Chapter 7 - Chelsea
“Order up. Cathy.”
He obviously doesn’t mean me, so I focus on the customers who just sat down. This is my first shift. The manager, Gayle, hired me on the spot yesterday and said I could start the next day. I have plenty of waitressing experience.
The downside is the shift starts at 5:30. I’ve done that before too, when I was in high school, and then later, when I took classes at the community college. I hated getting up so early for the opening shifts then, though the regulars were a bunch of sweethearts. The upside is that here I can walk to work in five minutes. New York is so quiet at 5 AM it’s a little spooky.
“Cathy. Hey, new girl!”
“Excuse me,” I say to my customers and run over to the kitchen.
“Do you mean me?”
“Is your name Cathy?”
“No, it’s—”
“More bacon!”
He turns away and spends the rest of my shift calling me new girl. Gayle asks me if I want to stay through lunch and I say okay. I’ve been in the city a week so the more money the better. It slows down for a bit, but there’s no down time.
They have an app for lunch orders. I’m surprised to see the orders that have printed out during the breakfast rush. Gayle explains that they give a dollar off for every hour before noon that you order, up to five dollars off. The people who order at 7AM only—Only!—have to pay fifteen bucks for their sandwich.
I’m put to work wrapping sandwiches. Apparently, I’m not experienced enough to make them, I also bag and tag the orders.
The printer dies and, while Gayle fusses and swears at it, we resort to writing everything down. And by we I mean me.
When I clock out at the end of my shift, I’m pleasantly surprised by my tip total. In all my years of waitressing back home I never made that much in one shift. Today, however, almost no one used cash, so I have a whopping seventeen bucks in my pocket.
I grab one of the broken cookies that we can’t sell and fill my travel mug with coffee. Then I leave the restaurant. I decide to go eat down on the Promenade. I collapse on the first bench I see and unwrap the cookie.
It’s delicious, chocolate with chocolate chips. I devour it, even picking the little crumbs off the plastic wrap. It’s the only thing I’ve eaten all day and now I realize I’m absolutely starving.
“Go away,” I tell a pigeon who is wandering closer. “I don’t have anything else and, even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you.”
I should have taken the sandwich,I think. Gayle offered me one when I was leaving, but I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I sigh and pull out my phone. There are texts from my mom and my dad, both wishing me good luck. One from Sam.
Good tips?
We did tons of shifts together in high school.
Best day ever,I text back. I hesitate and add, Mostly cashless.
Fuck,she sends back. Then she calls.
“Hi.”
“Cashless, how shitty.”
“I know.”
“Remember when we paid for our prom dresses with mostly ones?”
I laugh. We had to drive a couple of towns over to a bridal shop. At the end of every shift at the diner, we’d trade our tips back in for twenties or tens, but each of us still ended up with piles of ones in our sock drawers.
“So it was okay?”
“Fine. Busy. Like crazy busy. I’m exhausted.”
“I’m sorry the design job didn’t work out. That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
I was deliberately vague when I explained that.
She spends a good five minutes complaining about her job and wishing she was in New York with me.
“Well, come visit me soon,” I say.
“Working on it.”
We hang up and I start home. I stop at the supermarket to buy something for dinner. The prices still knock my socks off.
Tomorrow I’m taking that sandwich,I decide. And anything else Gayle will let me have for free.
“And one bag,” the cashier says.
“Huh?”
“Ten cents a bag,” she says pointing to the sign.
Oh my god,I think. How could I forget?
“We sell reusable.”
Those are two fifty.
“Thanks, but I just forgot mine,” I say.
Mom made me pack five of hers. She has about forty in her car. Sam, on the other hand, gave me a giant box of condoms as a going away present.
I promise myself I’ll hang them on the front doorknob—the bags, not the condoms—when I get home. I’ll take them with me everywhere from now on. The five-minute walk to my apartment seems to take forever.
“Hey. Hey, Chelsea.”
I turn around. Scott is heading down the street towards me.
“Hi.”
“Let me.” He grabs the bag out of my hands. “What’s for dinner? Soup? Just kidding. How are you?”
He stops and looks at me. I realize he’s staring at my waist. I look down and slap my forehead in disgust. I never took my apron off.
“Rough day?” he says.
“It was…intense,” I admit. “You’re home early.”
“I was out in Bensonhurst, looking at properties. You want to…”
“What?”
“Look at them, online, you know? I mean, you like that stuff, right?”
“I don’t know. I need a shower, and to eat—”
“I need to eat too. Just come upstairs after you shower. Or not. No pressure.”
He smiles. I have an overwhelming urge to run my fingers through his sandy brown hair. It’s a bit disheveled. He seems to get more good looking each time I see him. His brown eyes are kind, but they also seem to go right through me. I shiver and it runs everywhere throughout my body. And I mean everywhere.
At the brownstone he hands me my bag.
“I’ll be up in a bit,” I tell him.
When I get inside, I immediately open a can of soup.
“Four fucking dollars,” I mutter as it heats up in the microwave. Then I take a long hot shower. My whole body seems to remember I got up at five this morning and it is not happy about it.
I’m too tired to care how I look so I throw on some yoga pants and a t-shirt and head outside. Scott takes a minute to answer the door.
“I have to—”
He runs away from me, down the hall, leaving me to shut the door. I follow him into the kitchen. It smells delicious. When I get there, he is taking a baking sheet out of the oven.
“Garlic bread? Can I…”
I reach out for it. The smell is tantalizing. He grabs my hand and pushes it away.
“Sorry, it’s super-hot.”
He sets the pan on the cooktop and pulls out a bowl. He unloads the bread into the bowl and sets it on the island, gesturing for me to sit. I grab a piece and sigh with delight when the buttery goodness hits my tongue.
I grab another piece and gobble it down just as quickly. Then I reach for a third.
“You okay?”
“I’m sorry.” I pull my hand back. “I kind of forgot to eat today.”
“Eat then. I was going to open some Chianti. You want some?’
I look at the clock on the microwave. 3:48. He laughs.
“It’s like midnight in Italy, right?”
“Why are you eating so early?” I can’t resist, I take another piece of garlic bread. “Did you forget to eat too?”
“No time.” He shrugs and taps at his watch. “I walked seven miles today.”
“Seven miles? Why didn’t you drive?”
He shrugs.
“It’s such a goddamn pain in the…it’s not that big of a neighborhood, but I was walking back and forth all day. Met with one realtor than the others.”
He sets a large glass of wine in front of me.
“Hey, can I have some water too?”
I just realized I barely had anything to drink all day. Being dehydrated and then wine will make 5AM tomorrow even more miserable. Ugh.
“Help yourself.”
He points to a cupboard. I grab a glass and fill it with ice and water from the fridge and quickly chug it. Then I refill it and bring it to the island. He brings his laptop over and sits next to me. He types on it and slides it over to me.
“What do you think?” he says, leaning in close.
I think you smell amazing,that’s what I think. I look at him. His eyes are sparkling with excitement. He looks like a kid at Christmas.
Focus,I tell myself and look down at the laptop.
“Can I?”
I reach for the mouse pad.
“Please. What do you think?”
What do I think? It’s horrible. I scroll through the pictures, becoming more and more flabbergasted. It’s listed at $999,999. I can’t believe it.
“That bad, huh?” He picks up a piece of garlic bread. “Give it to me. Be brutal.”
“Okay.” I shake my head. “No curb appeal. Wallpaper, what is that?”
“Oh, that was special.” He pulls out his phone and taps on it. “Take a look.”
I’m speechless. It’s some sort of cartoon of naked people, men and women, in bathtubs. The women have these very droopy boobs, but that’s not the worst of it. The water is red.
“Is that…”
“I know.” He laughs. “Looks like they are taking baths in blood.”
“Why?”
He shakes his head.
“Damned if I know.”
“Well, the final reveal would definitely be dramatic.” I scroll down some more. “Is that trash in the backyard?”
“Yep.”
“Wow,” I say shutting the laptop.
“Wouldn’t it be fun to make it nice though? I mean, there’s going to be a lot of headaches, I’m sure. But in the end, it will be worth it.”
“What about acting?”
He shakes his head.
“Not going to happen. I made myself come to terms with that. It will be okay. Not my path I guess.”
He smiles, but I can see the sadness in his eyes. I hate it. Why am I being so stubborn about this? He’s a nice guy—very nice, in every way I can think of. Why shouldn’t we help each other out?
You just don’t want to get up at 5AM tomorrow,a little voice in my head says.
No, I don’t,I tell it. So fuck off.
“Scott…”
“Yeah?”
“I think…”
“What?”
“We should do the show. The renovation one.”
“You mean it?”
I take a deep breath and nod.
“I do.”
“What about…”
“What?”
“Pretending to be engaged.”
“Well, that’s still nuts, but like you said, it’s reality TV. What’s faker than that?”
“Wow.” He shakes his head. “You surprised me. I wasn’t going to try to talk you into it tonight. I just figured…”
“What?”
“Um, why not have dinner together, if we’re both hungry?”
“Why not?” I pick up my glass. “A toast?”
He picks up his own class.
“What are we toasting?”
“We just got engaged, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, right.”
We clink and sip.
Now what?I think. I have no idea. But the light is back in Scott’s eyes and, right now, that’s all I care about.