by B. R. Myers
I scrunched up my nose. He stank! What the hell was that smell? At least I managed to get a shower this morning. It was like he’d washed with the old dishwater from last night.
Old dishwater.
A bad feeling tickled the back of my brain, sending a chill down my arms. I hurried my pace and rounded the corner. The flower bed—Clyde’s meticulous flower bed—was a carnage of holes and wilted stems. I snuck a glance behind me at How-hole.
I blurted out, “Geez! Did you do this?”
Clyde came bursting out of the kitchen door. He stood on the porch, glowering at me. “Hurry!” he ordered. “Inside, now!”
I was ushered through the kitchen and into the dining room, where Julia and the blonde waitress from the other night were bent over a long table. It looked like arts-and-crafts hour for frantic florists. Tiny white vases and several larger ones were all in a row. Bouquets of plastic flowers littered the table and the floor underneath.
Clyde was red faced, and his thin moustache twitched and hopped like a conductor’s wand. “Plastic!” was all he could say. He pointed at the table, then gave me one last push before he disappeared into the kitchen. There was complete silence for three seconds. Then a loud clang of pots slamming down made me jump.
“Hey, kid,” Julia sighed. “Pull up a chair and start making pretty.”
“Huh?” I let my Kipling bag drop to the floor.
The blonde blew out a pink bubble, then slowly sucked it back in and began to chew again. “She means start filling these vase thingies.” She held up her latest creation of white tulips as a visual demonstration. “I’m Veronica, by the way,” she said. “But everyone calls me Ronnie.”
She handed me a vase. “Start with a big flower,” she instructed, “then fill in the spaces with the tinier ones. It’s easy, you’ll get the hang of it.”
Julia grunted while trying to shove a handful of yellow roses into the too-small vase.
“Sometimes less makes more of an impact,” Ronnie smiled at Julia. Then she daintily picked out a few stems, leaving a perfectly sized bouquet.
“Works for me,” Julia said. She slid the vase to the end of the table.
Ronnie scanned the table for her next creation while blowing another pink bubble.
I couldn’t help but feel a bit of hope. If this were a magazine quiz, I’d bet Ronnie would score as the kind of girl who was most helpful. I needed someone like that at Queen’s Galley. At that moment, I decided to make Ronnie the buoy I would cling to for the rest of the summer.
Julia cracked her back and looked around the dining room. “Oh, man. Like, every table,” she complained.
“At least we only have to do it once,” Ronnie pointed out.
Yup. Definitely the helpful type.
She continued, “These little plastic suckers are good forever—or at least until the world ends.” She smiled as she said this.
Julia twirled her left earring. She was sporting plain silver studs today. “Not if Clyde gets his way. I’ve never met anyone so passionate about fresh flowers. When I came into work this morning I thought they’d discovered a body or something. But it was only Clyde crying over his ripped-up flower bed.”
I thought of How-hole covered in dirt. “Why would anyone do something so vicious?”
Ronnie and Julia both stopped and gave me a look.
“It was a dog,” Julia said.
“There were huge paw prints all through the dirt,” Ronnie added. Her tone had an ominous lilt. “For some reason it came along last night and ripped up all the flowers.”
Oops.
“A dog?” I echoed, hoping I’d heard incorrectly. “Like a big one?” I saw the flower garden; it looked like someone had attacked it with a backhoe. One dog could do all that? A shiver made the hair on the back of my neck stand. To me, big dogs were like sharks on dry land: fast-moving hunters with massive jaws. Real Life in the ER even had a segment on security-guard dogs gone berserk.
“And no one knows why?” I asked, the carnation in my hand beginning to shake.
Dogs like garbage. Dogs like stinky garbage. Dogs like stinky shrimp heads.
“The kitchen guy—” Julia began.
“You mean Luke,” Ronnie interrupted with a smile. “I love him! He’s so nice. The guy we had last year moped behind the counter all the time.” She put on a serious face. “He would glare at us when we brought in trays of dirty dishes. Like it was our fault we didn’t serve on paper plates.”
Julia put down a vase with one huge orange lily in it and grabbed another. “Anyway,” she continued, “the dude got a blasting from Mr. Deveau, something about being the last person here last night and leaving the garbage improperly bagged.”
I swallowed dryly, fighting off mental images from the movie Cujo. Plus, the added layer of guilt wasn’t making eye contact easy. I focused on my plastic carnation, nodding along, playing the innocent bystander.
“Poor Luke,” Ronnie said. She held up a tiny vase with three daisies. “Maybe a nice flower arrangement would cheer him up.”
Julia scoffed at this. “Don’t feel too sorry for him. He lost his license when he smashed up his dad’s car.”
Some of my guilt about the shrimp heads began to melt away. If this dude was already bad, my little slip-up was hardly worth being sorry about. “Was he drunk?” I asked, disgusted. I replayed the scene when he had almost hit Chet with his bike.
“Worse,” Ronnie said, lowering her voice. “He’s crazy.”
My head snapped in her direction.
Ronnie’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yeah. Loretta let it slip she had to fill out some kind of work form for his shrink or parole officer or something.”
Julia twirled her left earring again. I could almost read the thought bubble above her head. Ronnie wasn’t exactly the queen of details.
I craned my neck and saw How-hole bent over the sink, scrubbing something hard. If he was so crazy and reckless, why had he helped Chet? And why did he cover for me and take the blame for the flower beds?
NINE
After being on the job for one week, I discovered the only good thing about being a busgirl is the period between serving warm rolls and clearing away dirty dishes. I usually snuck in a magazine quiz or two while killing time in the pantry.
The days dragged by in a boring blur; I would work the lunch or evening shifts at the Queen’s Galley, then take Chet to his swimming lessons the next day. Then repeat.
Fun, fun, fun.
Since the terrifying morning Chet wandered away, I was scared stupid into staying glued to his adorable little side at the lido until Mom showed up. However, this cut into my chances of bumping into Blaine for spontaneous chit-chats. Honestly, that empty spreadsheet glowing back at me each night was too depressing. It was like Francine was staring at me, unblinking, waiting for an explanation.
I considered the options, then blew the air out of my cheeks, totally confused. I wanted Blaine. I was ready for Blaine. Why was the universe conspiring against me?
The only person who seemed more miserable than me was How-hole. The guy spent his days slumped over a sink of dirty dishes, ball cap turned backwards, only talking when Clyde or Loretta asked him something. This guy was seriously a downer. But here’s the weird part: he never ratted me out for the shrimp-head thing, which we both knew was my fault.
I wondered if he was holding it over my head, waiting for the right time to blackmail me. I started going through my old magazines looking for personality quizzes; instead of answering for myself, I was trying to think like How-hole. But after two hours I was still stumped.
Who was this guy? A reckless thrill-seeker? A depressed delinquent? A patient predator waiting to blackmail me into helping him hide a body? I had to find out his angle, and this meant, of course, talking to him.
WHEN I ARRIVED to work the next morning, I had a plan. I
waited until Mom’s hatchback disappeared up the steep hill with Chet singing in the back seat, fresh from another swimming lesson. He was having an awesome time, but it was obvious to me he probably wasn’t going to pass this level. I meant to talk to Mom about it, but since her lengthy lecture last week on how I needed to take my responsibilities more seriously, we’d only been exchanging a few sentences here and there.
It made me angry sometimes, how she just expected me to pick up and take care of Chet when she decided to take on more work. Wasn’t she the parent? Shouldn’t she be noticing that he needs more help in the pool if he wants to pass? Shouldn’t I be doing more fun teenage stuff instead of working and babysitting my little brother?
This thing with Blaine couldn’t start fast enough. And once he noticed me, I was certain, my real life would begin.
I paused in front of the Queen’s Galley, where a flower delivery truck was in the driveway by the kitchen. A fresh load of guilt knotted my guts. I groaned, imagining all those vases needing to be filled again with real flowers. Julia would be so pissed if she knew I was the reason for all the extra work. She’d never been mean to me, but she had a tough kind of confidence that made me shrink a little bit every time she walked by.
A car blared its horn. From under the canopy of maple trees, a bicycle zoomed down the hill. The rider was sitting straight up with his arms dangling by his sides. He flashed by me, perfectly comfortable even though a single pebble could jar the handlebars and send him sprawling to the asphalt.
He coasted to the end of the street, then made a full circle through the intersection and slowly pedalled back. His blue hair peeked out from underneath his helmet. I rested my elbow on the front gate of the picket fence, watching him. The bike slowed down as he got closer. I went over the script in my head, preparing myself, trying to ignore the weird way my stomach was flipping over.
“Hey!” I said to him, motioning to the hill. “You could have died. Don’t you watch Real Life in the ER?”
“No. Should I?” He stopped right in front of me. One foot skidded on the ground, taking all his weight. He took a few deep breaths, his face red with exertion. I wondered how far he’d biked. Where he lived.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Or, I mean, at least you’d know the risks if you saw all the banged-up accident victims.”
A bead of sweat started to trickle from his left temple. He blinked back at me, staying quiet, waiting for me to continue.
I looked at the steep hill, hoping for a wave of inspiration. Dammit! Why had I started on such a stupid topic? My elbow suddenly felt ridiculous resting on the gate, but I couldn’t move. It would seem totally unnatural to move right now.
The trickle of sweat slowly curved along his cheekbone. He was perfectly still.
“Um…” I started. “For instance, a show from last season had this kid who was biking and he skidded on some gravel and ended up with really bad road rash. Like, all over his face and stuff.”
How-hole’s expression was like stone. The sweat trailed down past the corner of his mouth.
Focus, Kelsey!
“Yeah, so. Just be careful.” I stared at the handlebars of his bike to further emphasize my point—which by this time I had completely forgotten.
He said, “Maybe I don’t care about my face.” Then a quick grin played on his features. “Or my stuff.”
His stuff?
The blush rushed to my ears. I replied with a very dignified snort-laugh followed by an arms-crossed-in-front-of-the-chest manoeuvre, clearly showing him that I was unaffected by his stab at sexual innuendo. “Whatever,” I said, impressed I managed to get out a multisyllabic word. “It’s not my business if you want to show off.”
Satisfied I managed to get the last word, I turned and pushed through the front gate, heading up the flower-lined walkway to the Queen’s Galley.
“And who should I be showing off for?” he called out.
I glanced back. The grin had taken over his whole face. I opened my mouth but no words came out. He only chuckled, then shook his head.
He pushed his bike along the fence and headed toward the side entrance. I stayed on the walkway, still watching him. He whistled while he locked his bike to the railing of the back kitchen porch. I kept staring with my mouth hanging open like an idiot.
He caught my glance. But instead of another smirk, he only gave me a nod, then sauntered up the steps and into the kitchen like he owned the place.
“Close your mouth.” Loretta appeared in the front doorway, leaning on one hip. “You look like a broken fountain.” There was a dishtowel in her hands. “Shake the lead out, babycakes,” she said. “Lunch starts in ten minutes.” Then she disappeared back into the restaurant.
I looked back at the bike. My burning ears now had their own heartbeat. No. Not How-hole! We were totally wrong for each other. He was NOTHING like Blaine. And according to every quiz I’d ever taken—and my hormones in math class—Blaine was the perfect match for me.
How dare How-hole assume I was flirting! All I was trying to do was be nice and tell him to be more cautious. Nothing overly bizarre or flirtatious about that, right?
“What a how-hole,” I muttered. Like no one else had ever ridden a bike downhill without holding on.
Okay, I never had. But that’s not saying much since I’d never been in the ocean past my knees, either. But at least I knew what kind of guy he was now.
Reckless thrill-seeker. Definitely.
And we all know what happens to girls who hang out with reckless thrill-seekers, right? Yes, road rash and a starring episode on Real Life in the ER. No thanks.
This new development called for a change of tactics. I had to stay on How-hole’s good side and therefore escape blackmail from my shrimp fiasco. But I still had to let him know loud and clear that I was unavailable in the dating department. I needed to keep things friendly, yet formal.
Francine would like that logic.
I could do this. I had to do this. Francine had given me a mission, and unlike math—and everything else lately—I wasn’t failing this test. I would kiss Blaine by the end of the summer. Which, to me, seemed much more thrilling than riding down a steep hill on your bike without holding on to the handlebars.
LUNCH WAS SLOW, so Mr. Deveau let one of the waitresses have the afternoon off. Chloe and I were paired up with Ronnie to handle the dining room.
There was one elderly couple having fish chowder with iced tea, and a woman with a backpack and map spread over a table for four; she had ordered an avocado salad and kept asking for coffee refills. I wondered about caffeine overload as I went into the kitchen to put on another full pot of the Queen’s Galley dark-roast blend. I pictured her heart full of the stuff, pumping erratically.
The percolator started to make the gurgling sound it makes when it’s close to finishing. How much coffee did Mom drink every morning? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her without a mug nearby.
I frowned at my reflection in the coffee pot. I hadn’t seen much of Mom this past week at all. She was mostly squirrelled away in her office, and then at night she always had something to run out and get. Anyway, I wasn’t going to focus on that anymore. I had a mission to pursue and the sooner I could check off another box on Francine’s spreadsheet, the sooner Mom and her affair with coffee would fade into the background of my thoughts.
I purposely waited until the kitchen was quiet—Loretta had trained How-hole to make a few salads and now used her extra time to sneak out back for a smoke.
He stood at her workstation, ball cap on backwards, in his usual T-shirt and cargo shorts. The long bandage on his calf hadn’t decreased in size over the past week. It had become my daily reminder of our first encounter.
Stainless steel bowls were neatly lined up on the counter while tiny piles of freshly cut herbs were organized on the other side. I was surprised that How-hole seemed
to know what he was doing. He took a garlic clove and crushed it with the flat of a knife.
“Um…hey,” I tried. He tilted his chin my way. I took a deep breath and held it, then the words tumbled out. “I wanted to thank you again for helping with Chet last week.”
He lifted a shoulder in a bored shrug. “Your mom already said thanks,” he said. He broke an egg into a bowl, added the crushed garlic, then started to whisk. Clink. Clink. Clink.
He said nothing else. I grew warm wondering if he wanted me to blab about the shrimp heads. I wanted to say thanks for that too, but the words were stuck. And so were my feet. I hated how I couldn’t walk away. I wondered if he could pick up on my awkwardness and was letting the painful silence linger, enjoying my lame attempts at conversation.
I glanced at his calf again. I thought it would have started to heal by now.
I wonder if it’s infected?
“Have you seen a doctor about that yet?” I asked.
He stopped working and looked at me. I was never prepared for those eyes. I took a step back. “This one episode of Real Life in the ER, a guy came in and his leg wound was so gross it had maggots.” I shivered. “So, yeah…”
How-hole stuck his leg out, then flexed his foot a few times. “I’m good,” he said. “Thanks for being so concerned though.”
“I’m not concerned,” I defended. “You’re working around food. I’m just thinking of the general public.”
He started to whisk again. “You need to stop watching that show.”
“A girl needs to be informed,” I said. I stuck my chin up in the air a bit.
“A girl needs to have some fun.”
I snort-laughed again, my speciality today, apparently. “Oh, I have fun,” I lied.
Yeah, buckets worth.
He focused on his work. Clink. Clink. Clink.
I wasn’t fooling him. Reckless thrill-seekers aren’t tricked easily. I stayed quiet trying to come up with another opener. A whiff of garlic hit me.