The buzz of conversation fills the auditorium once more, and I step down from the stage, heading up one of the aisles. I linger at the back table for a bit, watching as one out of every five people passing by takes a business card, and I sigh.
These people are checked out, but I don’t blame them.
Teaching is one of the toughest, most draining and challenging careers.
“Mr. Hawthorne?” A woman’s voice fills my ear. I glance over the desk to see a petite little thing with a pale blonde pixie cut, a purple dress, and teal earrings. “I’m Sara Bliss, the art teacher at Rosefield.”
She extends her hand.
“Lovely to meet you, Sara,” I say.
“I just wanted to introduce myself.” She fights a smile, her eyes lighting in my presence as she fidgets, and I wonder if everyone makes her fidget or if it’s just me. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I don’t get involved with my teachers. “Rosefield is a good school. Our students are maybe a little more privileged than the average student. And most of them drive nicer cars than the teachers.” She chuckles. “But they’re good kids. At the end of the day, they do what they’re told to do, and they’re so focused on getting into the best colleges that they’re all little overachievers. Even in art class.”
“I see.”
“Anyway, I didn’t know if anyone had told you much about our school … you know, outside of the hiring committee. Thought you might want to hear this stuff from someone who sees it all firsthand.”
“Of course. I appreciate that.”
“Well, I guess I’ll see you around?” She shrugs, flashing a sweet smile.
“Yes, enjoy the rest of your summer, Miss …”
“Bliss,” she reminds me. “Sara Bliss. If you ever need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
A man with gray hair and a faded white t-shirt emblazoned with the school’s mascot ambles toward my table.
“Bernie,” he says. “School custodian. Been here over thirty years.”
“Bernie, nice to meet you.” I extend my hand.
“This is a good school,” he says, his chin jutting forward as he answers a question I didn’t ask. “Think you’ll really like it here.”
“That’s what I hear. And I certainly hope so.”
“If you ever need anything …” He points at himself before nodding and walking away.
When the last person has left the auditorium, I grab my cards and head to my new office. It’s empty save for a couple of plants the last principal left behind. And a Mac computer sits dusty and untouched on the center of a desk.
Taking a seat in the chair, which is painfully uncomfortable and going to have to be replaced, I stare out the window that overlooks the commons, an open air, upscale food court type of place that wraps around a courtyard filled with picnic tables.
I envision the students filling the area, their little Louis Vuitton backpacks and MacBook Airs in tow as they ask the food service workers if the apples are organic or farm fresh. Students at a school like this are no doubt going to be spoiled and entitled.
My only hope is that I can make a difference, instill a little humility in them so they can grow up to be good people, not just smart people. I hope that long after they’re gone, and even long after I’m gone, they’ll still remember me.
If I can make a lasting impression, I’ll have done my job.
Chapter Seven
Halston
My stomach is in knots as I sit on the lid of the toilet in the staff restroom. Today’s my first day at Big Boulders, and Courtney, my mentor, handed me a uniform and told me to get changed. At first, I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. I wear bikinis all the time at Uncle Vic’s pool. But knowing that I’m wearing this skimpy outfit for the sole purpose of letting men stare at my tits and ass … almost makes me want to throw up.
Courtney knocks on the door. “Halston, you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Almost done. Just … touching up my makeup.”
I need a distraction, something to soothe my nerves, so I retrieve my phone and pull up one of the many time-wasting websites I have bookmarked. I’m halfway through the front page of BuzzFeed when I get a notification from Karma.
Kerouac: What happened yesterday? Everything okay?
Kerouac: Also, can I just say, holy fucking shit, you’re beautiful.
Shaking my head, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. No one’s ever called me beautiful before. Pretty? Yeah. Sexy? All the time. But beautiful? Never.
I so badly wish Kerouac was real.
Absinthe: Wish I could say the same about you, but you decided to use a stock photo as your profile pic. That’s cheating, Kerouac. Not fair.
Kerouac: In my defense, the stock photo guy looks a lot like me … if you squint. We share a lot of the same features.
Absinthe: You expect me to believe you now? After you pulled that stunt? I should block you.
Kerouac: Don’t block me. I’m sorry. I wish I could show you my face, but I’m not in a position to risk that right now. I’m starting a new job soon. A public sector job. I can’t be that guy hooking up with random women on dating apps.
Absinthe: But you are that guy. That’s exactly what you’re doing.
Kerouac: We’re just chatting. I’m not going to hook up with you.
Absinthe: We had chat sex. Did you forget about the chat sex?
Kerouac: Again, that’s not hooking up.
Absinthe: I have to go.
Kerouac: Chat later?
Absinthe: Maybe. Still mad at you.
I turn my phone off and give myself one last look in the mirror. My full lips are slicked in fuck-me red. My tits are pushed up to my chin thanks to the standard issue push-up bra Todd assigns to his wait staff, and the little skirt I’m wearing barely covers my ass cheeks, but I’m doing this.
Yanking the door open, I catch Courtney off guard.
“There you are,” she says, her mouth pulling wide. “I was beginning to think you were having second thoughts. Happens all the time.”
She loops her arm around mine and pulls me to the bar. It’s barely eleven and the place is already beginning to fill. Climbing on a stool, she stands on the bar before motioning for me to join her, and the bartender hands her a megaphone.
Oh, god.
What have I gotten myself into?
I take my place at Courtney’s side as she lifts the loudspeaker to her mouth. “Heyyyy, guys! We have a new server starting today! Let’s give a warm Big Boulders welcome to Halston!”
All eyes land on me, men hooting and hollering and clapping and grinning.
It’s a feeding frenzy, and I’m dessert.
We climb down a second later, and she pulls me to a little galley just off the kitchen, handing me a pen and notepad along with an apron.
“You won’t need those today since you’re shadowing me, but those are yours to keep. You can put them in your locker or you can wear them.” She ties her apron around her tiny waist, her grin falling. “What’s wrong? You look scared?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
“You’re going to make so much fucking money here, Halston. I promise you. When you count your tips at the end of the night, you won’t even remember the guy at table five that slapped your ass earlier.”
“That happens?” I ask. “Todd said the customers aren’t allowed to touch us.”
Her eyes grow round. “They’re not. But it doesn’t stop them from trying.”
“Do you get them thrown out?”
She waves her hand, pressing her lips flat. “If we did that to every customer who slapped our asses or brushed their arms against our boobs or whatever, we’d be out of business. None of them would come back.”
I think I’m going to be sick.
“Oh, hey. First table’s ready. Come on.” She motions for me to follow her, and we head toward a half-moon shaped booth in the far corner where four men in business suits order beers, wings, and cheeseburgers.
They’re nice.
And this isn’t so bad.
They look at us, but they don’t make it obvious. Three of them have wedding bands on.
The hostess tells Courtney we have two more tables, and she asks if I’d be comfortable taking drink orders from one of them.
“The longer they have to wait, the lower your tip will be,” she tells me.
Nodding, I make my way toward a table with an older gentleman with lonely eyes and a Ron Jon t-shirt.
“Hi, sir,” I say. “I’m Halston. I’ll be taking care of you today. Can I get you started with something to drink?”
This reminds me of playing restaurant as a kid.
Piece of cake.
“Dr. Pepper, no ice,” he says. “Then a stack of onion rings and a cowboy burger, no pickles.”
Oh.
Scrambling to grab my pad and pen, I jot everything down before it leaves my memory, and then I repeat it back to him. When I glance up, his eyes are on my breasts.
“You’re new here,” he says, his gaze still below sea level.
“I am. It’s my first day.” I force a smile. “Go easy on me.”
I’m teasing, but he doesn’t laugh.
“Let me go put in your order and grab your drink,” I say, trotting away from him.
I find Courtney in the galley where she’s frantically scooping ice and filling cups.
“He gave me his order. What do I do now?” I ask.
“Put it on the line,” she says, pointing back toward the kitchen. “Left is newest, right is oldest. Put it on the left. The cooks will take it from there.”
“How do I know when the food is ready?”
“They’ll slide your ticket down. Food will be under the warmers,” she says. “Just check back here every so often. We don’t like to keep customers waiting longer than ten minutes. If it’s been longer than that, check with the kitchen to see what the holdup is.”
She carries a tray of drinks to the second table before retrieving the beers from the bar for the first one, and I fill the lonely guy’s Dr. Pepper. With ice.
Shit.
Dumping it out, I pour another one without ice, and take it to him.
“Here you go, sir.” I place it on a napkin in front of him.
“Where’s my straw?” he asks.
“Completely forgot. I’m so sorry.” I begin to run back when he stops me, placing his hand around my wrist.
“It’s a good thing you’re pretty,” he says.
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve got looks but not brains. I can tell. It’s a good thing you’re pretty.”
I’m speechless, utterly speechless. And while I’d love nothing more than to rip this saggy-balled geezer a new one, it’s probably not the best idea with this being my first day on the job and all.
He releases his hand from my wrist, letting it fall down the side of my hip, grazing the outside of my ass.
Completely intentional.
Returning to the galley for a straw, my body burns, my skin on fire. That sorry excuse for a man made me feel less than human all in the span of a handful of seconds, but I’m too pissed off to cry about it.
Glancing around, I wonder what the chances are that I could spit in his food and no one would notice?
I drop the straw off at his table in passing, not stopping. I just toss it toward him. When his appetizer comes out a few minutes later, I ask a food runner to handle it for me. When he leaves, he tips me two dollars on a twenty-five-dollar check.
Eight percent.
“You okay?” Courtney rubs my back when she sees me examining the man’s signed receipt. “Did he stiff you?”
I don’t want to talk about it.
“The good tippers will more than make up for the bad tippers, I promise,” she says. “Stick with it. It’s going to get better.”
I give her a close-lipped smile.
“On a good note, you did your first table all by yourself, and you did wonderfully,” she says. “You might not even need to shadow me!”
Not like this job is rocket science …
“You want to try another?” she asks. “There’s a table of young guys you can have. They just sat down. Three of them. The younger ones are the better tippers.”
Glancing to the main floor, I watch them. Just a few college-aged buddies sitting down for lunch. One has his nose in his phone and the other two are laughing about something. They don’t look like ass-grabbers.
“Yeah. I’ll take it,” I offer, sucking up my pride and making my way to the guys. “Hi, I’m Halston. I’ll be taking care of you today.”
Two of the guys nudge each other, exchanging looks. I almost wonder if I have something in my teeth when I glance down and see my left breast is almost completely out of my top—half of my nipple is showing.
“Sorry. I was going to say something,” the guy on the left said.
Yeah, right.
“You’re gorgeous by the way,” the middle guy says. “I saw you when we walked in. Was hoping we’d get you. You’re new, aren’t you?”
I nod. “First day. Go easy on me.”
The guys smile and keep their eyes on mine for the time being, though I’m sure they have every intention of checking out my ass when I walk away.
“What are we drinking?” I ask, lifting my pad and pen.
The guys order two beers and an iced tea, and they seem more focused on the TVs above the bar area than scoping out all the beautiful, scantily-clad servers. Maybe it’s enough for them to be in the mere presence of half-naked women? Or they all have girlfriends, budding relationships, and this is the closest they’re going to get to a strip club until their respective bachelor parties.
Either way, I’m content with this table, and when they leave, they each tip me five dollars.
“What’d you get?” Courtney asks. “Damnnn. Fifteen bucks on a fifty-dollar table. That’s amazing. Told you the young ones tip the best.”
Courtney has bottle blonde hair with dark roots, rocks a spray tan, and smells like she showers in Sun Ripened Raspberry body spray, but she spends the rest of the afternoon encouraging me, distracting me from watching the clock.
When the next shift comes in, we head back to tally up our tips, and I walk away with almost a hundred dollars.
Courtney has two hundred and fifty.
“Will I see you back here tomorrow?” she asks.
Staring at her pile of cash, I nod.
I need to take my pride out of this equation and take a page from her book.
The hustle begins now.
Chapter Eight
Ford
Absinthe: “Many years have passed since that night. The wall of the staircase up which I had watched the light of his candle gradually climb was long ago demolished. And in myself, too, many things have perished which I imagined would last forever, and new ones have arisen, giving birth to new sorrows and new joys which in those days I could not have foreseen, just as now the old are hard to understand.”
Kerouac: Good evening to you, too.
Absinthe: Reading Proust. Swann’s Way. That really spoke to me. Just wanted to share it.
Kerouac: Melancholy mood tonight?
Absinthe: Lost in thought kind of mood tonight.
Kerouac: Same difference. Either way, don’t linger there too long. It’s not good for you.
Absinthe: Tell me about your day. I need a distraction from mine.
Kerouac: Life isn’t half as bad as you think it is, Absinthe.
Absinthe: Easy for you to say.
Kerouac: How about you tell me about yours first?
Absinthe: Started a new job. Hate it.
Kerouac: What kind of job?
Absinthe: Customer service.
Kerouac: Vague, but okay.
Absinthe: There are customers. And I serve them.
Kerouac: You can say you’re a waitress. There’s no shame in that.
Absinthe: Server, Kerouac. The politically correct term is
server.
Kerouac: My mistake. So you hate it?
Absinthe: So much.
Kerouac: So find something else.
Absinthe: That’s the plan. Just have to tough it out a little longer. The money’s not bad.
Kerouac: Christ, Absinthe, don’t do any job for the money. That’s the worst thing you could do.
Absinthe: Not everyone has a choice. Unfortunately, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon.
Kerouac: Silver spoons sometimes rust.
Absinthe: You speak from experience?
Kerouac: Perhaps.
Absinthe: You blow through Daddy’s trust fund?
Kerouac: No.
Absinthe: Then what happened? You can’t make a statement like that and leave me hanging.
Kerouac: It’s a story for another time. Wounds are still fresh.
Absinthe: Whatever. You going to tell me about your day or what?
Kerouac: I went to work. Held a meeting. That’s about it.
Absinthe: What do you do for a living?
Kerouac: That’s private information.
Absinthe: Okay, fine. So you’re the boss of wherever you work?
Kerouac: You could say that. I’m in charge, yes. I run the place.
Absinthe: You like being in control?
Kerouac: Very much.
Absinthe: What’s your favorite sexual position? Since you like being in control so much?
Kerouac: Doggy style. Terrible name. Fucking amazing position.
Absinthe: Ugh.
Kerouac: What?
Absinthe: That’s my least favorite. I don’t like being fucked like a dog.
Kerouac: You speak from experience?
Absinthe: I do.
Kerouac: Then you’ve never experienced it with the right man.
Absinthe: Okay, so how would it be with you? Since you’re apparently the authority on doggy-style sex.
Kerouac: I am. And I’d be glad to share that with you. First of all, I’d place you on your hands and knees, spreading your thighs before tonguing your pussy from behind to put you at ease. When you’re soft and wet, I’d take my position behind you, gripping your hips with one hand and teasing your clit with the tip of my cock before gliding myself deep inside you, one teasing inch at a time. Once your pussy is clenched around my cock, I’d control your hips, making them meet my cock thrust for thrust as you rub your clit. I won’t go fast, and I won’t go slow. I’ll take my time, ensuring you feel every inch of me filling you, rubbing against your g-spot. And when you get close to the most amazing orgasm you’ve ever had in your life, I’d gather your hair in my hand, guiding you closer to me, my body leaning over yours so you can taste yourself on my lips as you come all over my cock as your hips writhe against me.
P.S. I Hate You Page 26