Why is this book so important? What am I in the middle of? What am I truly fighting for?
“Is there a problem here?” David asked, unmoved by Jared’s massive size and puffed-up ego.
“Yes, you interrupted me and the lady. That is a problem,” Jared said, his voice a menacing deep rumble.
“You don’t say,” David said with a light sarcastic tone to his voice.
Jared almost snarled.
“Am I interrupting you two, Melanie? I just figured by the slaps you gave him, he was no longer welcome to stay and talk with you.”
“He was just leaving. Thank you.” I smiled a grateful smile at him.
David looked back over at Jared and smiled with an “I told you so” look.
“I think you should be going now,” David said, taking a step closer and slightly in front of me as if to protect me.
“Not until I get what I came for,” Jared said, returning his sharpened eyes to me. The hatred and mingled heat made me feel exposed and vulnerable.
I could see the unspoken threat in his eyes, the green-and- gold flakes that had glittered so stunningly like colored glass in his caramel eyes now floated like black soot on the surface of murky and muddy waters. Even his apparent perfect model’s face seemed darkened and twisted as he tried not to show his true nature which lay just beneath the surface. But too late, I had already seen a glimpse of the snake within.
“You will never get what you came for. And I don’t want what you’re offering me for it either,” I said, disgust dripping from my voice.
I wanted him to leave and never come back. He could keep his answers and explanations. It wouldn’t have been the truth anyway. Anyone asking a demon for revelation is begging to deceived. I’d wait until the Archangel Michael was permitted to tell me. I didn’t need to get the answers from this evil, deceiving seducer. God would let Michael tell me when it was time.
Jared raised his hands and ran it through his shoulder-length, wavy black hair, making him look like a male play toy posing to show off the size of his chest and arms, stretching the black T-shirt to nearly the ripping point. He slightly leaned his hips forward as he ran his hands back through his hair again, his stance suggestive.
I admit, he was lovely to look at. But it was a moot point. I would not be a part of his seduction game and give into him one inch. And I wouldn’t let him near that book.
I turned and walked away from his last sexually seductive display leaving him and David at the counter. I walked back around the corner and leaned against the wall out of sight but still listening.
“You best be on your way, man,” David ordered to Jared triumphantly.
“My name, man, is Jared Kallis. I’ll be back. You can count on it.” His voice once more dripped with seduction and confidence. He knew I was still listening.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Jared.” David raised his voice enough to carry authority and confidence, and he snipped Jared’s name so the d was hard.
“I’ll decide what’s good for me and what isn’t,” Jared said, anger making his voice cold and flat. “You didn’t tell me your name, kid.”
Kid? They looked about the same age to me.
“No, I didn’t. Have a good night,” David said.
“I will see you later.” Jared’s voice was loud and threatening as he pointed a large finger at David.
“And Melanie, love, I’ll be seeing more of you soon. A lot more. Have fun now.” Jared raised his voice so I would be sure to hear him. Once again, his voice sounded seductive and felt silky along my skin, but as it dripped away, it made me feel dirty like I had been slimed by rancid algae from a stagnant fishpond.
I pressed my hands over my ears and closed my eyes, shaking the sound away. A moment later, I heard David’s footsteps approaching me and the soft scuff of his feet as he stopped in front of me. I put down my hands and opened my eyes, looking up to meet his face. I was afraid I’d see judgment and disgust there.
“He’s gone,” David said, his brows were drawn in to crease between his eyes with worry or perhaps just in deep thought.
“Thank you,” I said, not only relieved Jared was gone but that David’s face was not hostile toward me.
“Anytime. You didn’t seem too happy with him,” David said, his face asking me to tell him more, but he was too polite to push me for answers.
“I don’t want anything to do with him. I appreciate you getting rid of him for me,” I said, embarrassed, and without thinking, I reached up and gave him a quick peck on his cheek before I turned and rushed away.
I felt like a coward running off right after he had helped me scare off the big bad wolf. But my stomach was doing somersaults, and acid was slashing around in there like waves on rock. I felt dirty, and so incredibly stupid.
I was truly and deeply grateful for David’s help, but I couldn’t bear to look up at his kind, noble face after what I had done to him moments before he’d come and rescued me. I felt ashamed of myself. I hadn’t known I was so weak to my own temptations, and it had been so easy to allow myself to slip into the role of a manipulating temptress.
How could I act like that? That wasn’t me!
I walked faster.
Chaos
Chapter Nine
I entered the back of the restaurant and made my way toward the employee’s restroom on the other side of the kitchen unnoticed. Chaos had erupted between the cooks and the servers in a shouting match. It was as if the paranormal amount of emotions running through me from Jared a few moments before had slithered away and had morphed into angry outbursts and explosive displays of tempers from some of my other coworkers.
I heard a crash as a plate hit the wall and smashed about ten feet away from me. I spun in surprise and quickly identified Georgia, one of the servers, as the assailant of the thrown plate. She wasn’t looking at me nor apparently noticed I was there. She hastened to reach over and snatched up another large dinner platter from off the precariously leaning stack of dirty dishes in the dishwasher’s station before her intended target could finish escaping for safety.
With a cry of rage, she arched her hand far back and chucked the plate with all her might at her twin brother, George. George, who was about to say something to his sister, paused, and his eyes widened at seeing the second plate hurling in the air toward his head. He grabbed an empty dinner tray and darted like a fox behind the kitchen nook of stoves for more extensive coverage from the attack, using the tray as a shield to protect his head as he dove.
“That’s right! Scurry away to your grubby little corner, you useless cook!” Georgia raged at her twin brother. George was actually an amazing chef. And these two were inseparable. The spats they normally had were over silly things like whose dune buggy was more pimp.
I wasn’t sure what was happening or how it had started, and I didn’t want to stop and find out. I needed to get to the bath- room to pull myself together and clear my head. Whatever was happening, I couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible. I had invited this, welcomed it even. I slumped and I slipped invisibly past them as their escalating arguments seemed to consume the kitchen and obscure me farther from sight.
Frank was cursing at the top of his lungs and waving a metal spatula like a sword. Lucy was pointing and gesturing accusingly at Georgia who had now rounded on her. Susan stood behind Lucy with her hands on her cocked hip, looking sassy. The tension in the room was thick enough to chop with a machete, and the uncontrolled tempers exploding in rage made the air crackle with raw electricity.
Everyone seemed oblivious to the outrageousness of their actions and the climate in the room. Well, everyone except for me and David who had just walked into the kitchen. The expression of pensive concern he had walked in with was quickly replaced by shock, his eyebrows raised at the unexpected sight. He had been coming to find me, I knew it. But now he stood on the outer edge of the kitchen observing the situation. Like me, he didn’t seem to know what had caused all this, and he didn’t know what to do about
it.
I watched him from across the kitchen where I stood next to the employee bathroom door partially blocked from view by the tall six-shelf rolling rack loaded down with fresh bread dough, washed potatoes, and other items the cooks were going to be baking in the large industrial ovens for tonight’s dinner service.
David approached Frank and said something undistinguishable to him. Frank, absorbed in his purple-faced shouting match with Lucy and Georgia, didn’t hear or see him. On the third attempt, David tapped Frank on the shoulder to get his attention and immediately had to duck. Frank had swung around as quick as a hippopotamus ballerina, spatula raised in battle. It whooshed past David’s ducked head, his hands raised up in protection.
“Hell fire, boy! What the hell are you doing sneaking up on me like that! You want a piece of me!” Frank shouted at David.
“What? No, sir!” David said, quickly taking a step back his hands still raised.
“Then whose side are you on?” Frank said, pointing the spatula at him now.
“No one’s. What’s going on back here?” David asked him, his hands still forward with uncertainty.
“That hoochie mama just…” Lucy began heatedly.
Splash!
“You stupid nincompoop!” Georgia roared. She took off, barreling toward her twin brother who was now out from behind the stoves. He had launched a bowl of marinara sauce at her successfully coating her in the red-hot dipping sauce. He had a satisfied grin on his face, but it quickly vanished.
Georgia grabbed at her brother George, but he slipped past her and ran back toward the safety of his kitchen corner. He tried to stuff himself underneath the counters that stocked the kitchen salad bar. Georgia was tracking his every move, and rather than running around the line of stoves, counters, and salad bar to get to him, she gracelessly leapt, onto the salad bar counter face first and arms out to tackle, all two hundred pounds of her, in an attempt to grab her scrawny brother or at least a handful of his dreadlocked hair and yank him out.
Salad bits flew everywhere and dressing sloshed out onto the floor as they wrestled. Oh, this was not good.
Frank, having been drawn away from David by the climaxing scene, had decided he was of better use pulling them apart and had started over to the stoves shouting.
“Damn it, you two! Stop this, you hear me! You’re fired! You’re fired!” Frank bellowed out with a shake of rage in his voice. “I should have known better than to hire you two from the ghetto!”
Thank God, they didn’t hear him. Frank was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a racist. He was just crude. I would know. My father was a racist. Frank, he was full of loneliness, not hatred. Something was definitely wrong.
I thought Frank was about to have a heart attack from all the running and excitement. His face was a new shade of purple, and he was dripping with sweat.
“Rah!” Georgia bellowed and pulled out a chunk of George’s dreadlocks.
“Ow!” George screamed. “You’re going to pay for that, you psycho!”
“I said enough of this!” Frank yelled again.
Frank started smacking Georgia with all his might on her big round butt with his spatula. Unaffected by the beating, she grappled on after her brother. I suppose it was like a whip on the rump of an angry rhino. Not very effective. Realizing his little spatula was no match for her substantial backside, Frank tossed it aside and instead grabbed Georgia’s flailing legs still dangling over the counter and tried to pull her off the salad bar. She kicked violently at Frank’s hands but still wouldn’t let go of her brother’s head.
George’s hand came up to search for whatever he could find and connected with some salad tongs that had managed to remain on the edge of the salad bar. George came up from behind the counter with Georgia still attached to his hair and used the tongs to grab her nose.
“Aw!” Georgia yelled.
George’s face contorted with effort, and he squeezed as hard as he could, making Georgia cry out even louder with a ferocious bellow.
Frank was still attached to Georgia’s legs and was pulling. Between his straining efforts tugging on her legs and George yanking and squeezing on her nose, she was lucky it hadn’t ripped off yet.
I glanced over to where David stood. He had taken a few steps back from Lucy and Susan who were now about an inch from each other’s faces yelling and shoving each other. Those two were best friends and never raised their voice to each other unless expediting orders in the kitchen. David stood there, bewildered. Apparently, he still hadn’t figured out what had started all this or why they were fighting in the first place.
Some of the other prep cooks, busboys, and the dishwasher were hanging out behind the dishwasher’s station, enjoying the show. Someone or a few of them, had snuck a few beers and were passing around a few large frothy mugs. They looked half-drunk already and were laughing and jesting at the chaos going on. If Frank saw them drinking his beer without paying for it and on the job at that, he’d have their heads. Let alone, the two busboys were both under twenty-one years old.
Great. This just keeps getting better and better.
I watched as one of the newer busboys, I think his name was Jerry, intercepted the beer mug being passed to Francisco and gulped down half of it.
“Hey! That was mine!” Francisco shouted and smacked the mug out of his hand.
Jerry swung and his fist connected with Francisco’s face with a thud. And that was all it took for the six men to start brawling right there in the dishwasher’s station.
“Excuse me? We’ve been waiting for our food for quite a while now, and we haven’t seen our server in over twenty minutes…” A distinguished-looking man in an expensive dress suit said as he entered the kitchen. Apparently, he was trying to impress a date by going in the back to demand service. Big mistake.
Susan and Lucy both rounded on him at the same time. “What are you doing back here?” Susan shouted.
“Get out and go sit down,” Lucy ordered.
“Excuse me, but I won’t be spoken to that way!” the man said, puffing up indignantly.
“Ladies, ladies. Come on now, act your age,” David said, stepping in between them and the man.
Susan and Lucy glared at him.
“What does that mean, ‘act our age’? You saying we’re old, punk?” Susan snapped.
Lucy too was about to say something, but David ignored them both and turned his back on them to face the man.
“Sir, I apologize. We’re having a bit of a…problem right now,” David tried to explain and placed his hand gently on the back of the man’s shoulder to try to turn him around and lead him out. The man shrugged David’s hand away and stepped deeper into the kitchen.
“Sir, please. Now isn’t a good time,” David tried to warn him.
“What the hell are you people doing? This is outrageous!” the
man said, raising his voice.
“Who asked you?” Susan spat as she walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder as if to also say “Yoo-hoo, I’m right here.”
The man spun around with a snarl. Their voices all rose with careless abandonment of professionalism and out-of-control tempers. The man was trying to shout over Susan and was poking her in the chest like she was a man he was trying to infuriate into a fight. She smacked his hand away, then slapped him across the face, the noise cracking through the air like a whip.
A man of his age and inflated ego didn’t take well to being slapped, so he slapped her back. His hand was big and flat, and her face wasn’t much bigger this his open palm. Even though I would have expected a smack like that to flip her over like a Ferris wheel, she barely even moved other than her face shifting to the side. There was no doubt in my mind this was a spiritual attack on their common sense and self-control.
Susan and Lucy both reacted at the same time and shoved him backward so hard he tripped over his own legs as he stumbled backward, finally landing on his butt with a thud. He let out a girlish squeal, and his masculine-distingui
shed facade shattered.
A few more of our customers with curious faces came peeking around the corners of the two entrances to the kitchen to see what was going on. The only two people not shouting were David and me. David was trying to encourage the customers to please go sit down. He was apologizing to everyone.
Maybe if I had been strong enough to resist whatever it had been that had latched on and ensnared me, they wouldn’t all be about to murder each other. It was as though they were drowning in their own hidden weaknesses just as I had. If only I had cast it away and fought harder…
I supposed today my weakness had been lust and a desire to control and dominate someone else for once in my life. Whereas, their weaknesses seemed to be anger and pride as they all stood shouting, shoving, and pointing at each other, some armed with projectiles, others brawling or piled up in heaps of limbs and red faces.
I’d have to let them fight their own battles and gain back their self-control all on their own. I couldn’t help them right now. I could hardly help myself. I glanced at the chaos in the kitchen and fumbled for the bathroom door seeking my own escape.
Another dish shattered against the wall behind George’s head, and he released his sister’s nose from the death grip of the tongs and ducked low again behind the large steel stoves. Shards of plate bounded off the wall and skipped across the floor like blown sand. I didn’t see who threw it or why, and neither had George, but he retaliated by throwing a steaming pot full of macaroni and cheese that had been boiling over on the stove right at Frank’s head. Frank dove to the side, and the gooey pieces whizzed past me like an assault of gunfire, the pot trailing right behind it. I darted inside the bathroom just in time to avoid it, and I heard the large pot crash into the bathroom door right as I was closing it behind me.
That had been too close!
Oxygen
Chapter Ten
I shut the door to the bathroom and locked it with both the deadbolt and the switch on the handle. I stood frozen for a moment, listening to the crashing and banging. The shouts of the angry crew seemed to grow like wildfire. George and his twin sister Georgia’s answering bellows were like the main melody being sung to this strange arrangement of battle music. I heard Frank holler something indistinguishable just before something else crashed against the bathroom door causing me to step quickly away from it.
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