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“Ohh, baby. So many nips in this class. I love it.” He makes a smacking sound with his lips.
“You know, Lemon,” I say, glad that we’ve moved on from discussing my brief breakdown. I can feel Dawn watching me curiously, so I avoid looking at her. “The female body is a beautiful thing. It’s not there for your gratification. It’sart.It’s made to be appreciated, not slobbered over.”
Lemon shrugs. “Still makes me all jiggly, if you know what I mean. What’s so wrong with that? Wait, were you crying?”
“Just shut up,” I say. “Just shutup,and make sure you have your sources cited correctly for your slides, okay?”
“Yeah,” Cherie says. “Step up, Lemon. I need a decent grade in this class.”
“Me too,” Dawn says. “My parents are super strict about grades.”
“Okay, okay, Miss All-A Hella Bella and her minions.Excuuuussse meee.” He shakes his head. “Damn, somebody needs adrank.”
—
The bus is crowded and smells like sweat. I have to squeeze in the back right next to the window, hugging my backpack on my lap. My head is still rocking and there’s a knot in my stomach. I haven’t eaten anything yet; I just had that Coke and ibuprofen at my grandmother’s. I clutch my backpack tighter and my fingers land on the shape of the Sprodka bottle inside.
Hair of the dog.
That’s what my dad says sometimes after a long night out with his friend Hoyt, when I find him on the couch with puffy eyes, a beer in his hand, and it’s ten o’clock on a Sunday morning. “A little hair of the dog always takes the pain away,” he’ll say with a wink.
No one would know. They’ll just think I’m having some soda, right? It smells like soda. Maybe flat soda. Who would know? Who would even care? My heart starts to pick up a little. It might smooth out my head and my nerves. I have so much work to do before Thanksgiving break. That stupid art presentation. My actual piece of art for class, which looks awful. I never should have started drawing that damn tree, but I didn’t know what to do and I had to dosomething.I don’t even know what’s going on in algebra. It’s all just letters and numbers and lines swirling around. Lemon probably thinks I have all As right now, but I don’t. My grades have dropped and I have a bunch of missing assignments I need to get in. I’m just lucky my mother’s been so distracted she hasn’t checked the grades portal in a while.
I sigh. I have five hours at work ahead of me. Helping ungrateful people and cleaning their dirty tables and picking up soggy napkins. My chest tightens.
Who would know? I can maintain. I think I can maintain. I know kids at school who guzzle NyQuil between classes like it’s soda. And do other things. But that stuff seems dangerous and kind of scary.
This isn’t scary. Literally everyone in the world drinks. I’m having a hard time lately. I just need to get through break andthen I’ll cut way back.
There’s a squeezing inside my chest that feels hot and prickly. The lady next to me is twitching in a weird way and keeps mumbling “Sorry.” The guy next to her is doing that sleep thing where his head falls forward and he jerks awake and sits up and then falls asleep again. The bus always makes me feel even lonelier. Like everyone on it is being held hostage by something inside them.
I guess I am, too.
The squeezing inside me gets worse.
My hand is around the bottle inside the fabric like I’m holding a precious gem.
The bus lurches and I pitch forward, almost hitting my head on the back of the seat in front of me. I haul myself back into my seat, take a few big gulps of air.Jesus, get it together, Bella.
I will not drink on this bus. I can’t. I won’t. I have to go to work. I have to be nice and put on my apron and haul plates of greasy burgers and salty fries and quesadillas, and wipe down tables, and fish tips from the bottoms of soda cups because some people think it’s funny to cram money between ice cubes. Some people think it’s funny to eat almost an entire triple-decker grilled cheese with avocado and then claim thebread was overtoasted and they want a refund. Some people think it’s funny teenagers have to work, and keep them at the table asking questions likeWell now, girl, what are you going to do with your earnings? Buy more makeup?Or they think it’s okay to put their meaty hands on your arm like they know you, allAren’t you just the prettiest thing I’ve seen all day?or compliment the food while insulting their wives, allIf I didn’t eat here, I’d die of starvation, heh heh.Some people think it’s funny to sayNow, where’s my smile, give me a smile,and it’s all I can do to not sayI’ve got your smile right hereand dump that glass of iced tea on their head. The world sucks, but I will not drink on this bus. I will not drink on this bus.
—
It doesn’t work trying to hide the stain on my red Patty’s Place shirt. It’s too high up, and if I tie my apron that high, it’ll probably look like I’m trying to hide an impending pregnancy, so I just try to keep my order pad in front of the stain at all times, at least until I can legitimately claim that the stain happened today.
I’m working the five-to-ten shift, which means we’re already busy by the time I get there, because people are having dinner before going to movies or whatever they’re doing on a Saturday night. We’ll have a lull around seven and then things will pick up again at nine and go until close, which is eleven p.m., but since I’m fifteen, Patty won’t let me close, since closers don’t get out until after midnight.
Patty’s Place isn’t big and it’s kind of run-down, but it’s been around for more than thirty years and has a pretty devoted old-school clientele and a lot of younger people who, I guess, consider it cool in an ironic way? Those types are always snickering over Patty’s décor, which is pretty much whatever strikesher fancy at the thrift store, like purple-painted wooden fish, paintings of birds and seascapes, crocheted cacti, and old postcards that she frames. Not always with the picture facing out, but sometimes like, the actual written side, so you can read about what a great vacation someone was having in 1962 in the Catskills, or how much Edgar missed and loved Beatrice while he was in Paris in 1977. I like that one a lot. Edgar wrote,The city without you seems a selfish place, or perhaps I am selfish to be away from you.Pretty much whatever Patty likes, she nails or glues to the walls of the diner. I’m especially fond of her penchant for gold-framed mirrors of various shapes and sizes.
As usual, Patty is sporting a glittery scrunchie that can barely contain her out-of-control hair. If I were to describe Patty’s hair using one of the paintings from Ms. Green’s art class, it would be Klimt’sNuda Veritas,where the woman’s red hair is like a cloud around her head, expanding almost beyondher shoulders, with some pretty flowers pinned in here and there. Patty’s hair is red, too, but with a lot of gray, giving her a kind of wild, witchy look.
She’s sitting at her desk in the cramped office off the kitchen, scribbling furiously on a schedule sheet. I try to sneak past her so she won’t notice my stained shirt, but her head whips up just as I’m slinking by.
“Bella,” she says. “Can you do a double tomorrow? Jess is out sick and I need someone to cover her dinner shift. I can have her sub for you next Saturday.”
I hold my order pad over the stain. “Yeah, sure.”
She squints at me. “You okay? You getting sick? You look a little…peaked.”
