Smart Mouth Waitress (5 page)

I smiled wider.

“What's the special today?” he asked.

Was he serious? The muscles around my eyes tensed, wanting to narrow to little straight lines of are-you-kidding-me while I pointed to the clearly visible specials chalkboard, but instead, I recited Donny's special for the day: eggs benny with fresh spinach and turkey bacon.

Crossword Guy always had hard-poached eggs on dry toast, and I resented him dicking with me by asking about the special when he and I both knew he was going to order the same thing he had every Monday, but I was in Flirt Mode, and as I understood it, that meant I had to be nice, and not a smart mouth.

“Spinach and turkey bacon sounds great,” he said. “I'll have that.”

You could have tipped me over like a sleeping cow of urban legend—that's how surprised I was.

“Terrific!” I said.

“Thank you!” he said, and he did something I'd never witnessed Crossword Guy do before. I'd assumed he was missing the crucial muscles to do so, but he actually smiled.

Just then, the sun came out from behind a cloud. The nearly-empty restaurant filled up with light and kindness. Crossword Guy had a nice smile. A handsome face. Sparkly brown eyes. Soft brown hair with not too much hair product. Tortoiseshell glasses that complemented his bone structure. And surrounding him was a light odor that wasn't horrible—not the Axe Body Spray the boys in my old high school masked their overactive sweat glands with, but something that smelled like an adult, and yet not quite Dad-territory.

He picked up his blue pen and returned to the crossword puzzle. That was it? We were having a moment; didn't he know?

In a daze, I meandered back to the pass-through window that opened to the kitchen.

“Sock it to me,” Donny said.

“I'm crushing on Crossword Guy.”

“Are you high? Give me the order. He's having the hard-poached eggs, right?”

“No, he's having the special.”

Donny dropped his mouth open in mock horror, then said, “He's ordered the same thing every Monday for a year, and today he's having the special? Courtney, come quick!” Courtney looked up from the radishes she was carving on the prep counter. “Our little Perry is all grown-up,” Donny said.

Courtney, who was messing around with the garnishes, held up a thumb-shaped radish. “Does this look phallic to you guys?”

Toph came over to examine the long radish and Donny threw the pink slab of turkey bacon on the grill.

Everybody was going about their regular business, but inside, I felt like I was standing still and twirling at the same time. I had a crush on someone, for the first time in years. Not since Scott Weaver had I allowed myself to have flippy-floppy feelings for a guy who wasn't completely unavailable due to being a member of a cute boy band, or a famous actor playing a TV vampire that was pure evil some seasons and the good guy other seasons.

More customers came in and I sat them in my section, feeling the sensation of Crossword Guy's gaze on me. As I took the next table's order, my consciousness left my body, and I saw myself from the perspective of an outside observer. My mouth got dry from nerves, like I was on stage performing. Crossword Guy could hear what I was saying. He was listening, I just knew it, and assessing me. Analyzing me. Trying to figure me out.

Dread washed over me as I remembered why I don't like having crushes on non-celebs. I don't like losing control and acting like a loser.

An hour later, Crossword Guy was still at his table, though the puzzle was surely finished. I thought about withholding coffee refills so he wouldn't stay as long, but instead I found myself smiling like an idiot and refilling his mug every time the level went down by more than an inch.

He looked up at me, the light speckles in his mottled glasses picking up the same highlights that were in his eyes. He said, “Sheesh, if you keep filling my coffee, I'll never leave and do my studying. Seems like you want to keep me here all day.”

“Maybe I do, cutie,” I said.

Yeah, I called him
cutie
. Right to his face.

The thing about my smart mouth is I have zero control over it. Some people's words pass through a filter before they talk—you can see it on their faces as they rehearse their sentences quickly before speaking. While they're figuring out what to say, I've already said three things, two of them socially inappropriate. Apparently, when I'm in flirt mode, it's no different.

To follow up, I giggled, which was quickly echoed by Courtney, who stood nearby, refilling water glasses.

When I looked up and caught her attention, she crossed her eyes and gave me a stupid look, making fun of me.

Eventually, I stopped refilling Crossword Guy's coffee and dropped off his bill. Finally, he left.

I slumped over in relief. I'd been holding my stomach in and maintaining perfect posture, with my shoulders back and everything, for well over an hour. My head felt light whenever I turned around, but that could have been partly due to the lack of heavy dreadlocks.

Courtney cleared Crossword Guy's table and handed me the tip. “Generous today,” she said, passing me some cash and a colored postcard.

“He left this?” I asked, but before Courtney answered, I'd flipped the card over and seen his note, in the same blue pen he'd used to solve his crossword puzzle.

This is my friend's art show. You should drop by. -Marc.

Crossword Guy asked me out!

Chapter 4

I examined the card in my hands, the casual maybe-date invite from Crossword Guy, a.k.a. Marc.

The art on the front was abstract, all swirls and swooshes that looked like something anyone can do, but probably takes years of training to get just right.

Courtney tugged me down so she could put her chin on my shoulder and read the postcard. “You should go. Tomorrow night? I'll go with you,” Courtney said. “Is there free wine? Do we have to buy anything?”

“Courtney, you have exactly as much information as I do. How would I know if there's free wine?”

“Sometimes the wine is by donation, so bring some five dollar bills.”

“I'm not going! I acted like a total loser serving him breakfast, and I'm on my home turf here.”

We stood together by the kitchen window and Courtney petted my hair down on both sides of my face. “There, there, puppy. Hey, your makeup is all different. You look pretty. Give me some of that lipstick.”

“Kiss, kiss!” Donny called out from the kitchen side. We girls tended to think of that zone behind the bar as private space, because it was away from the dining customers, but the sound funneled right into the kitchen.

I shook my head at Courtney. “You totally say those
double entendre
things for his benefit, don't you?”

Courtney winked and did her crooked smile. “He's married with kids, so we're all he's got. It's practically charity.”

Someone whistled for service, so we broke away from our window grouping and went back to work.

At the end of my shift, after the other serving staff came in to relieve us, Courtney and I sat in the back by the tiny window facing the alley and counted up our tips. The weather was nice, so we had the window cracked open for fresh air.

“Did you steal some of my money?” I asked Courtney. “Like for a joke? I have almost no tips. I made way less than usual.”

“Tough break,” she said. “Need a loan? No interest.”

“I don't understand. I was so nice to people, all day. Like, SO nice. I listened, and I didn't tell people what eggs they wanted, or make fun of their hats, and there were some seriously weird hats today. Did you see the guy who looked like a sailor? I totally let that go.”

“Let me think,” Courtney said, tugging at her thick row of false eyelashes and then smoothing them out. I'd worn falsies once before, and they're not comfortable, so I could only imagine how vain you had to be to wear them every day. But … if they made Courtney happy, who was I to interfere?

“You were too nice,” Courtney said. “You were
ingratiating
, which doesn't fly, and doesn't get you tips. You have to act like you hate them, so they buy your approval.”

“The world shouldn't work like that.”

She patted me on the knee. “Your youthful idealism is
totes adorbs
. The real world will crush that out of you soon enough. Now what are you going to wear to this art show date?”

“It's not a date and I'm not going.”

“You like Crossword Guy. What's his name again?”

“I forget,” I lied. His name was Marc, with a C at the end instead of a K, and I desperately wanted to google it and see if that meant he was French or what.

“You'll go. You like him,” she said.

“I don't like him. I never liked him.”

Courtney went back to counting her money, setting aside the portion for the kitchen staff.

I peeked again at the postcard and tried to push the idea out of my mind. I didn't really like him. I'd simply been thrown off by the sudden, unexpected friendliness. My head was light that day, and it was making me act like an airhead.

I didn't really like him.

Now, you're probably wondering what type of idiot I am for disliking an attractive, nice-smelling man who gave me my only generous tip of the day, plus invited me to an art opening. Contrary to how it may appear, I'm not one of those girls who can't tell when a good guy likes her. I don't hate myself like that.

The thing is, up until that particular Monday, Crossword Guy—Marc—had never been anything but rude to me. Because he didn't like me.

He even used the crossword puzzles to antagonize me, I swear. When I came by, he'd give me a clue, like, “Seven letter word for a ditzy girl. Starts with A.”

“Airhead,” I'd say, because who can resist solving an easy puzzle?

“I knew you would know that one,” he'd say smugly.

“Yeah? Well, if your face were the clue, it would be a completely different word starting with A.”

He'd tap his coffee cup. “Why, yes, I would like a top-up.”

Most of our interactions went pretty much like that. “Four-letter word for grouchy waitress,” or “Eight-letter word for lemon cat … I'm thinking sourpuss, what do you say about that?”

I didn't think he was teasing me in that oh-he's-doing-it-because-he-likes-you, schoolyard way, which—incidentally—is utter bullshit. No, he really didn't care for my particular flavor of personal expression, and antagonizing me seemed to give him enjoyment. Perhaps it was subconscious on his part that he only asked me to help him solve negative, insulting words. He didn't seem like a mean or cruel person, just thoughtless.

Hate is too strong, but I'd say I disliked him.

And then, on that Monday morning when he smiled at me, things changed, and something had gotten over the chain-link fence around my heart. He'd scaled the razor wire with some tiny gestures of kindness.

After that day's shift, I'd gone from disliking him to being open to the possibility of liking him. Despite saying I wouldn't go to the art show, I had a feeling I might. I could get some of Courtney's false eyelashes, all the better for batting at him.

Let's fast-forward to Tuesday. Not the art show—not yet—but the morning at work and what happened that kicked me in the teeth and changed everything.

The morning walk in was windy, and my newly-fluffy hair kept flying in my face, making me consider shaving it off. I'd raided my mother's closet again, choosing a pretty flower-patterned dress, paired with my black leggings and my least-mannish boots. I'd had the time to put on proper makeup, but with a twist. I'd followed the instructions from one of my favorite YouTube girls: base all over, pale gold on the eyelids, and smudgy brown eyeliner instead of my usual thick, black liquid eyeliner. I never used blush, so I didn't own any, but I used a dab of lipstick to put some red on my cheeks.

On the way to work that morning, I stopped approximately three hundred times to admire the pretty girl in various reflective surfaces—the pretty girl who had a kinda-sorta date that night.

When I got to The Whistle, Courtney was already there, rolling up utensils in napkins, and the first thing she said was, “Are you sure I can't get you to switch teams? You are foxy, sweetcheeks!”