AND… ANOTHER ONE BITES the dust.
I offer Bill, my latest boss, the finger and toss my apron on the counter.
“For that, I’m holding your final check. Gretchen, you’re paying for all those broken dishes!” Bill yells at my back, but I couldn’t care less. The crap he pays me probably wouldn’t even cover the couple’s dry cleaning they insisted the diner pay for.
“Have at it, douchebag, and while you’re at it, why don’t you take whatever’s left and have your wife’s vagina shaved so you can find it. Maybe you’ll finally get laid and not be such an uptight asshole.” And uptight is describing him nicely.
Not that keeping a job for almost six months is award winning for me, but it was my longest running in the past year. And the entire time I was employed here Bill was a prick. Of course I take no blame for my recent stunt for getting the canned. I accidently dropped table eight’s full order of food, trying to get a good look at the hunk sitting at table six, but if I would have seen the little brat at my feet, then maybe he wouldn’t have scared the shit out of me causing me to throw the entire tray of breakfast food in the laps of The Wilson family.
“Get out of my restaurant! You’re fired!”
Seriously. We went over that already.
“Got that part already.”
I walk out of the restaurant, waving like a supermodel to all the people staring. What, they’ve never seen someone get fired before? Apparently they haven’t been following my joke of a career path. I walk into the chilly morning, my thin jacket doing nothing to fight off the late January breeze. I grab the lapels, pulling it as close as I can, but then again, since I had to have the cool fake leather one–that basically does nothing but look cool, I’m now going to freeze on my walk home.
Bill’s Diner was my third job in the past year. One I, once again, failed at. And it’s not that I suck at jobs, well maybe that’s it, but I suck at taking direction. I just hate being told what to do. I was that rebellious child who did what she wanted. When my parents, teachers, any authority figure said one thing, I did the complete opposite. A rebel without a cause kinda girl. Sounds badass right? Well, apparently, I was the only one who thought so. In due time, my parents got fed up with my defiance, my teachers stopped trying to teach me, and well, the law? They seem to like to keep records of things. Which is why getting a real job just seems like a never-gonna-happen goal for me.
When I hit twenty-one my parents gave me the white flag, telling me they were done trying to guide me in the right direction. They told me I was old enough to make my own mistakes and learn from them. I gave them the big ‘HA! I win’ look and took off, quit college and started my journey into the wild side of life.
The first ‘they told me so’ moment was when I realized how much life really costs. My parents gave me an ultimatum. Finish college and continue getting their “allowance” or don’t go and no allowance. Stupid me chose not to finish. I hated school. I didn’t want to trap myself behind a book for another two more years of my life. I wanted to travel to Europe and backpack to the most exotic places in the world. I also wanted to punch all those fake ads that make it look so glorious. Because it’s not.
Life isn’t as easy as they make it out to be. It’s not as pretty as the brochure. And it’s surely not that glorious. But, I learned the hard way. I left home, waving at my parents in the rearview mirror as they shook their heads at me, and soared onto the open road. My plan was to drive five hundred miles away from our small town of Wellsboro, Connecticut. Destination: New York, New York.
Whoo hoo!
Not.
Add in car problems, gas, cost of car problems, and an issue with being in a car too long, and you give up; ending just over the Connecticut border in the first town you find, Cedarville, New York. That was just a little over a year ago.
From the moment I landed in Cedarville nothing went my way. I couldn’t get a job for the life of me. The whole not having a college degree and blah, blah, blah. Life was hard!
And now I’m on my third failed job in the last twelve months. I sigh into my coat, my breath noticeable in the chilled air. What the hell am I gonna do now? The diner was the last place that was willing to give me a chance in this town. And now that’s another big fat F for failed on my resume. It probably doesn’t help that rent is way past due and Mr. Jackass, my landlord is probably camped outside my door demanding his money. Money I don’t have.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out seeing Agnes, my sister’s name, pop across my screen. Agnes the golden child. Agnes and I never had much in common, with her being so much older than me. As I’m sittin’ at a solid twenty-two years of age, Agnes just turned thirty-five. We may look like sisters, both with chestnut hair, hazel eyes and a stellar 5’6” in height, but we couldn’t be any more different. She was the perfect child, getting straight A’s and trying to save the human race, while I was the one trying to ruin it. But, she has always been there, even after mom and dad washed their hands of me. Sent me money secretly, leaving no return address, but forgetting I know her handwriting. Never judging me on the person that I chose to be instead of the one that clearly made more sense.
“Hey Aggie,” I breathe into my phone, my warm breath bouncing off the screen and feeling nice on my face.
“Hey, baby sis. Wanted to check up on you. I haven’t heard from you in a while.” If there is one thing I worship about our sisterly friendship, it’s that I never feel pressure to impress her or lie about how good or bad my current situation is. And that’s why I get right at it.
“Well at the moment, I’m walking home in the tundra, because I just got fired from the diner.”
“Oh Gretchen, what happened? I thought you were doing well there?” She asks, sounding sad for me.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m glad I’m done with that place. The pay was horrible and the staff worse. Did you know that they use leftover food to serve to other people!?” I mean yuck! Talk about trying to scam the food industry.
“Oh honey, I’m sorry.”
Yeah, me too.
“Why don’t you just come home?”
Annnd no.
“No way.”
“Why not!? You can live with mom and dad; they’ll help you out. You can even finish school. Just think about how much better things would be.”
No way would I go home. That’s just not me. I made a choice. I chose to be badass. Badasses don’t crawl home with their tails, and thin fake leather jackets, between their legs. If I went home, I would feel like a bigger failure. Not that my life has been anything but let down after let down since I left.
“Fine, then come stay with me.”
What!? “As in with you and your colony of cats?”
I hear my sister sigh, “Gretchen, they are called my family. And they have names. It would be nice if Tessa’s aunt would come and visit her more often. Plus, we just remodeled the extra bedroom. You would have a place to stay. Free of rent.”
Ew, Ew, Ew. Staying with my sister and her Partridge Family husband and kid? I love her kid. She’s the shit. Little Tessa let me wear her princess dress during Halloween last year and saved me on the cost I would spend to buy those slutty outfits. Same size. It was perfect.
“Nah, it’s cool. I don’t want to impose. Plus, what would Trevor say?” Why do I even care? No way.
“First off, Trevor loves you. He’s not mad anymore about the pool incident.” She had to go and bring that incident up. Agnes was all over my ass trying to get me to visit. I finally gave in, well mainly because I was fired from the library for throwing an after party in the library and some doofus barfed in the periodicals, so I had the time off. It was Valentine’s weekend and I just wanted to do something nice for them. When they went out to dinner, I set up the entire pool area with candles. I certainly had no idea the wind would pick up and set their gazebo on fire.
“Either way, he’s out on business. They’re landing a huge client in Hong Kong. He won’t even be back for another two weeks. Just come. I can get you a substituting position at the school. You can make some money while you’re here and we can spend some sister time together.”
“Substituting? As in substitute teacher? I know nothing about slobbery kids and geometry.”
Plus, have I mentioned that I think kids are aliens? I love my sister’s kid, but the general small human population scares me. It’s like they just keep multiplying. Have you ever gone to a restaurant, shopping mall, movie theatre? They’re everywhere! Taking over. Like I said, aliens.
“Dude, no way. I just need to figure things out here. It’ll be fine. I’ll pick up the paper tomorrow and search for another job.” Just as I walk up to my building I see Mr. Jackass, with a chair in front of my apartment door, his beer belly hanging out, smoking a cigarette and reading the paper.
Fuck.
Ugh.
More fucks.
“Okay fine,” I sigh. “I’ll come for a little bit.” I hear my sister squeal through the phone. “But, any chance you can send me some bus money?”
Mr. Jackass was feeling very jackass-ish because he told me to pay or get out. I told him I had it inside and I was just going to go to my stash of cash and grab it for him. Since that stash of cash was in my dreams, I hurried and ran around throwing the necessities into a suitcase and leaving out my bathroom window. I was never one to hoard shit, so my stuff was minimal to begin with. My sister came through with bus money and I walked to the nearest station and bought a ticket home. Stopping at the local Quick Trip, I filled up on some corn nuts, gummy bears and a large fountain drink and when the big ole mega bus rolled in I got on.
Agnes, thankfully, moved away and lived two towns over from our parents. This meant I still had a fighting chance of avoiding mom and dad. She and Trevor met in college and it was the same song and dance. Fell in love, got married and moved to the suburbs to start a family. While Trevor was some hot shot lawyer, my sister was the principal of Bradford Elementary School. She always wanted to work with kids. Maybe that’s why she was so good with me. That or she was testing her skills on me. If she could conquer me, she could conquer an entire school.
On the trip home, Agnes sent me some emails with paperwork to fill out for the school. Apparently, you didn’t need a college degree to be a substitute teacher, and wrote that her school is in major need of a temporary kindergarten teacher. I laughed the entire time I filled it out, thinking my sister was loco if she thought they would let me teach mini-humans anything. But she insisted I do it and told me not to get all ‘don’t tell me what to do’ on her. Which I almost did, but decided against it. I won’t lie. I did feel a bit defeated. But that stays between us and my conscience. I’d been trying to make it on my own for the past year and I was getting pretty tired. I just didn’t want to wave my white flag. I wanted to be clear with myself that this was just a mini-vacation. A time-out, so I can reset myself. I would sit at a desk, play movies for the kids all day and collect a paycheck. As soon as something that fit me popped up, I was out.