something I can’t make out.
“Hey!” I shout.
The biggest of the men raises his fist.
“Hey!” I start sprinting toward them. “Don’t you fucking dare!”
The woman screams again but fuck, I’m still too far away. Fuck, fuck, no.
The fist lands and she cr
umples.
He’s fucking dead. I’m going to kill him. My legs pump harder than they have since I was a teenager running from the cops.
“You fucking bastards!” I roar.
All the guys look my way. One of the smaller ones leans over and rifles through the girl’s pockets, coming up with what must be money. Then he hightails it down the alleyway, looking over his shoulder at me. The others are quick on his heels.
Motherfuckers. I’ll slice every single one of their coward-bastard fucking throats. I throw every ounce of energy into covering the last bit of distance, but when I finally get to the girl, as much as I want to keep chasing after those bastards, I stop in my tracks.
“Shit, are you okay?” I bend over, falling to my knees and cradling her head as gently as I can. Her lip is split and her cheek is cut up, too. That fucker must have been wearing a ring. “Are you all right?” What a stupid goddamned question. Of course she’s not okay.
“Can you hear my voice?” I just need to know if she’s conscious at this point.
She blinks but then winces at the action, her tiny hand coming to her bloody cheek and lip. “Oww, I—”
“Shh, shh, don’t try to talk, I’ve got you.”
Her loose blonde braids have come unpinned and hang in disarray over her shoulders. She looks like a gorgeous, tragically battered angel. It’s just fucking wrong. For something so beautiful, for someone to—
She blinks again, looking completely disoriented, and tries to sit up. Immediately she cries out and grabs her rib. She lies back, her startled blue eyes wide with pain. Fuck. Those bastards must have hit her even before I came out of the building.
“All right, I’m going to lift you up now.” I slip my arms underneath her knees and her back, cringing at the same time she winces in pain.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I whisper over and over as I lift her up off the ground. Every jostle brings another strain of pain to her features. Why am I such a clumsy fuck? I deal with asshole chefs, rich douchey club and restaurant goers, and cutthroat businessmen—not delicate things.
