Melted & Shattered (16 page)
And that’s just what I did when Chris dropped me off.
I already promised Aaron I’d stop into the restaurant around three in the afternoon when it would be slow at the restaurant. I thought I was ready to go back to work, and asked him if I could stop in to talk about it. Not that I needed the money, but pre-Shemar Moore, I'd thought it a good idea. Now, all I wanted was to curl back up on the couch in my snotty sleeved shirt. I couldn't do that to Aaron, though. He came over enough times and made me laugh, when all I wanted to do was wallow in a puddle of misery, that I felt I owed this to him.
I was sitting in my car behind the restaurant trying to muster up the energy to go inside. It wasn’t so much the cooks I was worried about. They were men. They
preferred
I not talk about my feelings. It was the servers, the piglets, who would be all over me. I didn’t want to deal with them and their looming questions. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone had started a list of questions to ask me, and they were all adding to it as new ones came to mind.
I felt my lungs seize. Fuck, I couldn’t do this. I closed my eye
s and tried to take deep breaths. God damnit. If that fucker, J, turned me into a chick that had panic attacks I was going to be pissed. No, I was already pissed, but I’d be another level of pissed. I’d be the Candy Crush Sour Salon level of pissed. I was fine, more or less, before I met him, and now I was sitting in my car warding off panic attacks. Fuckin’ A.
“You gonna come in
, or sit out here all day?” I jumped at the voice speaking. My window was rolled down, and Larry’s voice was like a jolt of electricity shaking me from my freak out.
“
What?" I held my hand over my racing heart. "Shit, Larry. You 'bout killed me. Fuckin' get in.” I hit the locks and he got in the passenger side. “I’m freaking the fuck out.”
He turned to me
, a confused look on his face. “Huh? Why?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to answer questions. I don’t want to get looked at with sad eyes.” I grabbed Larry’s arm, my voice filled with anxiety. “I don’t want to be the broken girl.”
“You ain’t broken woman. And who’s gonna look at you with sad eyes? Almost all of us have come through your place since you’ve been out of the hospital.” I knew he was referring to the cooks, to which he'd be correct. They all stopped over at least once to say hello.
“No. It’s the piglets,” I said with dread.
“Gimme your phone.”
“Huh?” I looked at Larry. My phone?
Eh, visions of stolen keys flashed through my mind.
“Just give it to me.”
I looked at him skeptically. "Fuck, Elle. I'll give it right back."
"Promise?"
"Damnit, Elle. Yes, I fucking promise." I handed it over to him. He scrolled through my contacts until he came to the one he was looking for.
“Come out back? Yeah. No. Not too bad, but you should come out. Yeah. Uh huh.
OK.” He hung up. What the hell was that?
I laid my head on the steeri
ng wheel. Was there a hole nearby I could crawl into?
I heard Larry hit the locks, and my car door opened.
“Roll up the windows.” I did. “Get your keys.” Did that too. “And your phone from Larry before he copies all your info or secretly connects it to his somehow.” I held my hand out, and Larry gave me my phone.
“Now get your ass in here,” Aaron ordered.
I got out of the car. “It’s the piglets.” I looked at him with terror in my eyes.
“I’ll handle the piglets.”
We walked through the back door and into the kitchen. Larry was the only cook on the clock. As we passed, I saw he had one steak on the grill.
“Hope that was supposed to be well done,” I told him.
“Shit. It was mid-rare. Go tell the table it’ll be few more minutes. Here’s some chips.” Larry filled a red apple shaped basket with chips, and handed them to Aaron. We continued walking to the dining room. I had Aaron's free arm, the one not holding the chips, in a vice grip. It was like he was my shield, and we were going into battle.
When we exited the safety of the kitchen, Deanna got right in Aaron’s face. “Where the fuck is Larry and my steak? There’s one table in the restaurant and he can’t get a mid-rare steak out? Aaron!”
“I’ll go talk to them and give them chips. It’ll be seven minutes tops on the steak. Elle,” he turned to me, “sit your ass at the bar. Deanna,” he turned to her, “Get her a shot of our best tequila and a pint of MGD. DO NOT ask Elle any questions until I return.” He paused and gauged Deanna’s reaction. When she turned to look at me, realizing that I was actually there, her eyes widened with surprise. “Do. You. Understand?” Aaron said slowly, enunciating each word. Deanna nodded. “Words. I need words. Say,
I will get Elle a shot of our best tequila and a beer, and I will not ask her a single question
.” If I wasn’t freaking out inside, I would have found it funny that Aaron had practically recited a line that could be in any one of my smutty romance novels. Jonathan Drazen anyone?
“I'
ll get her tequila and beer and not ask a single question,” Deanna said.
“If in the two minutes it takes me to talk to this table you ask Elle a question, you’ll find yourself with the schedule from hell. Do you like paying your rent?” Deanna nodded. “Then don’t ask any questions and you’ll keep getting the best shi
fts.” With that he spun on his heel and headed toward the table waiting on their steak.
Deanna looked at me like I was a rare and endangered bird, unsure of what to do with me. I walked
to the bar and sat my ass on a chair as Aaron had instructed. A shot appeared in front of me with lime and a salt shaker. I drank the shot and sucked the lime. A beer appeared next, and I kept my eyes glued to the bar, inspecting the wood grain like it was a Picasso.
“Do you—
” Deanna caught herself.
“Is everything—
” She tried again and failed.
“We’re glad you’re back,” she said on a sigh.
“Thanks,” I said to the top of the bar, unable to make eye contact and risk seeing sad eyes looking back at me.
Aaron returned from the unhappy table, and we discussed my return to work. I told him I would work Saturday nights to start with.
“That’s clubbin’ night.” He was surprised I chose Saturday of all nights
, since he was well aware how much I'd begged to get them off—pre-J.
“Exactly.” I figured working Saturday nights meant there would be no way Chris could talk me into going out, which meant there wouldn’t be a repeat of the Shemar Moore incident.
Aaron wasn’t exactly on board with my working Saturday nights. Although it was usually just as busy as Friday, hence a night to have the best cook (moi) there, Aaron knew it was also a way for me to avoid going out. Even if he didn’t partake of Saturday night clubbin’, he knew it was something Chris and I did every weekend. Or at least, we used to—in the
pre-Elle is a hot mess
era. He tried talking me into Friday nights to no avail. After the drama with Donte/Shemar Moore, I was unsure that I’d ever be able to watch Criminal Minds, or go to the club again. I had enough scars, that I couldn’t handle anymore—especially the internal ones.
I used my go-to phrase when dealing with Applebee’s bullshit, “Nonnegotiable, Aaron.”
“Don’t give me that nonnegotiable crap. You can use that on Kevin, but not on me. How long are you going to hide?”
“It’s not hiding. It’s self-preservation.”
“That’s stretching it, chica. You gotta live again. Are you really going to wait around for J, who you haven’t heard from in how long?”
I was shocked. “Did I tell you about that?”
“Crap. No.”
“Chris?” He shook his head. “You guys having secrets conversations about me? If you stage a mother fucking intervention, I’m gonna disown you and transfer to a different Applebee’s. You know, the one on Park Street would love a good cook. They’ve tried to lure me over there a few times already.” I would never go to the Park Street Applebee’s. Their kitchen manager was a jackass
, but it was a good threat.
“You try and leave, and I’ll make sure your transfer doesn’t go through.” Aaron was hostile. Damn!
“So do you want me for my cooking skills or my charming wit?” The conversation was veering off topic, but I was letting it happen, hoping to avoid circling back to me working Saturday nights. He didn’t make the kitchen schedule anyway, one of my other managers did. Aaron would merely relay the message, and if he didn’t, I would.
“Don’t try and deflect this working Saturdays bullshit.” Damn.
I rubbed my forehead. I thought I had it in the bag with the Park Street comment. Apparently not, so it was time to break out the big guns.
“Please, Aaron. Just for a month or so. Just give me this, and then I promise to snap out of it.” That was a lie, and pretty much as blatant
a lie as you could get. If could snap out of it, I’d have done it by now.
“You’re full of shit, Elle, but I’ll give you your Saturdays because I know you won’t back down.” That would be correct. “But don’t forget you’ve got friends. You haven’t been to
Dynasty with me in a while. The Queens always treat you right. No men groping on you. More bedazzled clothing than you’ll ever see anywhere else, and I’ll stay by your side the whole time. Friday night?” he asked with hope in his voice.
“M
aybe, but this Friday night I'll be at the Center. Maybe another Friday?” Lie. Fucking A. When did I become such a liar? Were my pants on fire?
“Ok, chica,” Aaron conceded. “Hugs?” I laughed. We totally didn’t hug! I put my fist out and he tapped his knuckles to mine.
“Will you talk to the piglets? Scare them like you did Deanna? Which, by the way, was totally hot. Didn’t know you were a Dom,” I joked.
“Eh. Dom. Sub. Variety is the spice of life.”
Oh hell no. That was a joke, and now I was going to have mental images of Aaron tying men to his bed.
I shook my head clear. “Whatever. You’ll scare the questions right out of the piglets? Cuz really, if I have them up in my face, one of two things will happen. I might yell at them, which you know I
rarely do, or I might cry, which I prefer to do in the privacy of my own home. If the guys see me cry, it'll be total chaos back there. Once, I told Larry I was upset about some shit my mom said to me. I think he could tell tears were forming, and he made a beeline for the freezer. They don’t handle emotions too well,” I said, pointing my thumb at the kitchen.
“Of course, chica. I’ll make sure it’s a question free Saturday n
ight. You wanna start this week? You’re not on the schedule, but I’m sure they’d be overjoyed to have you. Ryan’s about on everyone’s last nerve.”
“Yeah, that’s cool.” Was I ready to come back to the kitchen? It
felt like I'd been gone from the kitchen for much longer than two months, maybe more like two years. So much had happened in those two months, and I wasn't sure I still had Kitchen Elle in me. It was too late to turn back, if she wasn't there, I'd have to piece her back together.
I said my goodbyes to Aaron and went back to the kitchen to see Larry.
When I told him my plan, and asked if he was working Saturday night, it was as if the heavens opened up for him and angels sang.
“I can wait at the back door for you, so when you get here I can ward off any piglets that are hanging around in the back of the kitchen.
Anything you need, Elle. I'll take care of it.”
I wanted to roll my eyes.
God bless Larry, but I didn’t need a bodyguard, I needed a new life. I said sure nonetheless, if nothing more than to appease him. Despite his creeper, key stealing, unrequited loving ass, Larry was a good man. He just wasn't the man for me.
******
Later that week I visited Fernie in County. I gave him Genesis’ open letter, and again he didn’t comment. He seemed in the worst mood I’d seen since he got locked up.
“What’s going on, Fernie?”
“Nothing.”
“Somehow, since all this shi
t went down, I’ve become a liar," I told him. "Not big lies. Just little ones, but lots of them. How about if I try not to lie anymore, and you do the same?” I asked, a hint of mom-style lecture in my voice.
His eyes glazed over like he was in another universe.
I wasn’t sure if he was going to speak up or just space out, but I gave him a few minutes to gather himself. Just when I thought it was a lost cause, he spoke up.
“I got my date.”
“What date?” I asked him.
“
When they’re sending me back.” My heart sunk. Even though I knew it was coming, I hadn’t fully internalized the fact that purgatory was temporary. I mean, I knew it, in theory, but—fuck, it was real now.
“How long do you have?”
“Two and a half weeks,
más o menos
.” Fernie said.
Two and a half weeks, more or less.
That was it?!
I sat there
, speechless. I wanted to say something powerful, meaningful, or maybe something that would spontaneously make Fernie feel better. I wanted to wave my magic wand and make everything in Fernie’s life perfect. I wanted that genie from Pee Wee’s Playhouse to
mecca lecca hi, mecca hiney ho
a social security number for Fernie. As it was, I had nothing to say except, “That sucks.”