Wil Dalton was kind enough to let us post his story on our substack. If you dig his piece, why not pick up the whole anthology? But also, don’t miss out on Craig Clevenger’s latest.
Help Wanted
Ten minutes. Pull it together. Owner acted impressed at the mall. Said you had peacock personality. After Lily kept you up all over the night before with her coughing and crying! This interview is just a formality. You can do this. Good days ahead.
Still.
I tilt the rear view mirror and rate my face. It’s an eight. Easy. The eyeliner suggests bubbly and smart, but I should have passed on the eyeshadow. No one tips extra for raccoon eyes. I check my teeth. Reapply lipstick. Eddie says my lips bring him back after every escape. Says kissing anyone else feels like kissing the dirty, sticky floor.
Let’s pray Eddie stays long gone.
Lily deserves a dad who reads her to sleep and whispers when she’s napping. A dad who enjoys wiping booboo out her little butt, because it means more time together. Ha! In a perfect world, Lily would also get organic bananas and one of those mechanical baby rockers. Maybe then she’d actually sleep at night.
Can you make it through this interview on one Excedrin?
Two it is.
And of course you dribble water on the stupid shirt from the back of the closet that Andrea insisted you wear. Too thin. Too tight on your Mom bra. The bra that Andrea told you to ditch and let your clown-nose areolas promise to show up early to every shift and remember every order and sell double the specials. Start them this weekend.
Sweet Andrea. Cooing over Lily. Pep-talking you out the door with her, “If this guy said you could be a great waitress with next to nothing experience, he’s only hiring you because he thinks you’ll attract repeat customers.”
I leave the bra on the backseat and hold my head high as I walk with confidence towards the restaurant. A plastic bag blows across the empty parking lot and tangles around my ankle. I kick it away and hope the owner isn’t watching through the tinted windows, stenciled with jumbo white letters spelling the words: Fun. Food. Friends.
Let’s go, Excedrin.
Let’s go, Diva Cup. You should have backed it up with a pad. Why didn’t you back it up with a pad? Periods are the cruelest curse.
I pull the handle. I push. The door stays shut. Through the glass, tables sit empty except for the little caddy with the napkins and ketchup bottles and salt and pepper shakers. Ocean memorabilia decorates the walls. Back behind the tables, a shadow crosses the floor. I knock on the door.
A short woman hurries to the front, wiping her hands on the front of her apron.Her broad shoulders look perfect for a child to rest her head upon. She opens the door and flashes a warm smile like an aunt on Christmas. Until her eyes move from my face to my chest. Her lips thin. The wind whips my curly black hair across my face. Her wiry hair is pulled back into a loose bun.
“Can I help you?” she asks, straining to return her lips to a smile.
Pulling my hair back, I say, “I have an appointment with Andrew?”
“Do you?” she says. She eyeballs me like I’ve stashed the salt and pepper shakers in my handbag. “Andrew isn’t here.”
She starts to shut the door.
I put my hand on the frame and ask, “When will he be back?”
“He didn’t say,” she says, eyeing my hand still on the door.
I tighten my grip and say, “Andrew said you just lost two waitresses.”
The woman shrugs and points with her nose across the parking lot to my car and says, “We’ll be fine. You should go.”
Lily deserves jackets that aren’t already labeled with some other kid’s name. Lily needs those toys that teach math physics.
I edge my foot closer to the threshold. “Sign says you’re hiring.”
“For a cook,” she says.
“I can cook,” I say.
The older woman narrows her eyes. Resistance drains from her face. She steps away from the door and motions me in.
“Okay,” she says. “Make me an omelet.”
She leads me behind the serving counter under the giant net and anchor decoration and into the kitchen. She points to the large silver door of a walk-in refrigerator and says, “Most everything will be prepackaged and cut already. You don’t need to go past the fridge door. Please don’t over-salt.”
“Do you have an idea when Andrew will return?” I ask.
She stops and stares, and the temperature in the kitchen drops. Goosebumps ripple my arms.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t ask your name.”
She shakes her head and returns to the dining area and sits across from the large window.
Don’t you worry. You got this. It’s omelet time.
Should you wear gloves? If only you knew where everything was stored.
The kitchen is spotless and organized and upscale department store spacious. Large, non-stick skillets hang from ceiling hooks over the stainless steel prep table. Metal spatulas magnetically stick to the backsplash, arranged by size. A photo of Andrew and the woman, younger and laughing and riding a boat, hangs over the server counter.
The burner clicks. Flames fire. I warm a skillet.
“Is Andrew your husband?” I yell.
The woman nods, stays looking out the window.
Several aprons hang from a rack by the walk-in refrigerator door. I drape one over my braless chest and tie it around my waist.
Inside the refrigerator, several containers of cut vegetables are stacked on wire-rack shelves. Mushrooms on top of peppers on top of onions. A large bag of shredded cheese is tied off beside several gallons of whole milk. The eggs sit on a large flat of fifty or more, about eight flats deep. Who knew you could buy that many eggs? I grab five and cradle them in the apron back to the prep table.
As the onions start to sizzle, the woman yells, “How long have you known my husband?”
“Wouldn’t say I know him,” I shout back. “He saw me at the mall a couple days ago. Said you needed a waitress who could start immediately.”
She shakes her head. “That’s a sweet lie.”
I toss in the peppers and mushrooms. Shake some salt onto the pan. The smell of sautéing onions fills the kitchen. The mushrooms shrink and brown.
One of the eggs rolls off the table and cracks beneath my feet.
“No use crying over spilled milk,” I say softly and then apologize to my braless chest and the many nights of pumping. You’ve cried plenty over spilled milk.
At home, I would wipe the egg off the floor with a cloth, but this is an interview, and I want to show how thoroughly I clean, so I try the door past the freezer, looking for a bucket and mop, and when I pull it open, the light hits a pair of legs sprawled across the floor. I stifle my scream as I recognize the owner’s face and
crouch down, tap his leg and whisper, “Andrew? Andrew!”
His cheek is cold. His skin is pale. A small hole above his eye leaks a thin red line down his nose that trails over his lips past his chin onto his chest.
I close the door.
You can pretend you didn’t see anything. This has nothing to do with you. Lily needs her mom to come home now.
Better days ahead.
On the table where Andrew’s wife is sitting, is my handbag, is my cell phone. But beside the server window, a black phone hangs on the wall. The wife continues to stare out the large window. I carefully lift the phone off its handle, dial 9-1-1, and set the receiver on the counter, out of view. Dispatch will trace the call and send someone to investigate. That’s how it works, right? Should be quick. I passed a police station a few blocks before the restaurant, at the light after the affordable pedicure place.
I grab a dishcloth and wipe the egg off the floor. I scrape the mushroom and pepper and onion loose before adding the other eggs to the skillet.
The wife calls out. “I had hair like yours when I was younger. Andrew would brush it when we watched movies together. Run his fingers through the curls. He had real stamina for making me feel loved.”
The wife laughs and says, “Like I was the only girl in the world.”
Relax. Breathe. Grab a plate and spatula out the eggs. Say you forgot your list of references in the car. Run out the door. Floor it out of here.
I set the dish on the table before the wife. She glances down and says, “This looks like a scramble.”
Beside her my handbag rests on the table, holding my cell phone and keys.
“How does it feel?” the wife asks.
“Good,” I lie. “I need to learn where everything is kept, but I’ve worked in kitchens similar to this before.”
“No,” the wife says and reaches for a fork. “Not to cook. To take what’s not yours.”
“Excuse me?” I say.
“Did my Andrew brush your hair?” the wife says and takes a bite.
I reach across to snatch my bag and she grabs my arm and holds it tight. She grits her teeth and says, “Answer me. Did my Andrew brush your hair?”
“Please, let go,” I say and pull back.
The wife slides her hand under her apron and pulls out a gun. “Sit.”
I plop into a chair at the next table. She places the gun beside her plate of eggs.
“You’re not showing as much as I expected. Not in the belly. Not yet,” the wife says, sizing me up, recalling my shape under the apron. “But your tits…”
“You’re making a mistake,” I start.
“Andrew already had a family,” the woman hisses.
Past the glass, the only car in the parking lot is my own. But any moment now, police cruisers will skid to a stop outside the restaurant. The blue and red lights will strobe through the large window.
“Andrew told me you already had a name for his baby. I’d like to hear it,” the wife says. “Poor child. Her soul, I’ll pray for.”
Where were the sirens?
By now there should be sirens.
“Help,” I shout back at the kitchen, at the black phone out of view.
The wife slaps her hand on the table. I jump up and the chair crashes to the floor behind me.
“Please, no, no, no…” I cry.
The wife leans forward and spits at me. The slop of spittle lands on the floor between the tables. The wife stands and picks up the gun and points it at my head. I hold out my hand and shut my eyes. I want to see Lily smiling up at me from her crib, but all I can recall is the hole above Andrew’s eye. I trip backwards over the chair. My legs flail and I kick the chair away. I scoot away from the wife. I hold my breath.
The wife wavers. She says, “There’s blood on your pants.”
I gasp. Tears run down my cheeks.
She says, “You leaked a little.”
“I’m not pregnant,” I say, between wheezing breaths. “I got an eleven-month old daughter.”
The wife covers her mouth.
“I can’t handle more,” I say. “I can barely handle her.”
The wife sets the gun back on the table and pushes it away.
“I met Andrew last weekend in line at the pretzel stand,” I say. “In the mall. He said he was hiring. That’s it. That’s all I know about him.”
The wife shakes her head. “I think I thought you were someone else.”
I rise, steady myself, and grab my handbag. “I should go.”
The wife nods and returns to her seat by the window. She picks at her omelet as Iopen the door to leave. A rush of warm air hits me as my eyes adjust to the sun. I want to go home and shower and change. Hold Lily close. Never let her go.
Absolutely zero police cars wait in the parking lot. No sirens wail in the distance. On the other side of the glass, the wife slides her hand under her apron strings and rubs her neck. Her nails are cloudy and cut at toe-clipper angles. I wonder if she knows aboutthe mani-pedi place not far from here.
I walk back into the restaurant. Return the black wall phone to its receiver. Text Andrea that I will be a little late to pick up Lily. Then, I start a pot of coffee.
Thank you, Sebastian! Thank you, Paige! Thank you, Craig! Everyone please buy and share and review as wide as you can 🙏 Best read while eating diner eggs, cooked whichever way you like!