We sat in silence a bit longer, and I finally realized I was helpless. I hated being helpless. I prided myself on being a
fixer, a self sufficient woman who didn’t need anyone’s help. I was the person people
came to
for help, not the one searching for someone to fix my problems, or my teens’ problems—and it sucked. It really fucking sucked.
“Well, I’ll come back before you leave. You need anything from me?
Anything I can do?”
He shook his head, despondency etched in his feat
ures. I couldn’t look at the kid being forced into adulthood sitting in front of me. My heart couldn't take it, and I knew was about to cry any second. I squeezed his shoulder, the best gesture of support I could muster up, and headed outside.
I sat in my car outside County contemplating the future Fernie was facing.
José said he was lucky that his grandma had a farm, a house, and enough money for food. He said it was probably going to be a meager existence, the primary reason Fernie's family left, but he wouldn’t be homeless or without any family at all. I knew there were people all over the world with less than me or Fernie. I should be happy he had somewhere and someone to go back to in Mexico, but I couldn’t help thinking of what he could’ve had in the States, the American Dream.
Fernie’s little coke stunt may not have worked out so well. OK, i
t was a total fucking failure, but he was willing to step up to the plate when his family was in need. He was willing to put the needs of his family before his own, and I had a feeling there was a little entrepreneurial spirit living in Fernie. All of that could be harnessed into something amazing, something that could contribute to the betterment of society. As it was, his chances of making it back to the States were slim, and legally even less.
My first Saturday night back to work was like riding a bike. I had Larry on the grill, and we fell into our normal routine with ease. Everyone commented on how smoothly the night went. Was I flattered? Hell yeah! But was it enough to ease up on the shitty mood I’d been in since visiting Fernie? No. Not at all. Of the six cooks working Saturday night, three of us would leave early, and three would stay to close. I was supposed to leave early, as was Larry. I knew he’d try to drag me out so I nipped that one in the bud as soon as the dinner rush died down.
“Hey Ryan, do you want me to close for you?”
He looked at me like I had horns, or four eyes. “Are you fucking with me?”
“No, really. I’ll close if you want.”
“Do I gotta pay you?” he asked. I laughed. Paying someone to close for you wasn’t unheard of. Usually there was potential sex involved for one of the guys, and a closing shift meant you weren’t getting out of there until one o'clock at the earliest. Kind of shot your chances of making it to any bars to meet up with a girl. Sometimes, people were desperate for hours as they needed the money, but if that wasn’t the case and no one would willingly take your closing shift, people started charging. I could’ve attempted to wrangle some money out of Ryan, but I was trying to work on not lying anymore.
“No. No payment. I just
, well... Do you want me to close or not?” I couldn’t explain to him why I wanted to close. Well, I could, but I was choosing not to.
“
Yeah, of course.” Ryan quickly restocked our station and left before I could change my mind. Shortly thereafter, the other two early out people left. There was a new guy closing down the fryers. It was supposed to be José closing the grill side, but when everyone cleared out I saw Larry scraping the grill grates that cooked at least three hundred pieces of meat that night alone.
“I thought you were early out, Larry.”
“I was, but José wanted to leave so I told him I’d close.”
“I can smell bullshit you know,” I
said, sniffing the air. He grumbled something, unwilling to admit he was closing because I was. I let it go. “Well, it’s been a while since we puffed on the clock.”
“Now you’re talking,” he said with a grin.
“Hey New Guy,” I called to the cook cleaning the fryers. “We’re steppin’ out. Holler if any tickets come in that you can’t handle.”
“New G
uy? That’s kinda harsh,” Larry whispered as we walked out.
“I’m still getting back into K
itchen Elle mode. Too much?” I asked.
We
stood behind the dumpster, and Larry passed me his metal pipe, which most likely was packed with schwagg. Schwagg in a metal pipe. Well, this sure was the opposite of my nuggs in a glass bowl. Seeing as how I came to work empty handed, though, something I never did two months ago, I was at his mercy.
“Eh, he’s OK,” Larry said in reference to New Guy.
“How long’s he been here?”
“About six weeks. They hired him shortly after they realized you wouldn’
t be back for a while,” Larry said, taking the pipe from my outstretched hand.
I exhaled and asked, “He any good?”
“He’s not Elle.”
“Ha! No one is, Larry. You know that.” I smiled at him.
This
was Kitchen Elle. She knew she was the best cook, and although she didn’t need to shout it from the rooftops, she was aware everyone knew and it was a good feeling. If I could get her back, maybe I could get the other Elle’s back too. A bit of new found hope sparked inside me.
“That’s the smile I’ve been missing,” Larry said, passing me the pipe.
“I’m good.” I held my hand up to indicate I was done with the schwagg. It wasn’t so much that I was high enough, I was just done with the ditch weed, and I wasn’t trying to have this conversation head into uncomfortable territory. “Let’s go in before New Guy burns some shit.”
Larry laughed. “Do you even want to know his name?”
I’d been told his name when I started my shift, and of course I forgot within the first hour. I’d called him New Guy all night when I needed something.
“No. I think K
itchen Elle would let him be New Guy for a little longer, dontchya think?”
“You’re fucking crazy, woman. And, yeah, she probably would,” Larry said
, throwing his arm around me.
I slipped out of his hold and opened the door to the kitchen. “I’ll see about his name next Saturday,” I said over my shoulder as I headed back to my station.
I didn’t think it was possible, but the night had gone well. No one asked me questions. Anytime one of the piglets tried, Larry or José shut that shit down. Even Ryan stepped in once, and he was a 'lil on the bitch-ass side. Not like I’d had the time of my life, I was at work after all, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I anticipated. I went home exhausted, and only cried a few tears before falling asleep. A few was better than hours, so I was taking that as a win.
******
I spent most of the next week at the Center. I told Genesis about Fernie and she bawled on my shoulder. It was awkward, though I tried to buck up for her, even if that meant consoling a hormonal teenage girl. Before I left, she wrote another letter for me to give Fernie. I told him I’d visit him before he left, and I'd make sure he received her letter.
The following Saturday I worked again, much to Chris’ displeasure. Like Aaron, she too caught on to my strategy of avoiding the club.
She’d been very vocal about her displeasure earlier that day.
“You bitch. You signed up to work on OUR night. Saturday nights are supposed to be for you and me. The last
two Fridays you’ve been with those teens. Now you’re taking away MY night?” She was livid. Although we were on the phone, I was sure she was in full dramatic hand gesture mode.
She forgave me, thankfully. I couldn’t handle another falling out with her.
I needed her. I’d have to find a way to make it up so I didn’t lose my rock, the one thing in my life that seemed stable. As it turned out, making it up to her it was easier than I anticipated.
José
worked Saturday night with me. Neither one of us were closing that evening. It was a slow dinner shift, considering we were walking out the doors at nine o'clock at night. That’s record time for a Saturday night. I’d begged Ryan to let me close, but Aaron told him he’d fire him if he said yes. I wanted to be pissed at Aaron, but he used his Dom voice on me, and although it didn’t make me submit to him, it did creep me out. Did he always have a Dom voice and I never noticed? Was it new? Had he just never used it around me? Did he have a Sub voice? Did I want to know any of these answers? No. I was pretty sure I was all good not knowing.
José and New Guy were standing around outside when I exited the back door. I planned to go home and wallow a bit, smoke some weed and watch True Blood or maybe Sons of Anarchy. The biggest choice I planned on making that night was Charlie Hunnam or Alexander Skarsgård.
“Hey, Elle,” José called from his black Yukon. “Wanna roll out with Chuy and
me tonight?”
“Chuy?”
José laughed. “New Guy.” Oh yeah, that was his name.
“You guys are friends? Why didn’t I know that last weekend?” I asked.
“Cuz Larry had my ass outta there fast as lightning, and was hovering over you all night like the freak he is.” I guess I missed the hovering. Actually, I think Larry always hovered and I’d learned to ignore it. If he’d kicked it up a notch last weekend, I hadn't noticed. “Come on. Come out with us.” José asked again.
“Nah, man.
I’m gonna go home and chill.” I kept walking past José’s Yukon, and got into the Monte, turning her on as soon as my butt hit the seat.
José came over to my car
, knocking on the window, and startling me. I braced myself, and rolled it down to see what he was trying to tell me. I knew what was coming.
“Hey. What’s up José?”
I asked, acting like I didn’t know.
He leaned on the Monte, bracing himself with his arm against the frame of the open window. “Come on, Elle. Come out with us. It’s been weeks. You know I got you.”
“Dude...” I trailed off, looking down. I didn’t want to go out. I wanted to go home, and curl into a ball on my sofa. “I fuckin’ stink, man. I can’t go nowhere.”
I continued looking at the floor
, waiting for José to break the silence by giving up and going on his way. “Elle, I’m pretty sure you ain’t a
heina
who needs three hours to get ready."
“
Heina
?”
“A chick, chica, a homegirl. A fine ass woman. You know?” A small smile crept across my face. First, because I
could
throw it together in record time if necessary, and second, because his impromptu Spanish slang lesson was amusing me. “There’s that smile we haven’t seen for so long. Come on. Throw some clothes on, and roll out with me and Chuy for a minute. I’ll make sure it’s all good. You ain’t gotta worry about no one.”
Was I that transparent? I didn’t think it was
that
obvious I wanted nothing to do with anyone outside of my inner sanctum, and even with them I'd been distant. Plus, Chuy had been New Guy up until ten minutes ago.
Fuck.
“Man," I sighed. "I ain’t trynna have any dudes pushin’ up on me. You know what I mean?” I couldn’t handle dealing with men trying to holla. That was a bust when Chris and I tried it at Tiny’s. Actually,
a bust
was putting it lightly. It was a disaster, a
Miley Cyrus looks like a choir girl compared to this
disaster.
“
Cielito
, I gottchya. Just come out, kick back, and enjoy life. I’ll text you my address. Roll through when you’re ready. It’ll be all good, I promise. I’ll show you the brown side of town.”
“The brown side of town
, eh? Are you finally going to tell me what
cielito
means?”
“You gotta come to find out.”
I smiled again.
“Yeah, alright. I’ll come out, but just for a minute. Yeah?”
José
beamed his toothpaste-commercial-worthy grin, and started backing away from the Monte. “That’s my girl. I'll text you my address when I get in the car.”
“Yep.” I stuck my hand out the window to wave at José, as I threw the car into DRIVE and pulled out of the parking lot.
Once I was on the road, I called Chris.
“Yo," she answered.
“Hey. You wanna roll to the brown side of town with me tonight?”
“Excuse me?”
I laughed, knowing
that would throw Chris. “I got talked into going out tonight, and I could use a wing-woman. You up for it?”
“I thought you worked
.”
“I did. Slow night. I’m gonna run home and shower.
Goin’ tennis shoes tonight. You down?”
I could hear Chris
get up and start moving when she replied, “Shit, you know it! I know I was pissy about it today, but I get it, you know, why you don’t want to go out. I didn’t figure you’d be rollin’ out for a minute after Tiny’s.”
I sighed
, something I'd been doing a lot of. I didn’t think I’d want to go out either after Tiny’s. I wasn’t sure if J was still in town as I hadn’t been to Eight Oh Eight since I got out of the hospital. And now Tiny’s was off limits, so I guess it was brown town.
“Yeah, I know. I’m hopin
’ brown town will be free of any negative energy. You know?”
“Yeah, girl, I know.” She did. Negative energy was spelled with one letter.
J.
My hope was that
going to the Latino club would be a chance to not know anyone, and for no one to know me. A chance to be anonymous. I knew there were some spots the Hispanics in town partied, but I never went to any of them.
An adventure, t
hat’s what I would look at this as. I’d get to see a whole different scene, one that held no ties to a past and a man I was trying desperately not to think about.
“Can you be ready in an hour?”
I asked my BFF, my rock, and my wing-woman for the night.
“You know it. I’ll come through and swoop you up.”
“Bet.” Click.
I went home, and made the world record for getting ready. In
sixty minutes, I transformed from hat wearing, grease monger, to black leggings, olive Nike high-tops, and a matching tank. That was the extent of my getting ready. I let my wet curls hang down to air dry, and applied minimal makeup. I didn’t have the motivation to get creative with eye shadow and liner, so it was gonna be the "natural" look this evening.
My phone was ringing as I finished packing a small, black purse. Chris’ name came up on the caller ID. I swiped the screen and told her, “I’ll be
right out.” Click.
I stood in the bathroom, taking one last look at myself. I stood straight, pulling my shoulders back, trying not to look like a broken doll. I took a breath and smiled. Fuck—it felt fake. Shaking my head, I grabbed my purse and went outsi
de. Locking the door behind me, I thought
here goes nothin'.