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Spluttering with rage, Georgina slams her fist on the table to get her boyfriend’s attention. “Jack!”
“What?” he says innocently. “What did I do?”
“You know damn well what. Just wait till we get home.” Looking up at me, she displays a dangerous smile I know so well. A smile that turns my skin cold. It’s the prelude to her sticking the knife in and sadly the victim in her sights is me.
“You know Jessica,” she drawls, “I’m really surprised to see you working somewhere like this. It’s so down market. To be honest, I’m shocked by how low you’ve sunk. You were always such a stuck-up little cow at school, I thought you’d be manager of Barclays Bank by now. Not to worry. Your mum used to work in Kwik Save so I really shouldn’t have expected you to do any better.”
Lorraine shrieks with laughter. “Oh Georgie, you’re so bad. Now you’ve gone and made the girl cry.”
My tears fall slowly, bitterly. I start to get palpitations. With a loud sob, I turn and scarper back to the kitchen like a frightened little mouse, wishing to God I had the guts to say something back to her, but it’s as if I’ve been struck dumb. Years of having my confidence run into the ground has left me incapable of fighting my own corner the way I know I should. Years of verbal abuse from my classmates has trained me not to talk back and it’s now so ingrained in my subconscious, it’s built-in like muscle memory. I hate myself for being so weak, but it’s like Georgina’s evil aura has a way of sucking all my strength and leaving me a snivelling, quivering wreck.
“Hey lovely, what the hell happened?” Amina gasps when she sees the absolute state of me. “What did those bitches do to you?”
“I-I can’t take this anymore,” I wail. “Georgina hates me. I don’t know why, but she does. She’s just so fucking horrible, I can’t do this anymore. Stop the world I want to get off.”
“Right,” she says through clenched teeth. “Have you got the twats’ drinks order?”
“Uh-huh. Three Cokes, one Fanta.” I wipe my nose on my sleeve.
“Okay, time to go Medieval.” Thunderously, she grabs a tray from the stacking station and proceeds to fill four glasses with pop at the drinks’ dispenser. “All right, now they’re going to get it. An audience with the psychopathic bitch and her merry band of cunts, take two.”
I laugh through my tears. I can’t help it. Even when everything has turned to shit, Amina always gets me to see the funny side.
With a face like stone, she marches up to the booth and slams the tray on the table before whipping out her notepad.
“What food do you want? Be quick about it, I haven’t got all day.”
“Jesus Amina, what’s with you?” Georgina says with surprise. “Are you on your period or what? Take a chill pill, deep breaths and calm down.”
“I love that dress by the way,” Lorraine quips. “Are you going to a Halloween party?”
The boys exchange glances. A guilty grin spreads across Jack’s face.
Calmly, Amina takes a pencil from behind her ear and waves it menacingly at Lorraine. “See this? One more word out of you and I’ll shove it so far up your arse you’ll be shitting pencil shavings for the foreseeable future. So no more of your lip, okay? If you can’t play nice then you can all sling your hook. I’m not kidding. I’m in no mood to entertain your BS today.”
“Hey, hey!” Georgina waves her hands in a placatory gesture. “Wow Amina, what’s gotten into you? I thought we were supposed to be friends. Why are you behaving so hostile?”
“Because I don’t like what you did to my mate Jessica. You made her cry and that isn’t on. Like I said, if you lot are here to make trouble, then you can piss off back to the hole you crawled out from and find somewhere else to spread your misery.”
Lorraine’s mouth drops open in shock. Evidently, she’s never been spoken to like that before and is so taken aback, she doesn’t know what to say. I let out a quiet cheer.
Georgina’s face darkens. “Oh, for crying out loud, Jessica’s such a soppy cow. We were only playing around. Can’t she take a joke?”
“It wasn’t a joke, and you know it,” Amina shoots back. “You guys made her life hell all throughout school so don’t pretend to be all sweet and innocent. Now I repeat. Are you going to be nice today or what?”
“Look, we don’t want any trouble,” Jack cuts in, finally calling time on the dispute. “Please accept my apologies for the girls’ behaviour. They can be so childish sometimes.” He quicky scans his menu and hands it back. “Let’s have four cheeseburgers with chips and a side serving of onion rings.”
Amina scribbles down the order. “Cheeseburgers, chips, onions rings. Got it. How do you want your burgers?”
“Medium rare, please.”
“Right, will that be all?”
“That will be all,” Jack confirms with a nod. “And I’m sorry again for any trouble we’ve caused.”
“It’s not me you should be apologising to,” she mutters as she storms back to the kitchen. “It’s Jessica who deserves the apology, you complete bellend.”
Four pairs of eyes shoot in my direction, and with a yelp, I dart out of view behind the beaded curtain and crouch down on the floor, my heart thumping so hard I can barely breathe. Jesus, Amina was magnificent. Jules Winnfield would have been proud.
