by Unknown
The other man chuckled and stuck his revolver back in its holster. “Listen, Sambo, you’re going to have to learn to start charming the ladies a little better. You can’t just throw a woman over your shoulder like a sack of taters and haul her off. You have to buy them flowers and candy and—” He paused and looked around as though wanting to make sure they weren’t overheard. “You might have to write a few lines of poetry. It don’t matter if it don’t rhyme.”
Annie’s head swiveled from side to side. “Excuse me, but do you two know each other?”
Sam looked at her. “This is Johnny Ballard, my cousin. Folks call him Buster. He’s a real prankster.”
“So all this was just a big joke at my expense,” she said. She glared at Sam. “You let me grovel and beg for your life like some idiot nutcase. How dare you!”
A car screeched to a halt, and Darla jumped out and came running. She looked panicked. “What’s wrong? Is somebody hurt?”
“Well, now, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Buster said. “Why don’t you and me go for a spin in my patrol car. I’ll even let you play with my siren.”
“Annie, what’s going on?” Darla asked.
Annie tried to explain everything that had happened since she’d last seen her friend. It was all she could do to get the words out, what with her stammering and sputtering. Her heart was still racing.
“Didn’t the bartender give you my message?” Darla asked. “Hank needed cigarettes. I told the bartender to tell you I was going to the convenience store not far from here, and that I’d be right back. Only, I didn’t know Hank was going to hang around and look at dirty magazines.”
“Would you please take me home?” Annie asked, realizing that she was trembling. “You’re welcome to go back to Ernie’s and stay as long as you like, but I’m exhausted.”
“Sure, honey. We can go.”
“I’ll walk back,” Hank said, having come up in the meantime. He kissed Darla on the cheek. “I’ll call you, babe.”
Buster put his hand on Annie’s shoulder. “I hope I didn’t scare you, young lady. Sam and I are always cutting up.”
“Actually, I think the whole scene was disgraceful,” she said. “I hope you have your little notebook handy because you need to file assault and battery charges.”
Buster looked startled as he reached into his pocket. “Is this for real?”
“I’ll let you decide,” Annie told him. She balled her hand into a tight fist, swung around with all her might, and slammed it into Sam Ballard’s face. Sam, caught off guard, reeled back, lost his footing and sank to the ground.
Darla gave a squeal of surprise. “Oh, no!” She looked at Annie. “Why did you do that?”
Annie hitched her chin high. “He had it coming.”
Buster hurried over to the fallen man. “Hey, Sambo, are you okay?”
Sam shook his head as if to clear it. “Holy hell, Buster, she knocked me off my feet.” He glared at Annie, who looked quite pleased with herself.
“She sure did,” Buster said. “That’s assault and battery if I ever saw it. You want to press charges? ‘Course, you know folks are gonna tease you something fierce about being beat up by a girl.”
“Buster—” Sam tried to interrupt.
“The good news is they’ll probably forget about that nasty business when your bride-to-be skipped town. Hey, buddy, I’m with you no matter what you decide.”
“Please get her out of my sight,” Sam told him.
“Don’t bother,” Annie said. “I’m out of here.” She spun around on her heels and stalked toward Darla’s car, with Darla right behind, asking for an explanation.
“He isn’t going to be as eager to hire you now,” Darla said.
Annie told her what had occurred as Darla drove them back to her mobile home. “Why didn’t you say something sooner,” Darla demanded. “I would gladly have waited my turn to slug him.”
#
Annie was still fuming the next morning as she replayed in her mind the good-old-boy routine she’d witnessed the night before between Sam and his cousin. And to think, she had tried to shield Sam’s body with her own to keep Buster from shooting him! They were probably still laughing over the whole thing. She had done nothing but make a gigantic fool of herself since she’d rolled into town in a smoking limo, wearing enough satin to make sheets for everyone in Pinckney.
She would never be able to hold her head up in front of the townspeople. They’d probably insist she wear the words “town idiot” embroidered on her blouse.
Annie heard the floor creak and turned as Darla staggered down the hall looking like something the cat would refuse to drag in. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I’m sick,” Darla said. “I think it’s the flu.”
“Oh no. Can I get you something?”
“You can go get my shotgun out of the closet in my bedroom and put me out of my misery.”
“Sit down, and I’ll pour you a cup of coffee,” Annie said, getting up from her chair. Darla made it to the sofa and collapsed. “Do you have any cold medicine on hand?” Annie asked.
“No. I never get sick.” She coughed and moaned. “I haven’t been sick since—” She paused. “I don’t remember when.”
Annie poured the coffee and carried it to her friend. “You take it black, right?”
Darla mumbled something to the affirmative. “What time is it?” she asked as she raised the cup to her lips.
“Ten o’clock.”
“I’m supposed to be at work by ten forty-five to set up for the lunch crowd. There’s no way I can make it feeling like this. You’ll have to go in for me, Annie.”
“Me!” Annie almost shrieked the word. “But I don’t know the first thing about waitress work.”
“You said yourself how you used to plan big parties for your father’s friends and clients,” Darla pointed out. “All you have to do is smile at everybody and try to get along with Flo and Patricia. If you make them mad, you’re screwed.”
“Shouldn’t I call Sam first and tell him you’re sick? Let him make the decision?”
“He’s probably home nursing his shiner, but there’s an older woman and a kid who graduated from high school some months ago who work the breakfast crowd,” she said. “You have to do this for me, Annie. I could lose my job, and somebody has to be there to serve those customers.”
Annie was truly torn. After losing her temper and punching Sam in the face, he might just wring her neck when he saw her again. “What am I supposed to wear?”
“I have a couple of clean uniforms in my closet.”
Annie checked her wristwatch. There wasn’t much time to argue, considering she had to take a shower and put on a little makeup. She took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll do it. He may toss me out of the place the minute he sees me, but I’ll give it my best shot.” She was already headed in the direction of the bathroom.
Annie showered and dressed in record time, then applied her makeup quickly and sparingly. The uniform was too short—no surprise—but there wasn’t much she could do about it at the moment. She started for the front door, promising to call and check on Darla later, then, it hit her. “Oh, no. How am I supposed to get to work?”
“My car keys are on the kitchen table.”
“But I don’t have my license and Sheriff Hester—”
“Forget about him. Just park the car in the back of the restaurant. You can tell him I drove you. He’s not likely to take you in and interrogate you.”
Shaking her head and wondering how her life had become so confused, Annie grabbed the keys and hurried out to Darla’s car. It was in sad shape. The seats had been taped and stitched so many times, it resembled a patchwork quilt. Annie thought of the custom pearl colored Jaguar with its powder blue interior presently sitting in the garage at home, and she realized she had always taken those things for granted.
Never again. She didn’t have to be rich, and she didn’t have to drive a fancy foreign car, but she wanted
the security of knowing she could make it on her own. Just like Darla, Lillian Calhoun, Kazue, and the others, who had proved to everyone, as well as to themselves, that they had what it took to survive in this world.
Annie was still deep in thought when she pulled into the driveway in back of the Dixieland Cafe. She was a few minutes early, but it would give her time to get everything set up just right. She pushed through the back door and found herself in the kitchen with Flo and Patricia, neither of whom looked particularly pleased to see her. Her former resolve started to slip.
“Who the hell are you?” Flo asked, pausing in her work to scrutinize her. “And why . . . ?”
“My name is Annie Hartford, and I desperately need your help.”
Patricia put a fist on her hip and cocked her head to the side. “Oh, yeah?”
“Darla’s sick, and there’s nobody to take over but me. But I don’t know the first thing about waiting tables. I was hoping the two of you could show me the ropes, so to speak.”
The two women exchanged looks. Flo cocked her head to the side. “Does Sam know about this?”
“No. He will probably toss me out of this kitchen the minute he sees me, but you know how it is when a friend needs help. I couldn’t say no.”
“He ain’t gonna toss you out of my kitchen,” Flo said. “If he so much as tries the last thing he’ll see is my fat behind going out the back door.”
“Then you’ll help me?” Annie asked, a pleading note in her voice.
Flo sighed heavily. Patricia pressed her lips together in a grim line. “I’ll help you as much as I can,” Flo said, “but I got my own job to do. You need to go out and talk to Gladys, the head breakfast waitress. She can show you what to do.”
Annie thanked them profusely, pushed through the swinging doors, and came face-to-face with a squatty, thick-waisted woman with gray hair and thick-framed glasses. Her pale yellow uniform was as crisp as a brand- new linen tablecloth, but her shoes made annoying squashing and sucking noises when she walked.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Annie Hartford. I’m covering for Darla today. She’s got the flu.”
“Most likely it’s a hangover.”
“No, I saw her myself. She’s really sick.”
Gladys sighed as though the world had just settled on her shoulders. “Okay, let me show you around. I reckon I can help you set up for lunch since my assistant waitress is dumber than cow dung. I might as well warn you, it gets awfully busy once the church crowd hits, but I’ll show you some shortcuts that’ll help. It’s all about being prepared.”
By the time the church crowd arrived, Annie had received a crash course in waitressing from Gladys and the girls in the kitchen. Although she felt breathless and jittery, she kept telling herself to smile, write her order legibly, and smile some more. She politely ignored the table of teenage boys who kept dropping their forks so she would have to stoop down in her short skirt to retrieve them.
She felt she was doing an okay job until Sam Ballard walked through the door. One sight of him and the shiner on his right eye and Annie lost control of the small tray she was carrying. Four iced-tea glasses crashed to the floor, causing everyone in the restaurant to jump and search for the source of the commotion. Annie immediately stooped to retrieve it.
“Don’t touch that!” Sam said, his voice ringing loud with command. “You’ll cut yourself.
Too late. Annie winced as a shard of glass jabbed her right index finger. She had been in such a rush to clean up that she’d been careless. Sam knelt beside her, his look thunderous. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.
A wave of apprehension coursed through her. Why had Darla just assumed she could saunter into the place ready for work without talking to Sam first? “Darla’s sick. She asked me to cover for her.”
His eyes darkened as he held her gaze. “Oh, she did, did she?” he asked, mockery invading his tone. “Well, she can look for another job after today.”
“But—”
He wasn’t listening. “Go in the kitchen and ask Flo to take care of your finger. I’ll clean this up. Then I want you out of here.”
“Who’s going to wait on these tables?”
Annoyance hovered in his eyes. “That’s not your problem now, is it?”
She tried to disguise her own annoyance in front of the customers. “You’re mean and hateful, Sam Ballard, you know that? Is it a sin for one of your employees to get sick?”
He stiffened, as though she’d just punched him in the eye again. His look seemed to drill right through her. “Darla’s not sick. This is all just a ruse for her to get her way. Besides, it’s none of your business how I treat my employees.”
She was unnerved by his hostility and wished now that she’d slugged him in both eyes. Deciding it would be best to hold her tongue and walk away from the situation Annie stood and hurried toward the kitchen.
Flo took one look at her and grabbed a first-aid kit. “That glass went pretty deep,” she said, once she’d cleaned the wound. “Wouldn’t hurt to have a stitch or two in it.”
“I don’t have time to go to the hospital,” Annie said. “Just do the best you can.” Her voice cracked.
Patricia came over. “What’s wrong with you? You gonna cry over a little cut like that?”
“That’s not it,” Annie said, then blurted the whole story. “Sam told me to get out, and he said he was going to fire Darla.”
“Fire her?” Flo said angrily. “Over my dead body.” She finished wrapping the finger and checked her work.
“Why do you care?” Patricia asked. “You don’t even like the woman.”
“I ain’t got nary a thing against Darla Jenkins ‘cept for that smart-aleck mouth of hers. But Sam ain’t got no right to fire an employee just because she’s sick. What’s going to happen if one of us gets sick? We gonna get canned too?”
Sam came into the kitchen with the tray of broken glass just as Flo and Patricia clocked out and started for the back door. “Where do you two think you’re going?” he said, dumping the glass into a trash can.
“We quit,” Patricia said.
“Wait just a damn minute!” he ordered, stopping both women in their tracks. “What’s this all about?”
They did a double take at the sight of his bruised eye. “We just heard you plan to fire Darla for being sick. And that you’re sending this poor child home after she came in and did her level best to take over when there was no one else.”
Sam shot an accusing look at Annie. “You just have to cause trouble for me, don’t you?” he said.
She crossed her arms and pointedly stared. “If you think I’m going to keep quiet when you threaten my friend’s job, you’re wrong,” she said matter-of-factly. “I was only trying to help out because there was no one to work in Darla’s place.”
“And she was doing a fine job of it till you came in and stirred things up,” Patricia said.
“Am I supposed to ignore what you did to my eye?” he asked Annie.
Flo’s own eyes widened. “You popped him in the eye?”
Annie nodded. “He played a very cruel joke on me.”
“Then he obviously had it coming. I ought to take my frying pan to you, Sam Ballard,” Flo said. “What’s gotten into you?”
Just then a tall bearded fellow pushed open the swinging door. “What do you have to do to get served in this place?” he demanded.
Sam pasted a smile on his face. “Sorry, sir, we had a little emergency. I’ll be right out.” He appealed to Flo and Patricia. “You can’t leave now. The dining room is filling up fast.”
“Then you’d better make a decision about Darla and Annie,” Flo said.
Sam scowled. “I am not going to base my decisions on what you and your daughter think should or should not happen. I still own the Dixieland Cafe, and I’ll run it as I see fit.”
“Okay, see ya,” Flo said. She started for the door once more, with Patricia on her heels.
�
��Hey, fellow, I don’t have all day,” the customer said. “Either somebody waits on me now or I’m leaving.”
“Okay, hold it!” Sam said. He turned to Annie. “Go wait on the man. Give him anything he wants on the house.” When Annie didn’t so much as budge, he raked his hands through his hair. “What now?”
“In the future, when you tell me to do something, I would appreciate it if you said please.”
“Please,” Sam said between gritted teeth, wishing Buster had gone ahead and shot him the night before.
Annie left the kitchen with a fresh bandage on her finger and a smile on her face.
Relieved to have that problem out of the way, Sam turned to his kitchen employees. “Okay, Darla keeps her job, but this is absolutely the last time we settle matters this way. If you don’t like one of my decisions, we talk it over, but the final decision is mine. I will not tolerate a mutiny. Understand?”
“You’re the boss,” Flo said, taking her time card and clocking in once more.
“That’s right,” Patricia agreed, doing the same. “We just work here, what do we know?”
Sam shook his head and started for the door, but Flo stopped him. “You really need to do something about that shiner, Sam. And please—” She paused and chuckled. “Puh-leese don’t let anybody find out that skinny gal gave it to you.”
“Might not be a bad thing,” Patricia said. “At least they’d forget about him being jilted.”
Sam closed his eyes and shook his head. It just never ended.
#
It took Annie a good fifteen minutes to get the dining room under control again, but once she explained injuring herself, the customers were more than understanding and left good tips to boot. The teenagers dropped their forks twice more, forcing her to do her stoop-but-don’t-let-them-see-up-my-skirt routine, before Sam sauntered over with clean ones.
“I see you boys are having difficulty holding on to your flatware,” he said. “My waitress is busy with other tables and doesn’t have time to keep fetching it like a golden retriever. Why don’t you just motion for me next time your fork slips from the table.”