I pull the pin.
“Fuck!” someone shouts, and everyone immediately scrambles for cover. I drop the grenade and rush for the door.
I barely even have time to open it before my world is engulfed in a fireball of destruction.
17
Nia
6 weeks later...
It hits me like a tsunami, buckling my knees and forcing me to turn away.
I push through the kitchen door and barely make it to the bathroom before I puke my guts up in the toilet.
Fucking hell, I haven’t had the flu since I was a teenager, but now it’s smacking me over the head like a bully making up for lost time. I can’t afford to be sick. This is the second day in a row I’ve spent on my knees in the dingy bathroom of my new job at the Mars diner uptown.
A pang of dread works its way through my heart as I pray that the customer I just abandoned, mid-order, isn’t going to complain to my new boss.
Ms. Lindsay is nothing like Mrs. Cheng. The hard-nose, bitter woman is a chain manager through and through, and there’s not an empathetic bone in her body. This is purely business to her—she didn’t even give Carlos time off to grieve his uncle last Sunday. In fact, she gave him a choice: go and never come back, or stay and keep your job a little longer. He didn’t have much of a choice, and neither do I. Things are as fucked up as ever, and the prospect of not being able to pay the bills is almost becoming a matter of life and death, especially as the city continues to descend into crime-filled chaos.
“You okay, Nia?” I hear Carlos’s voice come from the other side of the half-closed bathroom door. I’m so thankful that we were both somehow able to get a new job at the same place. After Chelly’s was forced to temporarily close down, my biggest worry, besides the money, was not being able to see Carlos as much anymore. I don’t know what I’d do without my best friend.
“Just trying to puke up the last bit of poison,” I try to joke, before another wave of nausea kicks my gut and forces me to lurch into the toilet.
Thank god Ms. Lindsey isn’t here yet. She usually doesn’t make it into work until around noon, and so, as long as no customer complaints come over the wire, I should be safe from her scorn. I don’t know if I can handle being told off right now. My whole life is so much more fragile than it was even just two months ago. I’ve hit new low-points and I’m feeling just about ready to shatter.
Life sure is a motherfucker, and she’s got a mean left hand... and a mean right hand too—I don’t ever want to find out what her kick feels like.
The bathroom door creaks behind me and Carlos steps in. The cook smells so strongly of food that I can’t help but throw up my guts again.
Fuck me, I just can’t catch a break. This is what I get for ever daring to dream...
I quickly shoo that thought from my mind. Don’t you ever think about that man ever again! I order myself. A sneer comes over my dripping lips and I force myself back onto my feet. At least the anger is good for getting me going again—it’s all I can ask for at a time like this.
“You think it’s from the food here?” Carlos asks, as he helps me wash up. His eyes dart back and forth between me and the door. Mars isn’t Chelly’s. There are two other waitresses and another cook who work the same shifts as us, and there’s no room for descent. As hard as it was being on my own out on the floor before, it’s way more stressful having to always watch my back for saboteurs and gossips.
I shrug, splashing a bit of water on my flushed faced. “It has to be, I’ve barely eaten anything for the past two weeks, other than the leftovers I can manage to sneak when Betty and Agatha aren’t looking.
“Damn, I don’t envy you at all, girl,” Carlos teases, leaning against the bathroom’s white brick wall. “At least Allan’s cool about sharing the spoils.”
I shudder at Allan’s name. He may give Carlos all the scraps the two can eat, but he gives me the creeps. The sickly thin, patchy-haired, no-lipped chef never seems to be able to do anything but stare when I’m around. It makes me so uncomfortable, but I can’t afford to complain. He’s been here longer than I have, and Ms. Lindsay has made it all too clear that I’m expendable.
I don’t feel expendable...
“Jones!” Agatha’s voice calls from the kitchen.
Shit. I need to get back to work. “Thanks, baby,” I whisper, instinctively kissing Carlos on the cheek.
“Ew!” he screams playfully, careful to keep his voice down.
Oh yeah, the puke. “Sorry!”
“See you after work,” he calls after me, as I wipe my mouth with my lily-white server’s uniform and rush back to the floor.
“I’m not taking your customers,” Agatha grumbles as I rush past her. I try not to pay her any mind. She’s a grumpy old lady, and speaking to her makes me want to get out of here almost more than I want the money I get paid to stay.
I incessantly apologize to my customer, but he looks suspicious. I’m not surprised by his reaction. I can’t imagine I was very subtle when I covered my mouth and ran from him before he could give me his full order. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together would know that I had just thrown up. I try to keep my distance, so he doesn’t smell the incident on my breath. I’ll take some mouthwash when I’m finished with him.