You know, come to think of it, there wasn’t anything ordinary about that night at all. It reeked of change. Like when I arrived for my shift, the timer stopped and refused to let me clock in. Just shut down. Couldn’t believe it. Tom had never seen anything like it either, he had to manually punch me in with a manager override. That should’ve been the first sign that things were changing.
Then, there were the pens at the hostess desk. Everybody at the steakhouse knows the holder full of blue pens on the desk belongs to me. I bought them myself from the dollar store down the street after all of mine kept vanishing... I’m not one to accuse theft, but I’ve never once seen Bridget bring her own pens to work and somehow, she always has one stuck in her swaying brown ponytail. But anyway, I get to the desk and there’s no freaking pens. Gone. Luckily, I had a spare in my apron. Well, it must’ve burst. When I pulled my hand out it was covered in a deep blue ink. Everything in my apron was ruined, including my nametag. That meant I had to pull a “forgotten soul.” Forgotten souls are people who quit and left their nametag, there was a solid collection of them behind the manager’s desk. The unlucky soul I pulled was Barb. Every other day, I was Abigail.
Like I said, nothing was going my way. As if the universe itself rebelled against my every effort, my very existence. Of course, I wasn’t a stranger to struggle. Every year the pandemic continued, I knew struggle more and more. All of us did. Mama especially. She was never the same after sickness took Daddy. That’s why I got the job in the first place, to help. Though, if I’m being honest, I felt more like a burden every day.
I suppose that’s what had me deep in thought, the overwhelming nature of it all. Daydreaming, like I always did on my shift. Lost in the letters atop my clipboard. ‘BIG ROB’S STEAKHOUSE’ it said in bold, swollen font. I became fascinated with the roundness of the R and the fatness of the O’s, as if the letters themselves had gorged on bloody meat. That made me think of a feast, a big village feast that I supplied the venison for. A sword, no, a bow and arrow sat atop my shoulder as I stood proudly over the buck. Cheers echoed loudly in my ear. “Hero!” villagers shouted. Cups clinked together and overflowed with a deep red; fanfare rejoiced while we celebrated. Faintly in the background, the sound of heels. Heels against tile floor brought me back to the restaurant, with its dim romantic lighting and its soft jazz music playing.
I heard her before I saw her. I envied her before I even knew her face.
I looked up from my scribbling to take in the sight of her. Pointed black devils with red bellies gripped the woman’s ankles with such a fierceness that they seemed to gasp for air and scream as they hit the tile one after another. Thick, tan legs towered above them like shimmering redwoods, the glow of the restaurant lighting reflecting off her sheer pantyhose while she walked toward me. An oversized, tan fur coat hid the rest of the woman until reaching her neck, draped with pearls. Her figure was impossible to make out, but the curves of her outline and the sparkle of her jewelry reminded me of creamy peanut butter heaped on a silver spoon. Long, salon brunette curls rested against her shoulders and when they entered the lobby, the waves bounced and danced as she moved, as she looked up at the man that held her arm and beamed at him with perfect white teeth framed in red.
There was a sort of indescribable energy about them, the way they entered arm in arm and how she waited for him to open the door for her. As if he had spent years telling her, “Don’t you dare open that door, beautiful.” It radiated off the two of them. Not them, her. She shined brighter than the sun, and he looked like he would fight off anyone who tried getting close enough to dull it. When she stood in front of the podium, the smell of fresh lavender filled the small space between us.
I didn’t know if the woman was real or a figment of my exhausted brain from being clocked in for over seven hours, but I couldn’t stop staring. I had forgotten all about the universe and it's bullying me, forgotten all the things in my head that lived there before.
After several awkward seconds, I remembered my lines and tripped over them. “Good evening! I- Welcome... to Bib Rob’s Steakhouse... Just the two of you tonight?” For no apparent reason, I straightened my name tag.
She spoke, which I didn’t expect. Usually the men always come in, guns blazing, and take charge of the seating. Not him, he was there only to support her every move. “Thank you, it’ll just be the two of us.” She beamed. “It’s my birthday dinner.” Her face lit up with a bright smile and she looked over at her partner again. Everything she did was in slow motion, like she had all the time in the world. Even her eyes seemed to resist opening when she blinked. He returned the gentlest smile and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
That made me think of Ryan and his tender hands. His warm, gentle hands. Well, they were gentle in the beginning anyway.
“Right this way,” I said.
This had been my routine as a host for years now, and it barely took any cognitive thinking. At this point, most of it was muscle memory from the moment I clocked in. But when she came in, something changed. Reset the system. Maybe her perfume? The way she carried herself? The mystery of what she hid beneath that puffy white coat beguiled me. What was she hiding under all that… perfectness? What secrets lived under those tall, pointed shoulders? I needed to know.
But how? She carried nothing on her person to give anything away. No purse or handbag or wallet. She didn’t need to. He carried her everything everywhere. She was free of baggage, of any weight tying her hands down. Free to do as she pleased.
“Thanks, Barb,” she said sweetly. I nodded and smiled. My heart sank.
He, in comparison, seemed insignificant as he sat next to her but must’ve been someone special. Someone important enough to catch her eye. His pressed navy suit and brown loafers said city official. Maybe he was in politics, and she acted as his trophy wife. No, I doubt she would enjoy being someone’s pet, sitting on a shelf and collecting dust while he lived a full life. She presented herself in a way that made me think she spent her days painting works of art that sold for thousands of dollars or sculpted pieces that museums would consider priceless. She worked with her mind and her soul, something creative, I just knew it. And he, well, he obviously made enough money for her to have unlimited time to do whatever she wanted.
I resisted the urge to interrupt their dinner, his boring ramblings and her hanging onto his every word. Instead, I forced myself to focus on my closing duties. I scrubbed dishes, took out trash, cleaned up after tables. Perhaps I got a little too careless because after a while, I looked up and the couple had vanished, their table already bussed. My eyes searched frantically for the waves of her brown hair rippling through the restaurant, but the tide took her out of my life forever.
On the drive home after work, I could still smell lavender on my clothes. What was it about her that I couldn’t shake? Maybe it was the way she broke up the monotony of it all, or the way she came in and showed me a glimpse of a different life. Like she was made of glass, and upon seeing her, I saw myself.
I parked. Looked in the rearview mirror and stared at my reflection, maybe for the first time in years. My overgrown eyebrows, my coffee-stained teeth, my chapped lips and very plain, clean face. Even my shirt still dripped dirty dishwater. How many times had I left work like that, defeated and alone, wet from other people’s luxury? How many more years did I plan to?
What am I doing with my life?
A sigh left my chest, and my shoulders sank into the seat. I wanted to be her. I wanted to stand behind doors and wait for large, gentle hands to open them for me, for someone to carry my everything everywhere. I wanted that smile she wore on her face and the freedom that she carried, just as badly as I wanted the pearls around her neck. She had it all, and I had double shifts at Big Rob’s and cold leftovers with Samwise.
I wiped tears from my face when my key entered my front door, the weight of the day heavy on my mind. I knew that Mama would be right on the other side of it waiting, needing, asking, caring, and I was never ready for it. I turned the knob anyway and took a deep breath.
One, two, three, four, five steps before she started. A new record. I expected it, but the weight of her presence deflated me, nonetheless.
“Oh good, you’re home. I just can’t for the life of me figure out how to use this goddamned fucking remote, Abigail. It deleted all my recorded shows! And the cat wouldn’t shut up today, I think he hates the neighbors. You know, they do all that yelling up there all day. It’s awful.” The back of her maroon Lay-Z-Boy recliner nodded at me furiously while she rocked.
Samwise purred and rubbed against my leg, eager for his dinner.
She went on and on about a doctor’s appointment and uncle Brian’s kids while I unpacked my things in the kitchen and got our usual, leftover grilled surf-n-turf, ready to re-heat.
I poured Sam’s food. Even over the loud clinking in the metal bowl, her shrill voice dominated.
“Oh, the landlord came by again today. You plan to pay him sometime soon or should I expect to be homeless next week?” She hadn’t moved from her recliner; she was still bitching at me in between switching channels. “You know all of this could’ve been avoided had you not ruined it with Ryan. He’s a good man, that boy.” She sucked her teeth and shook her head. “Shame, such a shame.”
My stomach still cartwheeled at the sound of his name after all this time. “Hello to you too, Mama,” I muttered.
“Quit that mumbling, child. Heat my dinner and bring it to me.”
“I’m already doing it. And no, we won’t be homeless. I got my check. Just need to cash it tomorrow.”
I drowned out the rest of her grievances with the hum of the microwave. The woman with the curves like peanut butter and her weightless smile never left me while my eyes watched the food go around, around, around.
The timer shouted its nagging beep. At the same time, a whisper dared to speak inside my head. Quiet, but loud enough to change my life forever. A single thought towards a single step in a new direction: Go.
In a whirlwind, I watched someone else’s hands set the timer for two more minutes and ran upstairs. In a coffee tin under my mattress, I grabbed the bills that I had been keeping safe for the last three years. “For a rainy day, or whatever,” I told myself. I crammed them into a backpack with a handful of clothes, underwear, and my running shoes. Once the bag filled with meaningless belongings I turned, breath ragged, and stared at the twin mattress that I had been sleeping on.
I needed to get out. I needed to breathe. I didn’t care that I had no idea what to do or where to go. My lungs craved air that they had never tasted. My heart needed someplace safe to mend.
Go.
Downstairs, my back rested on the front door behind me, my chest heaved up and down, and I heard the microwave beep inside. I stilled for a moment, not hesitating but waiting, listening.
“Well? Are you going to bring me some damn dinner, or do I have to starve?”
I didn’t stay to hear the rest. My car gleamed in the moonlight, a dark chariot awaiting me. And just like that, I was done... gone from that place filled with memories of people that didn’t deserve me.
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