14. Wren
“Yo, Wren. Order up!”
I cringed as Jimmy slammed his meaty hand down on the bell, as though I hadn’t heard him hollering across the entire diner and also needed the delightfully shrill ringing to remind me that the last table I had for the night was finally ready to eat.
“Thanks, Jimmy,” I said with a disingenuous smile, which he returned.
Jimmy and I had an understanding. We did our jobs and didn’t require the same false niceties that our other coworkers and customers seemed to thrive on. There were no check-ins, no asking if the other had had a good weekend.
No bullshit.
Just an efficient and capable exchange of duties to get us both out of the diner as close to on time as humanly possible.
It worked for both of us just fine.
Sliding behind the lunch counter, I scooped up the plates from the window, snagging the little container of napkins and ketchup and made my way to the table.
“Here you go,” I said, putting my customer service smile back in place. I may have been a surly bitch most days, but tips were tips, and a smile was the best way to earn them. “One Classic Rapids burger with fries and one BLT with a green salad, dressing on the side. Anything else I can grab for you folks?”
“No, thank you, Wren,” said Mrs. Tollman, my high school English teacher. She and her husband came to the Grand Rapids Diner every Friday evening and ordered the exact same thing.
Every time.
It would have been cute if it wasn’t so fucking depressing. “Everything looks great.”
“Well, you just flag me down if you change your mind.”
I spun from the table, letting the smile drop from my face as I headed for the counter. I only had twenty minutes left in my shift, and I was dead on my feet. I’d opened the diner, dealing with the early bird breakfast crowd and the lunch rush. Now it was pushing dinnertime and I was beat. I just needed Julia to arrive and relieve me and then I was gone.
Sabrina and I had a date with a brand-new Quinton Tarantino double feature at the drive in.
I tried to kill time by filling all the sugar containers and napkin dispensers, then I swung by the Tollman’s table and filled their water glasses. Again.
When Julia was five minutes late, I started to worry.
When she was twenty minutes late, I started to panic.
But when the diner phone rang and Jimmy grabbed it, scowling at whatever the person on the other end was saying to him, that was when I knew my night was well and truly over.
There would be no double-feature horror flick for me tonight.
“Wren!” Jimmy called, slamming the receiver down with more force than was probably necessary.
“Yeah, Jim?” I asked, already knowing what my fate would be.
“I need you to stay. Julia’s not gonna make it. Said her car won’t start.”
That was bullshit. Julia drove a brand-new car, a graduation gift from her father. I remembered the day she’d gotten it, all of us forced to watch her squeal with over-the-top pleasure as we left school for the day and it was waiting for her in the parking lot, a giant red bow perched comically on top. That car cost at least five times what our family car had cost when we bought it twelve years ago, so the likelihood of it having any kind of engine trouble was extremely low.
The likelihood of Julia having a date that she didn’t want to miss so she could slave away at the summer job her rich father insisted she get to ‘teach her the value of a dollar’ was exponentially higher.
“Sure, Jim,” I sighed, resigned. “No problem.”
But it was a problem. It was a big fucking problem.
I was still chewing on my anger when Sabrina showed up about five minutes later, looking hot in a pair of cut-off jeans and a strappy black tank top.
“Wren, let’s go. We’re gonna be late. Why are you not dressed?”
Blowing my hair out of my face, I let out a feral sounding growl as I furiously wiped down a stack of menus, tossing them haphazardly into a pile that I’d only have to organize myself later, but I was too fucking mad to care.
“Because Julia is having car trouble and won’t be making it for her shift tonight,” I said, not bothering to hide my anger.
“Oh, fuck that,” Sabrina barked, drawing a disapproving frown from Mrs. Tollman, where she was finishing the last of her salad. I gave her an apologetic wave before turning back to Bri.
“Keep it down.”
“That stupid hag doesn’t have car trouble. She’s got boy trouble. She’s been banging the guy from the hardware store behind her boyfriend’s back for weeks.”
“What?” I asked, pausing in my wiping to stare at her in shock. “Which guy?”
“The one with the tattoos,” Sabrina said, curling her lips in a devilish smirk.
“No way! He’s, like, thirty!”
“He’s thirty-two,” she corrected, and I cackled.
“That’s insane. What would someone our age even do with a guy like that?”
The guy in question was hot. Like, really hot. I had needed to pick up some light bulbs two weeks ago, and didn’t want to make the trip all the way across the river to the Walmart, so I’d ducked into the hardware store downtown to save some time. That was when I saw him, helping someone in the plumbing department, looking like he’d just stepped out of a tattoo magazine, all dark and sexy. I’d looked—of course I had—but then I’d done the sensible thing and turned my ass around and paid for my light bulbs.
A guy like that would mean nothing but trouble for a girl like me.
“She’s doing what any sane woman would do if a guy like that gave her the time of day,” Sabrina replied, oozing confidence I could never imagine having. “She’s riding him for all she’s worth and pissing off her daddy at the same time.”
I thought about it, what my inexperienced self would do with a grown man who had probably been with more girls than I would like to actually consider. I could feel my cheeks reddening, the imagined embarrassment I’d feel when I was a complete dud in the sack making me uncomfortable.
Fuck. How did I ever expect to lose my virginity when I couldn’t even think about having sex with someone without blushing like a moron?
I was going to die alone.
The night wore on with Sabrina pouting from her seat at the counter, deciding that nursing a milkshake while I toiled away was an acceptable compromise to our broken movie night. Customers came and went, and I told myself that if nothing else, the extra money would be worth it.
And I almost believed it, too, until the bell over the door rang and in walked my fucking nemesis.
The one and only Denise McQueen.
She floated into the diner, her tight jean shorts and pastel pink crop top leaving her suntanned skin on display for everyone to admire. Her golden blonde hair was bouncy in the kind of beachy waves I could never hope to achieve, and her horde of preening clones followed behind her, emulating her style and her attitude to the best of their abilities.
I watched as she swanned in, ignoring the ‘please wait to be seated’ sign and helping herself to the large corner booth where she sat primly, Jason Mason flopping down beside her like a felled tree.
“Oh, that’s just perfect,” Sabrina groaned, holding her milkshake covered straw up and letting it drip into her mouth. “As if our night wasn’t bad enough already. Now you have to serve the Queen Bitch?”
“That’s McQueen Bitch, to you, Bri,” I replied dryly, not taking my eyes off their table.
I didn’t see much of Denise these days, mostly on account of her having followed Jason to the D1 school he was drafted to on the West Coast, but also because I tried to avoid her like the plague.
But it was summer, and she and all her cohorts were back in town, hanging at the local coffee shops and hot spots, laughing loudly and making sure everyone knew exactly how awesome college was treating them.
Good for them, or whatever.
It had gotten even worse since Jason Mason had popped the question at the Fourth of July Picnic last week. The whole fucking town had swooned, fawning over Denise the way she always loved, gasping over the ring and how perfect they would be together.
I had wanted to gag.
Personally, my life had been a thousand times more pleasant when Denise and her hoard of crones had left for college for ten months of the year, but unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and summer brought them all back to town and back into my nightmares.
“Why do they always have to sit in my section?” I grumbled, and Bri snorted.
“Babe, you’re the only one here. It’s all your section.”
“Valid.”
Blowing out a sigh, I gathered enough menus for the table and headed over, ready to face the music.
“Welcome to the Grand Rapids Diner. Can I get you started with something to drink?”
“Wren?” Denise asked, feigning surprise. “You still work here? I thought for sure you would have found something better by now?”
“Nope,” I said with a brittle smile. “Still here. Drinks?”
“I’ll take a beer,” Jason said, smirking at me.
“Can I see some ID?” I asked, knowing we had graduated together and we were both still nineteen.
Jason scowled and slumped farther into the booth. “Coke, then.”
The other girls at the table rattled off their drink orders until it was just Denise left. I turned to her expectantly, not loving the calculating look in her eye.
“I’ll take a chocolate milkshake.”
There was a pause at the table, like everyone was holding their breath. In all the years I’d known her, I’d never seen Denise consume anything that could even be considered unhealthy—unless you counted Jason Mason, which she had done with alarming regularity in the halls of our high school—so it was a shock to all of us that she would order what could only be described as diabetes in a cup.
When she didn’t change her mind, I nodded and turned away, busying myself with the drink order before returning to the table, my tray loaded with glasses.
“I’ll be right back to take your food orders,” I said after I had delivered the drinks and walked away, but froze when there was a loud crash behind me. Turning, I spotted Denise, leaned over Jason with a comical look of surprise on her face.
And on the floor, right beside their table, was the milkshake, smashed against the tiles and spreading like a chocolate blood stain between us.
“Oops,” she said, blinking at me, intentionally holding her left hand over her mouth so that she could flash her engagement ring. “Was that me?” I had never wanted to claw someone’s eyes out more than I did in that moment. “I’m just so clumsy tonight. You’d better clean that up.”
I stared at her, my anger bubbling in my chest as the people at her table—people I had known my entire life—laughed at my expense.
These people who had teased me relentlessly when my father had lost his job. When my clothes were all second-hand. When my shoes had holes in them.
These wretched humans, whose only boon in life had been being born to parents that were richer than mine, were currently snickering over the fact that I had to clean up their mess.
Someone was always cleaning up their mess.
Gritting my teeth, I swallowed my rage and grabbed a bus pan and a stack of towels, setting them on the floor beside the chocolate puddle and lowered myself to my knees, needing to gather all the large shards of glass before I could bring out the mop from the back.
“Well,” came Denise’s saccharine voice. “Isn’t this a familiar sight. A Blackburn woman, on her knees, cleaning up after me.”
Jason snickered, stomping his foot at the comment and subsequently splashing the spilled chocolate milkshake all over my arms and face.
I hated them.
I hated her.
I hated Denise McQueen and her whole fucking family with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns.
For as long as I could remember, her family had been making my family’s life hell, in every way they possibly could.
Because they had always held all the power, and we had none.
And that didn’t appear like it was ever going to change.
So I did what I always did. I choked down my anger, swallowed that burning ball of rage, and I buried it deep inside. Later, when I was alone and I could examine those feelings without the risk of stabbing Denise with a soup spoon, I would use them. I would write them down and turn a lifetime of torment into something beautiful and purifying.
But for now, I lowered my head and finished cleaning up the mess.