It was pretty quiet, given the time, and Janice had the only other table that was currently occupied, so I was forced to wait on Ames. "Hello again," he said to me with a grin. I gave him dagger eyes and motioned drinking again, and he smiled and said, "I'll have some coffee, please." He said "coffee" with a New York accent and then smiled hugely at me like he'd just cracked the world's greatest joke, and I rose an eyebrow sarcastically and turned away from him. I poured the coffee and brought it back to him, and then I scrunched up my face. "What?" he asked, glancing down at his shirt. I ripped a sheet off my pad and wrote, You have paint in your hair. He laughed, "Oh, yea. So I do." And smiled at me. I bit my lip, placed his coffee down, and hurried away to get the newlyweds' food order. When I came back, Ames was sipping his coffee calmly, giving me a poker face. I crossed my arms at him and just stared straight into his eyes until he broke and that same little grin came back to his mouth. I sighed dramatically and turned, though I had nothing else to do. “Looks like you don’t have much to do,” Ames said playfully, “Why don’t you come sit by me?” I glared at him and shook my head. He stuck out his bottom lip, pleading, and said, “Come on,” drawing out ‘on’. Janice, who was clueless to the fact that I didn’t want to sit next to Ames, walked up then and said, “Go ahead, Melissa. No one’s coming in here for a while anyway.” Put into an awkward spot, I made my way around the counter and sat awkwardly next to Ames, examining my nails and avoiding eye contact. Ames leaned over toward me and said, “You look awful cute in that uniform, you know.” I blushed, but then cleared my face and wrote on my order pad, I look awfully cute in everything. Ames laughed out loud and slapped my back, with force that surprised me and almost threw me off my stool. He picked up his coffee and said, pointing to it, “This is good.” I smiled and nodded in agreement. “I wanted to tell you,” Ames said, “I really liked your drawing today.” I blushed again and looked back down at my nails. Thanks, I wrote, and he nodded, taking another sip of his coffee. A woman in a large coat walked in, and I stood up and gave Ames and awkward little wave, going to take her order, and he left money on the counter and picked up his backpack, the door chiming behind him.
When I got home, the house was dark. My shift had ended at 8, and Val had driven me home. My dad was probably still at work, but my mom should have been home. When I walked in, I flipped on the kitchen light and found a note on the table that said, Baby- Gone to Bryce's. Be back in time for dinner. Bryce was a woman in her late forties with brilliant, frizzy red hair that she styled elaborately and piled on top of her head. Her skin was fair and her cheekbones high, making her skin appear tight, as if it had been placed delicately onto her skull and then pulled back at the edges to get out all the air bubbles. She wore parkas and long skirts, and went everywhere barefoot. She got second glances from men because of her Snow-White-esque ruby-red lips and dazzling blue eyes, but she rarely dated because even her perfect features couldn't hide her personality, which was often too much for mens' tastes. My mom loved spending time with her, and it seemed she was always either at her house or having her over to ours. But I think she liked her more because she was fascinated and amused by her than because she actually wanted to share a friendship of mutual respect with her. I, on the other hand, really did love Bryce, and went to her for advice far more often than my mother. And I could go to her for advice, because, of course, as is to be expected from a woman like Bryce, she spoke sign language. That was how my mother and her met. Bryce frequently took in misfits- her house became like a boarding house, only minus the rent. One boy, about my age, stayed in her home for about eight months when I fifteen, and Bryce learned sign language because he was deaf. My mother saw Bryce motioning to him- Lamont, was his name- and introduced herself, and, indirectly, me, though I was not with her at the time. The whole time Lamont was staying with Bryce, my mother and her tried to set us up, but he was about as interested in me as I was in professional croquet, and, honestly, even though he couldn't talk, he had quite a mouth on him. I was glad when he left.
I folded the note and put it in the trash, and then parked myself on the couch, trying to think of excuses to not start my homework.
© 2011
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