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A few blocks away, the smell of sizzling meat and bread halted her feet. It was pointless, though. She had no money to pay for a meal.
The window of the diner looked like it hadn’t been cleaned for quite a while. Taped there was a hand-written ‘Help Wanted’ sign.
Alina was lucky she had learned to read at all. It wasn’t like she’d been homeschooled. In the beginning, the woman had dropped off some notebooks and textbooks and worksheets. Nothing past primary school. She had the reading and math skills of maybe a sixth grader. No diploma and no identification. She was pretty sure she needed an ID to be hired.
Besides, she didn’t know how to waitress.
The bell above the door dinged before she realized she’d pushed it open. Her feet carried her inside. The diner was smaller than it had looked outside. A couple sat at a table. A few older men sat on barstools along the counter that let them watch the person behind the counter cook.
“Sit anywhere you like,” the cook’s gruff voice called. Well, maybe it wasn’t gruff. It was husky, as if the woman was used to yelling a lot and didn’t have much voice left.
Alina’s voice had gotten like that while she was naked in a bare room.
Her hands clenched into fists as a wave of panic sweat broke out under her shirt. Her saliva felt thick, like it would choke her if she tried to speak.
Alina swallowed and shuffled closer to the open kitchen. “I—” Even she couldn’t hear her voice. She cleared it and tried again. “I’m here about the sign.”
“The sign?” The woman paused with a spatula in her hand, staring blankly at the window Alina pointed to. Even her face looked gruff. It was lined and wrinkled, with dark eyes and a cap of curly hair cut short and tight. Her laugh was rich, though. “Shit, that’s been there forever. This place look busy enough to need someone else to you?”
Alina allowed the words to penetrate her mind. She should have known better. The woman couldn’t hire her anyway. She was no one. She retreated a step. “I’m sorry.”
The woman was staring at her face, and then her gaze fell to her arms, lingering on the biggest of the bandages there. “You need work?”
“I—” Alina swallowed. “Yes.”
The woman frowned as she turned back to the stove to flip the sausage in the pan. “And you can waitress?”
The place was small. Everyone inside was staring at her. Alina doubted she knew what any of them would need, but anyone could pour coffee. Still, starting off on a lie felt wrong.
Her eyes drifted to the stove where the woman continued to work. “I can cook,” she said instead.
That warm chuckle followed her as the woman stopped what she was doing and stepped away from the stove. “All right then. Come on around.”
“What?” Alina felt trapped by the narrowed gaze that landed on her.
The woman held out the spatula. “Hurry it up. Frank over here ordered fried eggs and some sausage and bacon. Should be simple enough.” She nodded toward a big man with a gray beard, who smiled at Alina. “If you don’t kill him, you get his tip.”
She would get money. Her own stomach twisted with hunger as Alina made her way around the edge of the counter. She moved forward until she could close her fingers around the spatula.
The woman held on to it, her eyes tracing Alina’s tourist shirt and jeans. The outfit had been all that was available in the shop with the pharmacy, and Alina had barely left the house, so it was clean enough.
“Got an apron there.” The woman herself wasn’t wearing one. She had on similar jeans, but wore a fitted tank top that rounded over her stomach, and she smelled a little of sweat. Since the heat had gone up quite a few degrees by the stove, that was understandable.
There was also an acrid smell of smoke that reminded Alina of the houses she’d watched burn. She took a steadying breath as she pulled the loop of the apron over her head, lifting her hair out from under it.
She found the woman staring at her neck and dropped her hands quickly to tie the apron strings. The bruises on her neck and face had mostly faded, but they weren’t invisible. Her heart pounded as she reached for the spatula again.
This time the woman released it, stepping away. She watched her like a hawk as Alina nudged the sausage, trying to determine how much it was cooked through. Nothing else had been started. The eggs and bacon weren’t difficult to find, and she was careful in how she cracked the eggs into another pan. The seasoning available nearby was mostly salt and pepper, which Alina was comfortable using. She hadn’t had much beyond that at her house.
She mostly cooked scrambled eggs, but she was pretty sure fried just meant she had to flip them and cook them through.
The bacon spat at her in the grease from the sausage as she added it to that pan. She hadn’t cooked bacon on the stove much because of the spitting, but she doubted nuking it in the microwave would be appropriate. She ignored the little pricks of pain the hot grease nipped into her skin as best she could.
No nearby plates almost had her panicking, but she soon spotted them, and plated everything once it was done. When she crossed to the counter, it was taller than it first seemed. With her shorter height she could just see over it. She slid the plate in front of Frank, and his smile flashed again.
“Appreciate it,” he said, digging in.
“More coffee?” she asked, unable to see into his cup.
