From Riches to Rags (19 page)

Through my tears, I looked at Melinda, who was crying as well. I nodded towards the door and Melinda followed me out, to give Norma and her family some privacy.

“Wasn’t that wonderful?” Melinda gushed, “Oh, my God, I’m in tears.”

“Me too,” I said as I wiped them away, “I’m so happy for her.”

“Melinda, Chris, where do you two think you are you going?”

Norma was standing in her door way, one hand on her hip, the other pointing at us.

“It’s all right, Norma, you should be with your family now.”

“And I will be, dear, as soon as the rest of my family comes back in here.”

I looked at Melinda and she nodded, so we followed Norma back inside, and she made the introductions.

The seven of us sat in whatever chairs were available, the children sat on the floor and we all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving meal together. Benjamin, who preferred to be called Ben, explained how he had gotten an anonymous letter in the mail last week.

“It said that they may have found my grandmother. At first I thought it was a hoax, but then they gave your name and talked about the movie,” he pointed to the poster on the wall, “and then I knew it was you.”

Melinda and I shared a glance as he continued.

“My wife and I decided to take a chance and surprise you today, because we rarely get two days in a row off from work.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you did, Ben. I am so happy to see you again. My goodness, I think that the last time I saw you, was when I came to your college graduation. Do you remember that?”

“Yes ma’am, you gave me a new car for graduation.”

“I did? How wonderful. I hope you put it to good use?”

He looked down sheepishly and his wife answered for him, “No, ma’am, he wrecked it two months later at a frat party.”

“Oh dear.”

“I’m sorry, Grandmother. I was a young, stupid kid.”

“It’s all right, dear. I’m just glad you weren’t seriously hurt.”

Young Norma held her hand and asked, “Mrs. Grandmother, may I go to the bathroom?”

“Of course, my dear, and please, call me grandma.”

“Thanks, Grandma.”

Melinda jumped up and said, “Don’t get up, Norma, I’ll show Norma Junior where it’s at.”

Norma laughed, and instructed the young girl, “Go with Melinda, dear.”

After a minute, Melinda came back and sat down just as Ben set his plate down and looked at Norma.

“Grandma, I don’t mean to be insensitive, but uh, I was wondering how…”

“How I ended up living here? It’s simple, my dear, I was a drunk who fell in love with a gambler and lost everything.”

To her credit, she neither flinched, nor looked at us when she said that. In fact, it was Melinda and I who flinched because it hit so close to home.

“But that was a long time ago and I am very happy living here, especially now with my new young friends, and my little kitten. I wonder where she is?”

The young girl, came back carrying the kitten, “Grandma, I found her sleeping inside one of your fuzzy slippers, in your bathroom. What’s the kitten’s name?”

“Why, dear, I haven’t chosen a name for her yet, would you like to pick one out?”

“Oh, could I?”

“Certainly, just make sure it’s an easy one that I can remember.”

The girl giggled and studied the kitten,

Melinda got up and looked at me, “Chris, can I see you in the hall for a minute?”

“Oh, um, sure.”

Just as we opened the door we heard the young girl shout, “Pluto! Let’s name her Pluto like in that poster up there.”

“Oh, that’s an excellent name for her.”

We shut the door behind us and walked a step or two away and then Melinda asked, “Chris, couldn’t we start our test tomorrow? I can help these people. They need a place to stay, Norma needs to be able to feed them, the kids need—”

“Melinda, your heart is in the right place, and I feel the same way as you do. But we can’t put the test on hold every time you want to use your money, no matter what your good intentions are. Please, don’t make me the bad guy in this. You do what you feel you feel is best.”

“You’re right, and you’re not the bad guy, it’s just that I can do something good for someone right now, but I’m not supposed to touch my money. It makes me feel useless.”

“The fact that you feel that way is a very good thing and I don’t mean it in a mean way. Try putting yourself in my place. I love Norma like she was my own grandmother, and I would do anything in the world for her, but I can’t. All I can do is be her friend and save up a week’s worth of tips to buy a turkey for our dinner. I can’t run to my bank account and buy her whatever she needs. I don’t even have a bank account. My father cut off my allowance almost a year ago.”

She snapped, “I have my own damn money, I don’t have to rely on daddy to provide for me, like you use to.”

“I know, Melinda.” I said calmly, “And I am not trying to upset you. You have to do what’s in your heart and if your heart leads you to help these people, then I will understand.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

“It’s okay. I know it must be frustrating for you.”

“You have no idea. But we made a pack and here I am on day one trying to break it already. I understand now what you meant by it being a test. I think I just flunked.”

“No, you didn’t Melinda, unless, um, you’re going to use your money to help Norma?”

“What money? I have no money anymore, remember?”

I smiled and squeezed her arm. “I think you’re going to do just fine, Melinda, just hang in there for twenty-nine more days.”

Chapter Fifteen

Black Friday, Also Known As Melinda’s First Day of Real Work — Melinda Blackstone
and
Christine Livingston

“Oh, my God, my feet are killing me!”

“You’ve only been working for half-an-hour. They can’t be hurting you that badly already.”

“Well, they are.”

“Okay, come with me.”

I followed Chris into the lady’s bathroom where she told me to sit down on the chair in the sitting area and take off my shoes. While I did that, she went into one of the stales and I heard her pulling down the toilet paper.
Oh, that’s a great idea!

She brought two handfuls of the really thin paper over and lined my shoes with them.

“It’s going to be snug in here but you can loosen your shoelaces if you need to.”

I slipped my feet inside and felt instant comfort, almost like walking on a cloud. “Hey this is great, thank you.”

“It will take a couple of days for your feet to get use to working like this, so remember before you clock in tomorrow to come in here and line your shoes, all right?”

“If I last until tomorrow.”

She laughed but I seriously meant it. Because it was “Black Friday”, the manager had everyone working twelve hours and I was ready to quit after half-an-hour. How do people do this kind of work? It’s excruciating. The manager, in his wisdom, assigned only two tables for me to wait on in section D. Chris had section A, which was five tables in a section of the eating area. Then there was some kid named Dwayne, who had four tables in section B, and Lila, who had four tables in the C section.

At first things were slow and I only had one customer to wait on. I have to admit, I was feeling pretty sure of myself when I got a tip. I showed Chris my four quarters. She only smiled at me and said not to worry, that once I get the hang of things, the tips will get much bigger.

It started to get busy, especially toward early evening, when weary shoppers came stumbling in with their packages, still in that
get out of my way, I saw it first,
kind of mentality. I’ve never had the need to shop on Black Friday, thank God, but I’ve seen stories on the news where people were actually trampled to death to get at the discounted sales. Seems to me like it wouldn’t be worth losing your life so little Billy could have the latest toy craze. Not only is Billy not going to get that toy, but his momma isn’t going to be there at Christmas now, because she’s dead. I’m not a Bible thumper, but I don’t think that’s what the spirit of Christmas is supposed to be about.

In short order, the place was absolutely chaotic. People were talking loud to be heard over other people talking loud. Babies were crying, kids were running around uninhibited, and dishes were being dropped, or clanked. Most of the customers were satisfied and showed their happiness by leaving five or six dollars as a tip. I’m pretty sure Chris would consider that a good size tip.

Towards the late evening, a group of people came in that took up both my tables. I had brought them the bread basket and ten glasses of water.  Now I just needed to take their orders. But they were so caught up in their conversations that they pretty much ignored me.

“Hello. Is anyone hungry?” I said loudly, to be heard over their chattering. It didn’t work. They kept talking and nibbling on the bread.

There wasn’t much else I could do, so I went into the back and sat down, momentarily relieving the pain in my feet. All of a sudden the manager came bursting through the swinging doors and hollered my name.

He rushed me out the door and I went back to my tables where the customers sat staring at me, no one saying a word.

“So, are you ready to order now?” I asked with pen and pad in hand.

“We were ready ten minutes ago,” one man snarked.

“And I tried to take your order ten minutes ago, but you ignored me.” I might have been a bit snarky myself, but it was the truth.

“I don’t think I care for your attitude very much, young lady.” One of the older women wearing a fake fur stole said condescendingly.

“I’m sorry to hear that, now, would you like to order?”

“No, I would not.” She adjusted her stole and looked me straight in the eye, “Do you know who I am?”

I suddenly had a rush of déjà vu, but didn’t have time to discover why. These assholes were starting to piss me off.

“Lady, it doesn’t matter who you are, I’m just trying to take your order, for God’s sake.”

She let out an impertinent gasp, like I was beneath her contempt.

“Look, if you knew
who I was
, you’d dial back that arrogance of yours, and let me take your damn order.”

I was angry and ready to tell all of them to go fuck themselves, when Chris ran up and put her hand on my shoulder.

“Why don’t you get these nice folks some more bread, while I take their order, all right?”

But I couldn’t let it go, I had to get it off my chest, “I could buy and sell your ass for less than what you paid for that moldy fur around your neck.”

“Well, I never!” she bellowed so the entire restaurant heard her.

“Yeah, I’m sure of that!” I bellowed back at her as Chris literally pushed me into the kitchen.

A minute later the manager came storming in, fume emitting from his ears, and shouted in my face, “You’re fired!” and then he stormed out again.

“Fired? You can’t fire me, I quit!” I shouted after him but he was gone already.

Chris drew my eyes to her angry face and shouted, “Melinda! Shut the hell up!”

I opened my mouth to make a snotty retort, but her face softened into a smile and she took my hand in hers and patted it. It was then that I remembered having been just as mean to her, as those people were being to me.

“Wow, paybacks a real bitch, isn’t it?” I joked halfheartedly.

“Yes, it certainly can be.”

“So what do I do now? I’ve never been fired before.”

“Stay here until the boss cools down, then maybe we can ask him for your job back.”

“Yeah, well I don’t see that happening. But since I have no place else to go at the moment so I might as well stay in here as long as he’ll let me. But first I think maybe I should go apologize to those people and see if I can smooth things over.”

“Oh yes, that’s a good idea. But Melinda, keep calm when they refuse to accept your apology, all right?”

“I understand.”

I have faced many difficult times in my life. The worse one was when I had to apologize to my mother for calling her a bitch. Truthfully, she was acting like one, but I did regret calling her that. And now, as humbly as I knew how to be, I walked over to the table and looked the lady right in the eye and apologized. And then I apologized again because the first time my heart wasn’t in it. The bitch was not very gracious about it, but everyone else seemed to accept it, and some in the group even smiled at me and said it was all right. I walked back into the kitchen with a self-satisfied smile on my face.

For an hour, I was jailed in the kitchen while Chris took care of my customers, as well as her own. I felt bad, watching her rush in and out of the kitchen, placing orders, picking up food, and grabbing the bread, barely stopping long enough to catch her breath.

I guess the manager was waiting for the customers I had pissed off to leave. When they were gone, he finally came over to me and said I was hired again and to get my ass out there and not screw up this time. I don’t know if it was Chris who had convinced him or if he was just really desperate for help, even really bad help like me. I didn’t stick around to ask. I put on my apron again, and grabbed a pen and pad, and hightailed it back out there.

During that hour of incarceration in the kitchen, I had a lot of time to think about things. How I had failed twice already and if I were truly poor, truly without access to my money, I would most likely be dead within a week. I’m just not any good at being poor.

I behaved myself for the rest of the shift. Perhaps because of that hour of rest, I wasn’t as frantic as I had been, and neither were the customers. As my self-imposed penitence, I helped the others with their tables whenever I could, and I think they really appreciated it. I was beginning to feel a part of a team, one that worked their collective asses off for a measly $2.13 an hour, including tips. It was the tips that they strived for because, as one of them told me, making ends meet on minimum wage was practically impossible.

But it wasn’t all bad, there were a couple of surprises that I wasn’t expecting. Chris called me over to a table and when she stepped to the side, a sudden flash of light blinded my eyes for a second. Then I heard it, the laugh that could only have come from George Kirk.