Lana

 

I walk to work dressed in a long overcoat. I clutched my heels in my hand, and the wind whipped my hair. Walking like this, it’s hard not to feel like a hooker or a stripper, or something in between. Some hooker-stripper stalking the early morning on her way to earn a few bucks by pleasuring men who will leave her the moment they’re done. The fact that the truth is a little better can only give me so much comfort. Dressing in a bikini and heels to highlight your curvaceous, petite body, serving businessmen who offer leers and “charming” comments as often as tips is only a few rungs up the Whore Ladder—some would say. But screw it, I tell myself. A woman’s got to make a living.

 

Twin Peaks rises out of the morning mist like a stone prison, before its more appealing features come into view: the large neon coffee mug, flashing through the fog; the castle-style door, a giant oval yawning onto the street; a statue out front of a fat-bellied man downing a keg of coffee, the words Twin Peaks scrawled across his chest by some enthusiastic customer and left there by David Hogan, my boss and multiple divorcee.

 

As I get ready for the morning shift, I tell myself: “Listen, you’re just doing this for cash. That’s all. Just cash.” I tell myself this a lot, sometimes out loud, sometimes just inside my head, but however I say it I always have to try and believe it, believe it with that commitment which drives me through the shifts. I. Am. Doing. This. For. A. Reason. If you can keep the reason straight in your mind, I’ve learned, you can get through anything.

 

I take off the overcoat and slip out of my t-shirt and sweatpants and stow them in the locker. Then I stand in front of the full-length mirror and study myself. Short, blonde, curvy, eyes just as golden as my hair. Yes, I think, yes, here she is, here is a Grade-A bikini waitress, gentlemen, here to be leered at, snickered at, come onto, and, hopefully, tipped generously.

 

The Twin Peaks isn’t technically a restaurant, more of a drive-thru for perverts, so there aren’t any of the normal preparations to make. I think back to working at The Chez, a run-of-the-mill café, where you got to wear clothes and sensible shoes, a smart white T and smart black pants. I think back to folding napkins and steaming milk and carrying sandwiches on trays out into the winter cold. I never thought I’d miss all that, let alone long for it like some Victorian heroine longing for her lover, and yet as I make my way over to my booth, I can’t help but miss it. I sit on the stool, which is high so the men in their cars can get a good look at everything: legs, tits, and ass. I slide the window open and wait, looking down at the car lane. Two lanes, one out to the Bremerton-Seattle Ferry and one for the way back. It’s spring, but it’s cold and when I look down yep—hard. Nipples are absolutely ice-hard. Two little chips of ice poking into the morning.

 

A car thrums into the booth. The window slides down. It’s always interesting to see what kind of man is going to be sitting behind the window. When I first started working here, I’d assumed that it would only be perverts, and that they would look like perverts. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that perverts come in all shapes and sizes. This one is tall, thin, pale, and ginger, with a freckled nose and a ruddy cheeks, a thin smile, and long fingers which claw at me as he hands me a five-dollar bill. But he doesn’t make any rude comments, and, in truth, I sometimes like the way the men look at me. As I get him a coffee—drip, no steaming milk or espresso shots required—I lean over and give him a cheeky look at my belly. I mutter under my breath, too quiet for Ginger to hear: “I hope the sit-ups were worth it.” They were; he tips me five.

 

That’s the thing about working here, dressed like this, a stripper-cum-barista, loaning out my body as well as my coffee-making skills. I don’t entirely hate it. It’s not as cut-and-dry as some people might expect. It’s not as though I wake up for work and dread the thought of the eyes which will soon be aimed at me with hungry lust. No, sometimes, I kind of like the way they look at me. It beats being invisible; I know that from experience. Not myself . . . or maybe myself. But mostly Mom, sweet Mom, and defeated Mom, Mom who has spent her entire life claiming disability and sitting on her bottom and coasting through life and doing little more than waiting for the party to be over. And Dad, not-so-sweet Dad, who has spent his life bouncing in and out of the prison like he gets some kind of thrill from being in there. Invisible, as far as life goes, two fades lurking in shadows and never making their imprint on the world. But not me, I tell myself, I will not be invisible. Hence the creative writing course of which two years is already completed.

 

“And hence the push-up bikini and skimpy panties, to pay for the remaining year.”

 

As I serve the customers, that is what I tell myself. I am not invisible. I am not a fade, not like Mom and Dad. I will break the cycle. And so, twisted logic or not, when some of the men look at me, I get a thrill. The dim blue lights are no longer dim blue lights; they are spotlights and I am the star, sitting here, illuminated and beautiful and observed, most of all observed. I won’t be left-by-the-wayside, not like Mom and Dad. I exist.

 

I cycle through these thoughts most mornings, as I serve leery and smiley and friendly and begrudging men, and then, sometimes, my thoughts get cut short by Chester’s imposing presence. Even his name is a goddamn joke. Chester. Who, in real life, is called Chester? What sort of person names their kid Chester? Chester is the only customer I would say I one-hundred percent, without the shadow of the shadow of a doubt, hate. He always leers, and it’s with a sort of glimmer in his eyes which suggests ownership. His eyes seem to say: “Since you are here, this early, dressed like this, all alone, I have every right to stare at you like this. Since you are here, looking all slutty and whorish, maybe one of these days I’ll reach through that window and take you by the throat and just keep squeezing until no more squeezing’s necessary. Got it?”

 

He drives one of those huge trucks with massive monster treaded tires, a car as arrogant and space-filling as its driver. He’s always wearing one of those white tank tops called a wife beater, and I wonder if it’s true for him. His shirt is always stained, there’s always food around his mouth, he’s just sloppy. Like a little kid no one ever taught how to eat. He’s fat and speaks in harsh, barking words. He’s never said anything mean to me, not outright, but there’s a sea of something behind his eyes. Something bad—I don’t want to think about what. His imagination, stirring, waiting.

 

Today, he greets me with a quick: “Lana Thompson.”

 

This is another of his favorites: reminding me that he knows my full name. Once, a few weeks ago, David was discussing his latest divorce in the booth with me, after seeing to an early-morning delivery. As if god or the devil or whoever it is who sees to making the lives of bikini baristas more difficult had orchestrated the event, Chester pulled up just as David was bemoaning the latest turn of events. “She’s taking the dog . . .” And then, seeing the customer, for some reason David felt the need to turn to him and say, “But don’t worry. Lana Thompson is always here to see me through!”

 

Idiot.

 

“Hello, Chester,” I say, speaking with as much dignity as you can when you’re standing bikini-clad in a window booth. “How can I help you today?”

 

“You know how you can help me,” he says, voice low, but building like waves crashing against rocks which will one day collapse. That is Chester, I reflect: just a matter of time before something in him comes crashing down and brings his sanity with it. Or maybe that’s just the creative writer in me, telling a story that isn’t there.

 

“The usual?”

 

“Maybe I’m tired of the usual.”

 

“How about a cool OJ?”

 

“Don’t wanna be cool.”

 

Always skirting around, never outright aggressive, just very, very weird.

 

His beady eyes roam over me, but I can’t get too offended by that. It’s part of the job, after all. What worries me more is the way he opens and closes his hand around the steering wheel, causing his knuckles to press bone-white against his skin. Open, close, open, close, like a man gearing himself up for something. No—the storyteller in me (or the wannabe storyteller) is getting overexcited. That is all.

 

But then he grins and mutters: “Don’t play games with me, missy.”

 

He glances behind him—nothing but road. Then in front of him—nothing but road. And then back at me.

 

“Uh.” I suck in a breath, momentarily off-guard. “Uh—I’m not playing games with you.”

 

He has a tattoo on his fingers: D-E-A-D. A letter per finger. The first time I saw it, I giggled to myself. It seemed silly, a fat, weird-looking, food-smeared man like that trying to be tough with a tough tattoo. Now, as he stares at me like I’m a fresh meal on his plate, it doesn’t seem silly.

 

D. E. A. D. He’s looking at me like that’s what he wants to make me.

 

“You are. You always are.” Open, close. Open, close. “I know your sort. Look a man in the eye and give him all the signals, make him get to thinking.”

 

For once, I pray for a group of Seattle-bound banker commuters, a car of five, as rowdy and leery as they like. As long as they get Chester out of my face.

 

But the road is mist-covered, spring be damned, and silent as the grave. Maybe this will be my grave. Overdramatic, but it doesn’t seem overdramatic with Chester’s sweating palm squeaking against his steering wheel as he clenches and unclenches his fist.

 

“Chester,” I say, and my voice is as calm as ever. Professional. Absurdly, I feel a surge of pride. “I don’t want to have to call David.”

 

“Why would you?” He coughs out a blunt laugh. “Oh, are you giving him the eye as well?”

 

“I have not given you the eye.” Well—maybe I have. But a girl’s got to earn tips, especially a girl keen to get her ass out of Bremerton and into Seattle, a girl with college on her mind. “But even if I had, this is not way to treat me—”

 

“Screw this.”

 

Chester throws his car door open and steps out.

 

“Chester, what are you—”

 

He looms into the window, far bigger than he seemed sat in his car.

 

“Screw this,” he repeats, flashing a grin marked by yellow teeth.

 

Far down the road, Bremerton side, a motorbike grumbles.