Day 3 (Part 5)

“What can I get for you ladies?” I ask in the usual way.

The two girls, one blonde and one brunette, look at one another, and then burst into laughter. Stricken and missing something, I take a small step back. They settle down and look up at me with blatant smirks.

“Um, can I get a fresh squeezed orange juice?” the brunette asks.

“Ditto!” says the blonde. I swallow hard.

“Sorry, we have Pulp Natural or, uh, the no pulp Pulp Natural.”

Silence.

‘Do they not understand?’

“We don’t have fresh-squeezed juice here, sorry.”

“Uh, well you have oranges, don’t you?” says the blonde. The brunette looks away, barely hiding her amusement. “Just like, squeeze them?”

The lines in my face feel long as I say, “We don’t have the stuff for it, sorry.”

“Wow, okay,” says the blonde, suddenly full of bitter confidence as she frantically picks up the menu to re-evaluate the drink options. I am shaking, but I try not to show it. “You know what, just forget it. A root-beer float, please.”

“Ditto,” says the brunette. I nod and swiftly turn away to fulfill the order. The girls snicker, and then booming laughter erupted.

Cook is looking at me as I cross the kitchen in the direction of the back room housing a container of snow-covered vanilla ice cream. “What the hell is so funny out there?” he asks incredulously.

‘Isn’t it obvious? Me!’ is what I want to say.

“Damned if I know!” is what I say, and I immediately hate myself for the pronounced stress in my tone. I enter the back room, barely minding the step between it and the kitchen, and arrive at the freezer. I stand there silently for a moment, gathering my breath and my voice. Tears have welled in my eyes, but I stuff them down like laundry in an overflowing hamper back home. They can stay forever, like the new scratch and dent the car it received this morning on my commute.

I sniff deeply, clear my throat, and then open the freezer door. Icy air, brisk and compacted, seemed to blast upward into my face. I like it, and reach for the ice cream, so cold it burns my hands. I dry my eyes on a clean patch of my worn out apron and then hold the frosty container with the fabric.

As the freezer slams shut, I’m feeling a bit calmer. I swiftly turn around to head for the kitchen, but barely take half a step before my foot meets an object. I look down and see fur and whiskers.

“EEP!”

I leap halfway to the ceiling and scurry to the kitchen entrance, stepping up and turning around just in time to see a long tail escape behind the freezer. I peer into the kitchen and Cook is nowhere to be found. My breath is lost again.

Somehow, I turn around and take the ice cream to the drink station where I can make the floats. My hair is standing on end as I leave the kitchen, but thankfully I see Cook at the Ha-Ha Girls table with a ticket pad. Despite his numerous gravy and grease stains on his apron and clothes, fresh and old burns across his arms, and big ears sticking flatly out of his paper hat, there was zero laughter. As the second scoop of ice cream plopped into its nearly overflowing cup, Cook passed the drink station with the food order in-hand. He did not smile at me, but he nodded firmly as he carried on to the kitchen.

I brought the rootbeer floats and was swiftly met with two “thank you’s” followed by silence. I returned to the drink station, packed up the vanilla ice cream, and returned to the kitchen.

“Cook, we have a problem,” I said quietly. Cook slammed down his pancake flipper and looked toward the dining room with a monstrous expression. “No, no, no!” I said quickly. I gave Cook a gentle push, moving him out of the eyeshot of the stupid girls, now plainly looking at him nervously through the order window. His eyes finally on me, I pointed to the back room and mouthed, “Pest!”

“What, another one?” asked Cook, again picking up his flipper and easily turning over the pancakes on the flattop.

“Another one?!” I ask in a frantic whisper. My arm is wet from the outside of the ice cream container, now slick from condensation. I peer into the back room and see nothing. When I look back at Cook, two plates, one with fruit and one with sausage, have appeared beside the flattop.

“Oh yeah, we had maybe 4 or 5 while you were gone last week. Damn, that bugger must be twice the size of the others I wrangled. Eating like a king in this place, no doubt.” Or Queen I figure, but I don’t say as much. Cook is smiling at me as he flips the pancakes onto the plates. “Oh, he gave you a good scare, did he?”

I turn beat red and know it.

“Why didn’t you warn me?!” I snap. Cook laughs quietly and shakes his head.

“I didn’t want to freak you out.” I roll my eyes. The condensation is now dripping off of the side of the ice cream container and giving the floor an impromptu wash. “Now are you gonna put that cream away and deliver this? Or do you want to grab the broom and a Cambro?”

Day 3 (Part 6)

Haggard and still in uniform, I arrive home with the shopping. The bags collapse onto the kitchen counter-tops the way I want to crumble on the floor. ‘It’s fine,’ I tell myself as I collect peaches and plums that rolled out from its paper packaging. ‘Everything’s fine.’

The fruit disappeared into the refrigerator and out came a pint of ice cream—the object of my craving since the late morning. Proper meal in hand, I whisk myself away to the living room and turn on the television.

The laundry can wait, and I’m making the conscious effort to forget the thoughtless wretch that wounded our automobile.

A half pint and a half-something of wine later, I am in a daze and lazing on the couch, enjoying some painstakingly romantic black-and-white that has me swooning for all the wrong reasons. Something about the women’s long, flowy dresses and the men’s wavy hair had me jazzed beyond belief and wanting to don polka dots immediately. The male and female lead embrace dramatically, and I hold my breath until the kiss, finally exhaling into a small blubber of tears. ‘It’s short-lived,’ I think. ‘God, isn’t everything?’

And when he returns home, that’s how Handsome finds me—teary eyed with melted ice cream sitting beside me. “What’s the matter?!” he asked, astonished, but before looking at the television. He loosens dramatically. “Oh, this movie.”

“Yeah?” I asked through boogery sniffles. “And what do you know about it?”

“I know it makes girls cry.”

“Oh? Talk to many girls, do you?” I’m only joking. I suppose. 

A cross expression grows across Handsome’s face. I am in for it, but before I can express my horror, his pinchy fingers are diving for my unguarded rib cage.

“Do you want to fight with me, little Missy?” he asked.

“Ah! No!” I howled between his soft but devastatingly ticklish pinches. I miss the tail end of the movie fighting him off, but I am not bothered.

 A while later, we stand over the kitchen island, nibbling on something with a little nutritional value. Neither of us really consider using the dining nook—not with a black urn of bagged, whitish ashes at its center. 

Handsome can tell my mind is heavy, and I can tell he is unsure whether to pester me the way he sometimes does to take my mind off of things, or to comfort me—which he has been doing an awful lot of lately. There is a knowing expression on his face as he catches me glance at the table time and time again. Finally, I join his gaze and smile. “I’m fine,” I say.

“Sure,” he says, reaching out to touch my hand. I want to pull away, because like I said, I’m fine. Instead, I melt into his arms like butter on the breakfast griddle and cry out a whole day’s worth of hard feelings.

A finger raised my chin and went on to wipe my freshly washed cheeks. Handsome smiled, and it was genuine and tender and tricked me into thinking that everything really was fine. His lips leaned into mine, and he gently pulled me in as he did so. At first, I tasted the salt of my tears more deeply than his lips, but the taste eventually went away, until all that was left was sweetness.

We part with smiles on our faces. I secure my arms around him and say, “Well that was my day. How was yours?”

“Eh,” Handsome shrugs. “Pretty much the same at my place, but with a lot more screaming and crying.”

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