HAPTER ONE
“So! Are we all here? No! No, we most certainly are not. Somebody tell me where in the actual fuck Rebecca is.”
Silence. There was absolute silence in the little group of servers, none of which had any desire to be sitting there for the pre-shift meeting their manager insisted on running before every single shift, both morning and afternoon. The manager’s name was Rodney Bell, and he was the kind of man who craved power the way a smoker craved cigarettes. He always wore dress slacks and a tie, which struck Delaney Row as sort of stupid attire for managing a busy two-story Mexican restaurant.
For starters, being as buttoned up as he was, made it more difficult for him to move around the restaurant if and when he was needed, which was pretty much all of the time once the place got really busy. Second of all, she couldn’t even imagine how steep his dry-cleaning bill must be. The things he wore looked nice, like seriously expensive. They were definitely not the kinds of things a person would be able to just throw in the wash after a messy fourteen-hour evening.
He must have spent a fortune hauling all his fancy clothes to someone else to clean them, and for what? Did he honestly think the pressed gray slacks he wore or the raw silk purple tie were going to make a difference when the shit hit the fan?
“Delaney,” Roberto hissed beside her, poking her in the ribs in a way that made her wince. “Fucking pay attention, will you?”
“What?”
“Thank you, Roberto!” Rodney was standing with his hands on his hips, his foot tapping on the tile floor impatiently, “Can’t tell you how happy I am to have at least one of my employees paying attention? Think you might be joining us any time soon, Delaney? Or have you come to the conclusion that these meetings are beneath you now?”
“What? No! Sorry, I was just-”
“Not paying attention. Right, I got that much on my own.”
“I’m sorry,” she responded meekly, picking at her nails as a blush spread over her fair skin and several of the other servers started to snicker and whisper about her behind cupped hands. Normally Rodney didn’t tolerate any kind of talking during his meetings, but he seemed to be okay with it, seeing as it was directed at the girl he himself was trying to humiliate.
He was trying to knock her down a peg or two and it wasn’t the first time he’d done it, either. He let the noise go on for a minute that—for Delaney—felt like ten, before putting his hands up with a condescending smile. It was the signal for everyone to shut their mouths again and seeing as nobody else was looking to be the target for the day, people did as they were told.
“All right. I was thinking we might get started, if everyone is ready to sit up and listen. Are we all ready?”
There was a chorus of less than enthusiastic agreements, while Delaney just felt her embarrassment deepen. It didn’t help that Rodney was so clearly enjoying her discomfort. Not that she should have been surprised. Rodney loved to pick on her, to call her out. It was something he seemed to do as often as he could manage it.
“Good. And we still don’t know where Rebecca is, am I right on that?”
“Right boss,” Roberto answered quickly, apparently eager to use Delaney’s unfortunate situation as a way to leverage his own good impression. “Late for the third time this week.”
“Then she must not be interested in her section. Anyone want to work the great room tonight, make some extra money? Roberto, you’ve got first dibs, seeing as you’re being so helpful.”
“Thanks boss!”
“Sure. Now, everyone else knows their sections, am I right? Perfect. That’s what I expect to hear. I want a clean shift. I better not have anyone asking me to comp something because they fucked up. That happens and it’s coming out of your tips. Are we understood? Now I think we’ve had just about enough of this. Whether you feel particularly inclined to work or not, I’ve got things to do.”
Without waiting for a response, Rodney surveyed his staff with a look of frank disappointment and maybe a little bit of disgust mixed in for good measure, and stalked off down the stairs while yelling out for the hostess to do something or another. The servers all stood wearily, some of them guzzling energy drinks as they made their way to their designated stations. Only Delaney remained where she was, staring at the floor and ignoring this new burst of activity around her.
“You coming, girl?”
“Why do you do that, Roberto?”
“Do what?”
“Seriously? You know what. Why do you have to call people out like that?”
“Come on, you know how these things work. Or else you should.”
“I guess I just don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense to me. It’s not like if you get me in trouble, you somehow get something better for your own job? We all have the same job, Roberto. There’s really no need.”
“Maybe not for you,” he growled, rolling his eyes like she was the dumbest girl on the planet. “Maybe we just have different ideas of what it means to have this job in the first place. See, I plan on sticking around this place, and I don’t mean to be a server the whole time I do it. I mean to go into management. To do that, I need to make sure they see me as management material. I can’t be looking out for you, see? I gotta be looking out for myself. No hard feelings or anything like that. You’re still my girl. Just not when it comes to the boss man.”
He shrugged his shoulders, gave her what he probably intended to be a sad look, and walked off to join the other servers, all of whom still seemed to be hell-bent on making fun of her. Not that it was anything new. She had worked at the kitschy Mexican place for a little over a year and had been the target of the less than friendly employees from almost the very start.
It definitely made it harder for her to get up and go to work the way she was supposed to, but the need to pay her electric and rent were greater than her desire to stay home. Still, that didn’t mean she had to like it; she most definitely did not. She loathed it every time she walked through the front doors.
“What’s the matter, Delaney?” a tall blonde by the name of Mandy with massive boobs and way too much makeup said in a sing-songy voice that made Delaney cringe. “Still can’t afford a ticket to the Comic Con convention? You’re looking awfully blue.”
“I don’t--what are you talking about? Since when did I ever say I wanted to go to Comic Con? I’m not into comics. Like, at all.”
“Oh really? My bad, totally could have fooled me. You know, just because you’re so freaky about everything.”
“I’m not freaky, Mandy. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Delaney moved as if to pass by Mandy and her little entourage of like-minded girls, but was immediately blocked. It was like being in high school all over again, something some people might have enjoyed, but that felt like torture to Delaney. Mandy smirked and shot her eyes to the people around her, clearly pleased by her small but growing audience.
“Aw, come on. Sure, you do. Do you honestly think we don’t know about your little hobby? Because if you do, you’re delusional. Something like that’s too freaky not to get around, get it? Meaning, you’re a freak. Meaning, you don’t have any real friends. Any time someone is talking to you, you should probably just assume that they’re doing it so they can laugh behind your back. So like, keep that in mind.”
“Mandy, I don’t have time for this, okay? I have side work to do.”
“You’re done here when I say you’re done, got it? And I’m not done with you yet.”
“Seriously, Mandy! What the hell do you want?”
“Whoa! What the fuck is going on here? Are we all just having a little tea party? Any of you guys feel like doing some actual work right now?”
Mandy had been in the middle of raising her fist into the air, more than ready to pop Delaney in the face, but the moment Rodney turned the corner, she moved into suck up mode. Both of her hands clasped behind her back, the perfect pose to make sure her boobs were popping front and center. She slapped a sugary sweet smile on her face and slithered up closer to the manager who was staring at her chest with absolutely no attempt to hide it.
“We were trying to, Rodney, honest. It’s just Delaney.”
“Delaney? What about her?”
“Well she’s been talking non-stop.”
“Talking? Who the fuck cares if she’s talking? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It’s just that it’s distracting, that’s all. Some of us don’t like the kind of thing she talks about. It’s freaky. It’s upsetting, Rod. It makes us not want to be around her. It makes us not feel safe here, honest.”
Mandy looked at her minions for backup, making sure to shoot Delaney a sly, nasty smile as she did so. Rodney was looking at her too, his thumbs hooked through his belt loops in that way he had when he was trying to look really severe. The way he looked at her made Delaney feel like squirming. It was the kind of look that made her feel like he could see her naked underneath her jeans and cheesy tex-mex shirt.
“Is that so, Delaney?”
“Um, no, sir. It’s not. That’s not what really happened. I was just going to roll the silverware and Mandy stepped in front of me. She sort of blocked me and, well, here we are.”
“That’s a bunch of bullshit!” Mandy spat out, her hands on her hips with a look of total injustice. “She’s lying, Rod. She’s totally lying. You believe me, don’t you?”
“That’s enough, Mandy. And don’t call me Rod. We’ve talked about that.”
Mandy rolled her eyes but shut her mouth. Pretty much everyone who wasn’t on the floor talking to a table was listening in at this point. There were smirks on many of the faces, only now they weren’t all directed at Delaney. The rumors about the exact nature of the relationship between Mandy and Rodney had been flying back and forth for months now.
Some of it was the way she talked to him, some of it in how much she was able to get away with that nobody else in the place could have come close to pulling off. Then there was the way Rodney would call Mandy into his office and shut the door, the two of them in their alone for sometimes as much as an hour.
The whole thing had yet to be confirmed, but the rumor had gotten out of control enough to have reached the ears of some of the regional managers. Rodney was under scrutiny, which meant he needed to keep his nose clean. Unfortunately for him, that was easier said than done with a girl like Mandy. Fortunately for Delaney, it meant he was less likely to just take Mandy’s side.
“All right!” Rodney spoke a little too loudly, perhaps trying to make up for the overly familiar way Mandy was talking to him, “I’ve had about enough of this. We’re going to be busy tonight, guys. We don’t have time for this shit. I want you guys to stop fighting, stop acting like children, and start doing something that benefits the restaurant. You know, the place you make your money from.”
Mandy muttered angrily under her breath before tossing her hair over her shoulder and storming up the stairs. After a sharp order barked out in a less-then-feminine voice, her meeker friends followed her lead. Delaney, relieved to be out of the line of fire yet again, moved toward the kitchen doors.
All she wanted to do was roll some silverware and not be bothered for a little while. She didn’t think that was too much to ask. But as she took her first steps, a heavy hand on her shoulder stopped her in her tracks.
“Come on,” she whispered to herself, “isn’t it enough?”
“What was that, Delaney?”
“Nothing sir. I was just sort of talking to myself.”
“You know that’s the kind of thing that makes them target you, right? And you don’t have to call me sir. I’ve told you that before. Just call me Rodney. Everyone else does.”
Everyone else aside from Mandy, who only calls you by her weird pet names, she thought to herself. She kept her mouth shut, of course. She had no desire to get into a whole big thing. She just wanted to do her job and get the hell out of dodge.
“Okay, sorry. Rodney.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just don’t be so formal, huh? It’s not an office situation, after all.”
“Right. Okay, I’ll do my best to remember that.”
“Good. Good, I’m glad to hear that.”
“Um, I was going to go and get some things out of the dish pit, unless you needed me for something…”
“I do actually. Yeah, that’s why I had you hang back. I’d like it if you could come back into my office for a little while.”
“Am I in some kind of trouble? Because I swear, I really wasn’t doing anything wrong. I don’t know why Mandy said that.”
“That’s how Mandy is, am I right? I’d guess everyone here knows that. And no, you aren’t in trouble. I just want to sort through some things.”
Delaney would have done just about anything to keep from going with Rodney anywhere, let alone his office, but she couldn’t think of a good enough reason to say no. Before she knew it, she was following him past the kitchen and rolling her eyes as the cooks made exaggerated kissing faces while she passed.
“Why don’t you go ahead and shut the door, okay? Give us some privacy.”
“Privacy? I thought you said I wasn’t in trouble.”
“And you aren’t. Privacy doesn’t mean trouble, Delaney. It can mean all different kinds of things.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather keep the door open.”
Rodney’s face darkened and Delaney saw that the cords in his neck were starting to stand out. She could see the large vein in the middle of his forehead, too. She wasn’t sure exactly what he had been expecting from her, but whatever it was he wasn’t getting it. He cleared his throat and started to tap his pen spastically on his desk, another little trick of his when he was feeling pissed off.
He would have been terrible at poker, she thought to herself, then had to suppress a laugh. She knew without a doubt that laughing at a time like this would be a colossal mistake. Instead she bit down on the inside of her cheek hard, so hard she could taste a little bit of blood. It hurt like hell, but she figured it was worth it on the off chance that it could get her out of Rodney’s tiny office sooner rather than later.
“See, this is what I’m talking about, Delaney. This right here.”
“Um, I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
“The attitude! I’m talking about the attitude. Surely you can’t be surprised by that. I know we’ve had this conversation before and I don’t believe for a minute that I’m the first person to tell you that you need an attitude adjustment.”
As a matter of fact, he wasn’t. Attitude had been a bit of a recurring theme for Delaney. Her parents had been trying her to check her attitude since she was small, as had her teachers. She hadn’t had many boyfriends, but the ones she’d had tended to get exasperated with her stubborn streak. One of them had even gone so far as to tell her that, if she wasn’t so pretty, she’d be pretty much impossible to date.
She had no doubt it was true, it was just that she didn’t really care. She may have been waiting tables, but that didn’t mean she was content doing it. She had big plans for herself and she was going to need her so called “attitude” in order to have a shot in hell of achieving them.
“Delaney? Are you even listening to me?”
“I am. Really, I am. I’m sorry. I was just thinking.”
“About what I’m telling you, I hope.”
“Yes, about what you’re telling me.”
“So, then you’ll think about doing things a little bit differently?”
“Differently how?”
Rodney gave her a lecherous look and then, despite the fact that she had stood firm about keeping the door open, reached out and ran his thumb up her jean-clad thigh.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing, Rodney?”
“I’m showing you the kind of thing I’m looking for. It doesn’t have to be so hard, Delaney. I’m just looking for a team player. You can be a team player, can’t you?”
“Um, sure, depending on what you mean by ‘team player.’”
“You’re a smart girl, what do you think I mean?”
His thumb had been replaced by the palm of his hand, which he used to rub along the length of her leg. When it reached her inner thigh, she took a little jump back, swatting his hand away without even thinking about it.
“See, there’s that attitude again. I’m offering you a choice, Delaney, and I think it’s a pretty simple one. You can either get on board with what I’m trying to do here, or you can walk. I’ll leave it up to you.”