by Gurley, Jan
Drew half rose from his seat, one hand out, “Kate — ,” he said.
But I turned and fled, doors exploding open in front of me. I made it to the walkway and heard his voice shout behind me, “Kate!” but I kept running, sprinting now with my bag banging against my hip. I heard feet pounding behind me and then Tio’s voice shout, “Drew. Let her go.”
Thankfully, he did.
***
I probably shouldn’t have been surprised the next morning when cars of guys kept pulling into Dino-Dog, but the first time, I was. A heavy, sweaty, flabby-cheeked guy with greasy pale-brown hair side-parted and his bangs flattened into a Clark Kent forehead curl, was the first. There were three other guys bumping him forward and watching. The brown-haired guy leaned his belly on the counter and said, “How much?”
Some radar went off inside me. Instead of answering, I crossed my arms and said, “Prices are posted on the wall.”
The guys behind him burst out laughing at that, which wasn’t funny. “What I mean is, how much for you to handle my wiener,” he asked, then added, “personally.”
A red flush steamed up my face, even as anger boiled inside me. I lifted my three-foot serrated tongs and clacked them at him. He flinched and took a step back. I smiled an evil I sooo dare you to cross me smile and said, “Order, or get out.”
It happened three more times that day. Let me just say, there are only so many wiener, hot and foot-long jokes guys can make before it gets extremely predictable.
The second time, the guys didn’t realize Mr. Gremio was kneeling below the counter, checking an extension cord that needed replacement. I’d even forgotten he was there, so I was almost as shocked as the guy (this one lank and pimply) when Gremio sproinged up, grabbed the Dino fly swat we kept in a clamp underneath the edge of counter, and, without hesitating, swap-swap-swapped the guy around the head and neck.
“Hey!” the guy shouted. “Are you crazy!” Gremio didn’t stop. The swapping only ceased when the guy stepped so far back Gremio couldn’t reach him, even by leaning across the counter.
Gremio shifted the knot of his clip-on tie and said, “Sorry,” like he wasn’t sorry at all, “thought I saw a wasp. Wasps, major hazard of the meat industry, you know.”
The guy rubbed his head and said, “You’re insane. You could get sued for that.”
Gremio gave him a condescending smile. “And how was I to know you don’t have a life-threatening wasp-allergy? Huh?”
The guy and his friends left in a stumbling, grumbling, backward-looking angry mood. Without buying anything.
Gremio turned to look at me.
Even though I hadn’t asked for any of this, I felt a heat wave of embarrassment so intense, my hands got even damper than the Dino-Dog usual.
Gremio said, “Are you now trading sex for drugs?”
“NO!” I shouted and something snapped inside me. “Stop with the crazy drug talk. I mean it. I didn't do anything. And don’t you dare ask me to pee in a cup. I’ve had about as much humiliation as a person can take.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. God knows, I’d never spoken to any boss, ever before, like that, much less Gremio, the king of formality. Even though Mr. Gremio ran a pretty strict outfit, Dino-Dog was a joke to the rest of the business community. It would be impossible to find another job if I was fired from the Dino-Dog.
The breeze died and steam rose from the boiler to surround us. I felt my upper lip tremble so I pressed the back of my hand against it.
Gremio gave a cough and said, “Keep the swatter close. Old trick of the trade.” He bustled, repositioning the fly-swatter back in its holder under the counter, taking longer than seemed necessary, to give me more time, I think. He stood, and smoothed the embroidered words of his shirt flat. “If that doesn’t do it, missy, you just let them know Mr. Gremio’s on duty.”
He turned to go hide in the back again, this time muttering as he passed “Deterrent, that’s the key. Probably I ought to get a sign. Big enough to see from the street. Manager On Duty: Gremio.”
By the end of the day, if a carload of guys arrived, I served with my tongs in one hand and a crusty fly swatter in the other. And here I thought, before that Saturday, that nothing could make an end-of-shift Dino-Dog server look less appealing.
Live and learn.
***
I must have looked shakier than I realized, because my mom knew something was up, even if she couldn’t put her finger on what, exactly. In the half an hour that I had before our doorbell started ringing, she drifted into my room twice and put an absent-minded kiss on my head. When I leaned forward in the bathroom to put on make-up, I heard a tink and looked down to see a plate on the counter, a warm brownie in the middle of it and an icy-cold half-glass of milk beside it. Her voice called to me from where she was already heading back to the kitchen, “I thought you should enjoy one, before everyone gets here, while they’re still warm. Sometimes it’s hard to sit and eat when you’re hosting the party.”
My nerves were a rush-hour pile up. A thought would come zooming out of the fog of my emotions and collide into a fiery ball with the others. It was like I couldn’t steer or brake or anything. What if my mom found out that high school guys were coming to Dino-Dog to ask me to handle their wieners? Or that Mr. Gremio wanted me drug-tested? It’d be negative, but does the fact that you’re getting drug-tested go on your record somewhere? What would Drew say about the locker-room pictures? Would he rip into me again in front of the others? What if Tio was still mad about the felony threat of the camera hanging over him? What if someone let slip our secret about buying the trees to Drew? What if the Dog got disgusted with my boring party and headed out to find his friends?
The carnage slowed for a second and a thought drifted in, that, hey, a lot of my nerves were because of Drew, and then the doorbell rang.
I stood, took a deep breath, and thought, well, here goes nothing.
My mom was holding the screen door open. On the top concrete step stood Bianca, smiling and looking breathtaking, and on the step behind her (but still taller despite the step’s difference in elevation) stood Drew, scowling and staring off at the side of our apartment building, as if he wanted to be anywhere but here.
Bianca handed my mom a cellophane-covered paper plate and walked in. “My mom says hello, Mrs. Baptista.”
I was shocked to see Bianca throw a casual arm around my mother’s neck and give her a quick hug. And then more shocked that my mom wasn’t the least surprised. In fact, Mom was more interested in the plate, tilting it to see what was inside.
“Baklava!” said my mom, “how thoughtful of Eileen.”
“Homemade. She said it’s your favorite.”
My mom opened cabinets and I was appalled to see her hiding the plate of Baklava in the far corner of the (not-so) secret goodie cabinet and closing the cabinet door with a satisfied click.
“I’ll have to space those out, because I know hell will freeze over before Eileen hands over that recipe of hers.”
“No joke,” said Bianca.
Drew had come in only far enough to lean a massive shoulder against the doorjamb. The scowl on his face as he looked at Bianca talking seemed as intense as mine felt. Then conversation halted, like Bianca and my mother suddenly realized the two of us were glaring at them.
“What?” said Bianca and my mom.
Drew and I both said, our words stumbling over each other in shock. “You know each other?”
Bianca gave a sideways glance at my mom, who unnecessarily wiped the kitchen table with the end of her long sleeve pulled down over her hand.
“Mom!” I said.
She looked up. Then stopped. “Yes. I know Eileen Bullard.”
Bianca added, “They play mah-jongg. Saturdays. Surely you knew that.”
Okay, I knew my mom played at the community center while I worked at Dino-Dog, and that, sometimes, one of the other women would host an evening tournament. It was the only thing my mom did for fun. But my mom talked abo
ut the other women like all of them were cut-throats, eager to rip to shreds the unwary player, not to be trusted under any circumstances, conniving shrews you should never turn your back on. And then the light dawned. “NO! You are not talking about Eileen The Bull-Headed! Not her! I thought you two were enemies!”
Shocked silence. My mother flushed deep red and gave me a wait until I get you alone later look. Bianca’s eyes were dancing with mischief. Drew smiled and straightened from the doorway.
My mother said, “Now Kate, we’re friends. With mah-jongg, things just get a little intense. That’s all.”
“How long?” I said, because worlds of horror were crashing over me. Had my mother discussed those pictures with Mrs. Bullard after that day in the Dean’s office? “How long have you two been ‘friends’?”
Bianca said, “Forever. Well, I can remember at least since your dad and mom used to come over for dinner parties.”
I blinked. My mom and dad used to go to dinners at the Bullard’s? Were we talking about The Bullard Home? Which was, by all school-based, hushed reports a 7,000 square foot sprawling mansion with a media room and wings for each member of the family to live in? That home?
My mom went back to picking at an invisible speck on the table. “Well,” she said, “life sure changed when Sam got sick. We moved, and you know what it’s like. You lose touch.”
All that my mom didn’t say hung in the air. The fact that my dad didn’t have insurance coverage for “experimental” treatment, that he’d been unable to continue his job, that we’d sold the house to cover hospital debts, and after his death, when I was in sixth grade, mom and I ended up in a rundown two-bedroom apartment on the flat-lander side of town, walking distance to school and light years away from expensive mountain-top-view mega-mansions.
“So,” Drew said, “Have you got any food? I’m starved.” He strode into the house, dragged out a chair and dropped in it. Mom and I both froze, looks of fear on our faces, not sure if the kitchen-table chair would hold. The chair under Drew creaked and heaved, bouncing and tilting the way those giant exercise balls do when you sit on them. He looked underneath the seat, as if he was certain a spring might be hiding under there, and said, “Neat.”
In the breath-held silence, my mom held out her hand like a policeman stopping traffic and said, “Andrew. Step away from the chair. Easy now. No sudden moves. Right. Whew. Now how about if you three head into the living room and hang out there while I get the brownies out? Okay?”
“Can I help?” I asked, but my mom gave me a look, the skin around her eyes and mouth too tight, the way she looks when I catch her remembering my dad, and hurting. I knew she needed a minute, so I wheeled around and said, my voice too bright, “Living room, everybody!” and headed out the door, pointing arm held high.
Once we were in the living room though, the air got sticky and heavy and I didn’t know where to sit or what to say. Being reminded of the Bullard home made me suddenly aware of the rabbit-ear antennas held together with a rubber band on top of our square-boxed, curved-glass-screen TV.
Drew and Bianca also stood, and I caught Drew frowning sideways at Bianca, who abruptly threw herself across our couch, arms out. “Here,” she said patting the cushion and looking up at me, “sit by me.”
I sat on the edge, my hands flat on my knees. “Listen,” I said, “I’m sorry I called your mom bull-headed.”
Drew snorted. “’Bout time someone else took a turn.”
Bianca said, “He means the nickname thing.”
I said, “You don’t like being called the Dog, do you?”
He crossed his arms where he stood, and looked at me, like he was trying to decide if I was goading him or not.
Bianca said, a flash of wickedness in her eyes, “Bet you can’t guess how he got it.” Bianca would be a difficult little sister to have.
“That’s just obvious,” I said.
They both stared at me. The doorbell rang and I stood, saying, as I went out the door, “Classic elementary school taunting. Petruchio-Bullard equals Pit-Bull, which eventually morphs into the Dog.”
I heard Bianca say, behind me, “You hear that? You’d have a hard time pulling one over on her.”
My mom wasn’t in the kitchen, which meant she was probably going to be having a bad week now. Tio, Helena, Viola, and Phoebe had all carpooled and stood on the steps together. Tio said from the back, “They’re here, aren’t they?” and I nodded, knowing exactly who he meant. As Helena, Phoebe and Viola trooped through the doorway, I realized the three of them were more dressed up than they usually were to come hang out at my house. Helena had large hoop earrings, Phoebe wore thick make-up and Viola, for some reason, wore a tiara. When Tio, at the back, moved into the kitchen, well, he wore a suit, complete with jacket, tie and new dress shoes, making his feet look gigantic and shiny. I had to turn away so he wouldn’t see my face. My heart ached for him. Once in the kitchen, Tio edged away from the others, and I realized he didn’t want to appear, to Bianca, like he’d arrived with three girls.
Phoebe said, “Sorry, Kate, we really wanted to get here to help you set up.”
Helena interrupted, “And get ready.”
Viola finished, “But you know how work is.”
Yeah, unfortunately, I did. We each had our own version of Gremio to deal with. I never thought they could have managed getting the afternoon off, so I was touched they’d thought of it. The bottom line was that I was just grateful they’d all adjusted shifts and arranged rides to be here on time. Tio edged into the living room as Helena leaned into our circle of heads and said, “Boy, Tio’s got it bad.”
Phoebe, watching him go, said, “If she hurts our little guy, I’ll rip her head off.”
I said, “Um. Guys, have you noticed he’s not as short as he was, even a couple of months ago?”
They all blinked at me.
“Wow,” said Viola, and produced a tiara-matching wand, “his puberty fairy came to visit.”
Thankfully (since the words Tio and Puberty fell into the category of too much information), someone rapped at the screen door. We could see the outlines of Alex and Robin on the steps.
Alex walked in first, wearing a Team Aniston tee-shirt, a swingy skirt, and heavy guy-boots with fold-down thick construction-worker socks. Robin wore a Team Jolie tee shirt, guy-droopy cargo pants…and heels.
No one said a word. Not us, not them. Helena gave me a look and I knew the four of us girls were all thinking the same thing. This was a new frontier for Alex and Robin. For the first time since we’d known them, Alex and Robin were dressing as (sort of) different genders.
Alex and Robin exchanged nervous glances and stood in the doorway, not coming in, like they were afraid of what we might say, whether or not we’d understand, or respect…whatever this meant.
Betty Boop’s eyes were tsk tsking from where she hung on the wall, and she was disapproving me, my fear of doing something wrong on this momentous occasion, and my reluctance to be the first to say anything. So I said, my voice a little too loud, “Don’t you guys look great?” I swallowed hard, hearing my own words hanging in the air. “I mean, not necessarily you guys…you pals…you…you friends of ours…oh, what the hell, you LOOK GREAT!”
There was a collective sigh of relief, as though we’d all, as a group, somehow negotiated a scary minefield, full of hidden traps which could have blown at any second.
At that, Alex and Robin moved into the kitchen, mingling and talking and admiring Viola’s wand, some of that fragile, vulnerable look disappearing from their faces.
We bumped our way through the narrow doorway from the kitchen to the living room, and Tio’s eyes grew wide at the sight of Alex and Robin. Bianca didn’t seem to notice anything, merely half-rose from the sofa and introduced herself. The Dog, however, instead of looking surprised about Alex’s and Robin’s outfits, looked incredibly relieved, a kind of Oh Thank GOD look, which bothered me. A lot. For some reason, this cold greasy feeling now sat in the pit of my
stomach, and I had an irrational urge to tell Alex and Robin to flee, now, before something bad happened.
Chatter broke out, then the doorbell rang and I went to answer, with Helena trailing behind me, saying, “Where’s the food? Tio and Drew demolished the brownies and everyone’s starving.” Her voice died off. My mom had beaten me to the kitchen and was opening the screen door, smiling at the newcomers. Who were (urg) Curtis and Nate. Some (naïve) part of me had hoped that when I said I’d host, they’d realize that they weren’t actually invited.
Nate wore a Hugo Boss button-up collared shirt, and actually carried a leather man-purse. I got the idea he thought he looked like David Beckham, instead of a kid with too much money.
Curtis wore a UCLA sweatshirt, as though he thought we’d assume he was taking classes at UCLA (although we all knew it was physically, and probably mentally, impossible for him to be doing so).
My mom turned and gave me a look — the why weren’t they on the list of guests? look. That pause was all Curtis and Nate needed. They weaseled their way past us into the living room before either me or my mom could open our mouths.
I said to my mom, “If you have any suggestions on how I can get rid of them, just let me know.”
There was a long silence while my mom looked uncomfortable. Helena said, “Those are the tutor guys?”
My mother said, “Oh, well then, that’s okay, if they’re tutors,” and disappeared.
Coward.
The party had been going less than half an hour, and already I wanted to pull my hair out by the roots. People were starving and there was no sign of Gonzo, who’d promised to bring all the food. This wasn’t like him. Helena said in an aside to me as the conversation noise kept cranking up around us, “I think maybe we should call and check if Gonzo’s okay. He could be sick, or in an accident, or something.”
She and I headed into the kitchen, right as the doorbell rang again.