She wipes the counter and sets a new place as she scans the parking lot for Carlos’s truck. She hoped he might come. Saturday they met for an early dinner before he had to go to work. Texas cone-droppers, it seems, even have night duties. It was almost like a real date. It was, maybe. They met at the Rocket Gourmet, but he paid for her burger and shake. When he left, there was no kiss, but there was a moment. A hesitant, quiet moment where they seemed to exchange a thought: I like you. A lot. The parking lot is void of his battered blue truck. No Carlos. Maybe the shared thought was only in her own needy head.
“More coffee here?” The sleazebag holds up his cup. The cook’s bad enough—Zoe can’t afford to piss off her best tipper, too. Not today. She forces a smile to make up for forgetting him.
“Coming right up,” she says. The pot is empty. It was her turn to brew more coffee and she forgot. Shit. Is all of life out for her today? But it was the orders. All the screwed-up orders. She puts the pot on to brew. “It’ll be just a minute. Everything else okay?”
He beams at the morsel of attention she throws him. “Just fine. Real fine.” He draws words out the way Opal does, but with entirely different possibilities. She endures it, forcing a smile, hoping he might make up for her other meager tips.
“I’m really happy to hear that,” she says. “We like to keep our customers happy.”
“You do?” His heavy hands shift across the counter. It unexpectedly nauseates her. Like heavy slugs suddenly pricked at the scent of food. Her. She’s the entree. She pushes away the shudder. She needs the money.
“Sure. Anything else you need while the coffee brews?” She braces for more.
“Lots. But now’s probably not the best time. If you know what I mean?”
For God’s sake, give it a rest, pal. But she nods. “Yeah.”
“You just let me know when,” he says, so full of himself. So full of what he has to offer. Let him know when?
Like never.
In another lifetime.
When I’ve been reincarnated into cheese mold.
But she pulls it together. “You bet,” she says in a thick buttery voice that has to be worth at least a ten-dollar tip. God, she hopes so. Reid would lay down a twenty for this performance. She forces out the pièce de résistance that would bring down the house. She leans across the counter to boost her cleavage. “You just never know…do you? When, that is.” Suck on that one, dirtbag. Enjoy it. It’s all you’ll ever get. She smiles and leisurely pushes away from the counter, relishing his flushed face and flared nostrils. So simple, she thinks. Like pushing buttons. Pathetic.
She pours his coffee and leaves to deliver other orders, but she knows his eyes follow her, his mind jerks out of control with the first come-on he’s probably had in years. He doesn’t finish his coffee, and when he leaves he fans his fat wad of bills at the register, like proof that he was deserving of her attentions.
She scoops up his offering. His five-dollar tip is more than she deserved for a simple order of coffee and a short stack. She should be grateful. But she’s not. It’s still not enough to make up for the rest of her tips. Sundays are usually her best day. She counts on that. Tables are fast and friendly. But not this Sunday.
And the worst is not over. She still has to go to Mama’s to search for the registration sticker. She’s put it off all weekend. She gathers her things and contemplates whether to tip the cook before she leaves. Tip for what? But if she doesn’t, things might be even worse next time. She drops two bucks in his tip jar. Two bucks she can’t afford to give up but can’t afford not to either. He notices and nods. Don’t forget that the next time I work and your thick brain can’t tell the difference between a french fry and a stick up your ass, she wants to say, but instead she ruffles the few dollars in her pocket, smiles, and waves good-bye.
Thirty-Five
“Mama?”
The word sticks in her throat. Barely leaves her lips. The front room is dark. A slice of golden light spills from the kitchen. Another dim glow comes from the hall. The house is unchanged. Newspapers stream from coffee table to floor. Half-filled glasses perch on vacant dusty surfaces, the TV, windowsill, floor, whatever is closest in reach. Blinds are drawn tight, as always, so day and night make no difference. But the smell hits Zoe the hardest. She can almost give it a name now, that rancid mixture of dust, darkness, and surrender. She keeps her breaths shallow, her steps light, so she doesn’t sink into it all. She is here for the sticker and nothing more. She has a room now—a room she aims to keep. Zoe knows how to read the quiet. Mama is in bed, but Zoe doesn’t want her to stir just the same. She wants to search through the mountain of mail, get the registration sticker, and be gone. How have these weeks changed Mama? She is not sure she wants to know.
She lifts her feet carefully as she walks to the kitchen, but as soon as she enters its doorway, she knows she will not be slipping in unnoticed. Hardly. Grandma sits at the kitchen table, alone, her head resting in her hands. She leans forward, her heavy breasts pushing against the table’s edge, her face unseen, only the wrinkled hands expressing anything to Zoe.
Grandma’s hands.
Chapped.
Knobby.
Clutching a face Zoe can’t see.
Grandma senses her presence and startles upward, her hands dropping to the table, but as she absorbs who has invaded her silence, she settles back into the kitchen chair, large and hard. Her face is expressionless, her eyes dark and circled.
“Where’s Mama?” Zoe asks.
“You come with bags, or without?”
“Is she okay?”
“Because I don’t have time to waste chewing fat with you. If you’re here to stay, that’s another thing—”