Bad Habits

by Amy Gentry

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “She likes the prickly ones,” he said solemnly. “Listen, I’m very happy for you! She’s going to get us all jobs, you know. Upon graduation, every last one of us will receive a Research I job, forty acres, and a mule.” He winked.

  “Birdsy, be nice!” Matt shouted, giving him a thump on the upper arm.

  “What I mean is, go get ’em, champ,” Bird said with a penitent air. “Go, fight, win! Just don’t forget the winning part.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and wandered off.

  Matt shrugged. “Don’t mind Birdsy, he’s cracked.”

  Blue-haired Morgan appeared, filling the gap in the circle where the Bird had been. “I’m going across the street for more ice. Anything else I can grab while I’m out?”

  “I better go with you,” Matt said. “You know what they told us about the neighborhood.”

  “What did they tell us?” Tess, who had been silent up until now, asked. “I grew up here, so I’d be interested to know.”

  Matt looked at her, his mouth open to speak, and then shut it.

  Morgan’s hand went to her neck, half covering the pinkish-red stain that had appeared between her clavicles. “I think Matt was just saying, you know, no one should be walking around alone at night.”

  But Matt, who had clearly been sampling the shots, refused to be helped. “The tour guide told us DHU students have gotten beat up by locals for, like, gang initiation rites.”

  “ ‘Gang initiation rites’? Please.” Tess’s voice was pleasant, her intonation almost musical, as if it was all a joke to her. But her smile looked painted on, and she held her body unnaturally still.

  Morgan’s neck had gone a solid brick-red. “I’m sure Matt didn’t mean—”

  “Yes, I did.” Matt crossed his arms defensively. “That’s not racist; it’s factual. Come on!” He turned to Morgan, who shrank away. Next he appealed to Arjun, his gym buddy. “If anything, it’s statistical racism. Like when insurance companies have different rates based on your likelihood of getting shot.”

  Arjun looked at him skeptically. “Dude, it’s still racist though.”

  “No more so than affirmative action. Right?” He turned to Tess, who drew back with an audible hiss. “I mean without affirmative action, you wouldn’t—”

  “I have an idea,” I said loudly. “Matt, shut up and go get some ice. And take your time.”

  “Gladly.” Matt bowed chivalrously to Morgan, then to Tess.

  “Don’t get mugged,” Tess called cheerfully after him. Then she turned to me. “I hope he gets mugged.”

  “It would be richly deserved. Statistically speaking,” I noted.

  Arjun, who’d been standing nearby, said, “I’m going to find Bird and smoke some dro.” As he walked away, he clapped Tess on the back in an ambiguous gesture of solidarity. Morgan followed him, her eyes on the floor.

  “Sorry about that,” I said to Tess.

  “Oh, please. I can have that fight in my sleep.” She smiled sarcastically. “But thanks for cutting it short. It’s way too early in the semester to lose my cool over fucking affirmative action.”

  Face-to-face with Tess, I felt suddenly at a loss. I had been impressed by the way she blew off the scavenger hunt at the orientation retreat—​not to mention the fact that her contribution to the group meal had been the tastiest by far. It wasn’t until you saw Tess that you realized what a person who wasn’t desperate to please looked like and noticed that it definitely wasn’t you.

  “Well, what do we do now?” she said, bored.

  I pointed to the little trays of tequila. “I think we’re supposed to be taking shots.”

  “Not me. I’m too old for shots. To the kitchen.”

  We pushed our way down the hallway, past Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and entered the narrow galley kitchen just as the last beer vanished from the fridge.

  “Looks like gin and tonic’s our only option,” Tess said, staring into the sink full of open bottles, mostly empty, and a deflated plastic bag. “No ice.”

  “Pour.”

  Tess filled a couple of red Solo cups while I fetched limes from the nearest tequila platter. Then we stepped into the doorway of one of the bedrooms to get out of the press, each leaning on one side of the doorframe.

  “So, you’re really from around here?”

  “I’ve lived here my whole life, except for five or six years working in TV.” I raised my eyebrows, and she smiled. “Mostly producing. I wanted to be a showrunner. Anyway, I’m glad to be back home, and I’m not in a hurry to leave again.”

  “You’ll have to for an academic job, though, right?” It was a given in our profession that even the best of the best had to go where the jobs were.

  “Maybe DHU will be ready to expand their Af Am Department by then.”

  “That’s ambitious.”

  “Speaking of ambition, is it true?” She made air quotes. “Are you ‘Bethany’s new student’?”

  I already trusted Tess more than Bird. “I’m doing an independent study with her once a week. But that’s pretty much all there is to it.”

  She whistled and raised her eyebrows. “That’s enough. Half of these assholes would promise their firstborns for an independent study with Bethany Ladd.”

  “What about you?”

  She was silent for a moment, then shook her head. “Mm-mm. That is not for me.”

  “Like the shots?”

  “You laugh,” she said, then stopped herself. Then she leaned forward. “Does she text you?”

  This was certainly not what I had been expecting to hear. “Who? Bethany?” I laughed at the thought.

  “Yeah.”

  I saw that she was serious. “No.”

  “She texts me. She must have gotten my number from the office. I didn’t sign up for her seminar because there was a conflict with the only Af Am class—​which Margaret Moss-Jones is teaching, by the way, since Rhonda Oakes left. Now that there’s not a single black professor in the department, I guess they figure anyone in ethnic jewelry will do.” She made a face. “Anyway, next thing I know Bethany Ladd is texting me, like, Why aren’t you taking my class, I need you in my class. Blah, blah, blah. Then she offered me an independent study.”

  I felt my throat contract a little. “You didn’t take it.”

  She was silent again for a moment, and then repeated: “That is not for me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mac, when you’re the only one in the room who looks like you and someone comes after you like, ‘You’re smart, you’re strong, you’re the best one here’ . . .” I found myself flushing at how dismissively she threw out the words that had seduced me so completely. “I’ve seen it in studio meetings. It’s your cue to start wondering: What is it they want from you really? ”

  “It sounds like she just wanted to work with you.” The conversation had rattled me. Why, a small, petty voice inside me asked, hadn’t Bethany texted me?

  Tess squinted at me briefly, then shook her head. “Maybe you’re right,” she said in a desultory kind of way, like she was checking a conversational box. “I just like to keep it professional, you know? We’re not teenage besties. This is my career, not a prom date. Don’t try to make me feel special. Special is not always good.”

  Connor bounded up and leaned on my arm. “Have you seen Gwen? I saw her way down the hall, and now she’s nowhere.”

  “I’ll help you look.” I turned back to Tess. During our conversation, a fresh batch of students had arrived, and the party had gotten louder. “Hey, look, I’m sorry if I—​ I mean, you should trust your instincts.”

  “Yeah, I should,” she said coolly. “And you should do the same. Unless you want to end up like Fried Chicken over there.” She gestured to Bird, who was stumbling in from the balcony, bringing a gust of pot smoke and a group of revelers with him.

  “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  I started to walk away, but Connor nudged me a
nd pointed back to Tess. I turned and saw her mouthing something I couldn’t hear over a swell of laughter in the newly crowded kitchen. I pointed to my ear, and Tess shoved her way through the weedy-smelling bodies and grabbed my sleeve, leaning close and speaking loud enough to make my eardrums throb: “Bird was a Joyner Fellow.”

  She released my sleeve and disappeared into the crowd.

  6

  Sunday morning, I awoke with a splitting headache three hours after my alarm. No time to read. I had only an hour to get to my first double shift at Nona.

  The double was a desperate measure. I had only two weeks to make back the month’s rent, and who knew when my mom would call again to say she’d run out of grocery money? Dinner shifts were typically doled out by seniority, but with wheedling I had cracked a Sunday night on top of my normal Sunday brunch. Derek had smirked and told me anyone who survived a Sunday double could consider themselves that much closer to a Saturday night. At last I was showing some hustle.

  As I forced myself to eat a handful of dry granola to settle my stomach, I ran over the events of the night before. The long, unsuccessful search for Gwen had kept me at the party later than I’d intended to stay and left me far drunker. Connor and I had made our way through the apartment, swigging sickly-sweet buttery nipples straight from the thermos, until the search devolved into a farce. We found increasingly silly hiding places to check, throwing cabinets open, peering under beds, and collapsing into giggles on the floor. I remembered with a lurch of my stomach that I had even taken a puff of Bird’s pot on the back balcony. I had a vague memory of Connor holding the empty thermos upside down over the railing, shaking out the last drops, and then opening his hand. A moment later I heard the thermos crack on the sidewalk below, followed by the grating, limping sound of it rolling to a rest in the grass. I wasn’t sure when I had finally collapsed into bed, but it wasn’t before 4 a.m.

  The coffee helped with the headache, and I packed my work apron with single-dose packets of Advil for later. By the time I got to work, I’d rallied, and the adrenaline kick of an early slam finished waking me up. For a time, I fanned strawberries atop dimensional French toast stacks, drizzled hot syrup from a flagon we kept on Sterno, and poured endless pitchers of bitter melon mimosas like I was made for it.

  Then, just a few hours into my shift, I cratered. It happened so quickly, I almost dropped the thermal coffeepot at a customer’s table—​mid-refill, it had begun to weigh several tons more than it should. I finished the pour and stepped back for a second as a wave of dizziness crashed over me. Then I found my way to the wait station, grabbed an ice cube from the chest with my bare hands, and rubbed it on my forehead and temples.

  Derek poked his head around the corner. “I just sat you a four-top.”

  “Right now? Is there any way you could give it to someone else, please?”

  He just looked at me. “Aren’t you doing a double today? We’re not even halfway to first cut yet, girl.”

  “I just need a minute.”

  He paused. “I’ll get their waters.” Sloshing ice into four glasses where they stood prepped on trays, he palmed three waters in his left hand and picked up the fourth with his right. Just before heading out of the wait station, he looked back at me one more time. “And a drink order.”

  “Thanks.” I ran to the bathroom, puked up half a thermos’s worth of buttery nipples and everything I’d eaten that morning, and felt instantly better. Dampening a rough paper towel, I sponged the sweat off my face and inhaled the clean, dry scent of the expensive lavender soap they kept in the bathrooms. It always smelled like money to me.

  * * *

  The slam eased off, but the customers kept coming in a steady trickle, and no one got cut. It was 4:30 when Derek finally let us all go at once and said he’d cover the floor himself until the evening waitstaff—​i.e., me—​arrived. I sank gratefully into a chair at the bar to roll silver and eat. I couldn’t resist ordering a burger, though it was too expensive even with the employee discount. I was starving.

  After what seemed like only a few minutes, Derek came over, wearing a curious expression. “A table has requested you,” he said, arching an eyebrow. “Two-top.”

  “I’m not on until five.”

  “I have terrible news for you.” He swiveled his hairy wrist around and pulled back the cuff to reveal his watch. “It’s five fifteen.”

  It wasn’t possible. I looked at the silverware tub in front of me, only half-full. I hadn’t finished rolling. I hadn’t finished my burger. I hadn’t even finished my checkout for the day shift. What had I been doing for forty-five minutes?

  “Can’t you just start them for me?”

  “And disappoint your guests?” He pointed around the corner. “Go get ’em.”

  Tying on my apron again, I felt the Advil packets jabbing my leg, ripped one open, and popped a few. Derek had said it was a two-top. Gwen and Connor were the only people who knew I’d be working tonight. I tried to think of something suitably grumpy to say as I walked over. Of course, Gwen, after disappearing last night, would come up with the brilliant idea of coming to visit me at work. What did she care about dropping a few hundred dollars on a meal just to say hello? It was nothing to her. And of course Connor, having spent the day sleeping off a buttery nipple hangover, would want to come along. He’d be simply famished. They both would.

  I turned the corner and almost stopped dead in my tracks. Bethany and Rocky sat in the middle of my section, Bethany’s auburn hair stark against the sea of white starched tablecloths, Rocky’s collared shirt stretched taut between hunched shoulders. Bethany put up her hand like a second grader and actually waved, as if I could possibly miss them in the nearly empty restaurant.

  “Mac! What a surprise,” Bethany said as I came closer. She did not, of course, look surprised at all. Just as she’d known where to find me in the library, she’d somehow known I’d be working here today. Rocky barely looked up, acknowledging my presence with a half-wave. He looked miserable.

  “Do you guys come here often?” I asked politely.

  “Not as often as you’d think, considering we live in the building,” Bethany said.

  I almost gasped, but stopped myself in time and said instead, “It must be a great place to live.”

  “We like it,” she replied cordially. “Anyway, when you mentioned working here the other day—​Pyotr, Mac has an off-campus job, but we won’t tell anyone, will we?—​it reminded me this place exists. So, we wandered down for an early dinner tonight. I was sure you said you worked lunches. You see I remember specifically, because of the Friday class. What a delightful surprise it was to spot you at the bar.”

  “I don’t usually work nights,” I was forced to explain. “This is my first.”

  “Well, we’re easy customers, aren’t we?” She appealed to Rocky without for one moment diverting her saucer eyes from mine. “What’s good?”

  “I don’t usually eat here,” I said, breaking a cardinal rule of waiting tables: never confess ignorance of the menu. “The only thing I’ve tried is the burger, because it’s the cheapest.” Why mince words, I thought. Bethany likes the prickly ones. I was feeling prickly. “But the steak au poivre and the gigot d’agneau are the two most expensive entrées, so I would assume they are both very nice.”

  “Perfect,” Bethany said without batting an eyelash. “He’ll have the steak and I’ll have the lamb. House salads first. And with the meal, whatever wine pairings the chef recommends.” She folded the menu and handed it to me. “There. I said we were easy.”

  Rocky looked up at last, handed me the menu, and said, “I’ll take a scotch and soda before the meal. As soon as humanly possible.”

  I knew how soon he meant and made it myself, since the bartender wasn’t on yet. When I set it down, he parted his lips in a bilious smile. “Hair of the dog,” he said, and took a sip.

  “Do you know, dear, that Mac is my new student?” Bethany said brightly. “She’s meeting me once a week for
independent study. Just like you and Gwen.”

  Just like you and Gwen.

  So, Gwen had been hiding something, too—​one-on-one meetings with Rocky. I felt a pang of betrayal, accompanied by something akin to relief. Now I didn’t have to feel so guilty about my own secret. Nor did I have to envy Gwen hers. My time in the Program may not have taught me much else, but I knew the faculty pecking order. Rocky wasn’t a full professor, only an associate. He was respected in his field but hardly a name.

  His face turned a peculiar shade of bluish white. He chuckled, then shook his head, then chuckled again. Was it learning about Bethany and me that bothered him, or the fact that I’d learned about Gwen and him?

  “Bethany, you do know how to pick them,” he said. “I gave Mac a ride up to the farmhouse for the retreat. She’s a hard worker and a true believer.” He took a long swig of his scotch and soda. “To tell the truth, I’m wishing I’d gotten there first.”

  “Gwen’s wonderful,” Bethany purred, as if they were complimenting one another’s children. She turned to me. “And I forgot the two of you were such close friends!”

  “We’re roommates.”

  “So are Rocky and I,” Bethany said pleasantly. “Listen, we have to have you both over for dinner. Sort of a double date.”

  “Beth.” Rocky put down his drink.

  “I insist. Rocky, they wrote statements of support for each other’s applications! They’ve known each other since childhood.” She turned back to me. “You’ll tell Gwen all about it? And, Mac, we owe you dinner anyway, for crashing in on your work like this. Interrupting your burger.”

  Rocky, having drained his drink, looked rosy once again. “Okay, Mac, what do you say? If it’s no, my wife will never forgive me.”

  “Of course. It’s a kind offer.”

  “Good girl,” he said. “Another of these, while you’re at it.”

  * * *

  After the double, the walk home felt endless. By the time I crawled up the stairs to our apartment and slumped through the door, my body felt like it had been hit by a truck. There were so many different types of pain. My head was a cannonball, the space between my shoulder blades a tight, burning band; my hips ached like a rusty gate, and my lower back felt as if someone extraordinarily heavy were sitting on it, kicking their heels into my hamstrings. I had to get to bed.