Misha
“It looks here like you don’t have any prior food industry experience.”
“No, ma’am, I don’t.”
“Yet you wanna try a diner as your first proper job?”
“I’m a fast learner, ma’am, and I really need the money—”
“You and every other tart-lipped, big-tittied sugar lump in this town, honey. You gotta give me more than that to go off to hire you.”
“I have references.”
The plump, middle-aged woman across from me laughed as she looked down at the abysmal résumé that I had compiled for her.
“Yes, I see that. Trixie. Child, that girl is about as bright as a box of bricks. You know that, don’t cha?”
“I’m more than willing to prove that I’m not a lost cause.”
I sat in the office of Lancaster’s, the little diner just off the highway and the place I was trying to get a job. I’d been poring over potential places in town, but with no real work experience I kept coming up bust. It had been, shockingly enough, Trixie who had seen me one day, pouring my heart out on paper applications, and told me that her job was hiring.
I was beginning to wonder if that, however, was about to prove a fruitless endeavor.
“Please, ma’am,” I said. “I really need this job.”
The woman shook her head.
“Like I said, you and every other tart-lipped little piece in town. But I’ll tell you what. You run around with them Pride boys, don’t cha? You know the big boy, Trip?”
I raised my brow.
“I might …”
“Oh, sugar plum, don’t get cute. The Pride boys are good boys around here, kept off Jackal trouble when them mean asses kept comin’ ’round, starting trouble. They tried some funny mess with my little niece, and it was the Pride—that boy Trip—set ’em right. It’s him what kept them out of here the last few years—”
“That was Trip?” The story sounded familiar. I remembered a few years back, one of Holland’s boys had gotten in deep with a girl from here, only come to find out that she wanted none of it, and he’d been using her to ferry in girls for trade. It was a nasty business, but after he got busted was when Holland decided to pull back from town and stay with operations over the border. I hadn’t known that was Trip—
“Yeah, girl, that was Trip. Don’t you know nothin’? Anyway. I’d hate to turn down one of his girls after what he did. So, say you’re on preliminary for a month before I decide to keep you on.”
“You’re hiring me?!”
“Girl, don’t you listen? I said preliminary. Come in seven sharp in the morn’ and I’ll start you on training. Don’t disappoint me.”
I was ecstatic. So much so, I jumped up from my seat and hugged the woman across from me. She patted me on the back, obviously a little amused by my display of unplanned affection.
“Alright, all right, girl. Go on, git. Seven sharp. Bring your brains with you, Lord knows Trixie ain’t got much, though she does bring in business in the men and such. Also—you gon’ stay here, don’t call me ma’am. It’s Big Mama, missy. You best be remembering that. Ya hear?”
“I hear, ma—Big Mama. Again, thank you!”
What had been a turmoil in my head was now a relief so deeply set in that I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself. So, I did the next best thing –
I called up Trixie.
I had gotten her number from Travis. Turns out he had a bit of a soft spot on her, but hadn’t stepped into anything because she was a club girl and he was afraid that she was always going to be a club girl. I’d convinced him that if I managed to get a job with her, then he would have to buck up and ask her on a proper date—for me.
That was going to be negotiated the next time I saw him. I fished out a couple of quarters I wouldn’t need for the taxi ride back to Ace of Pride, and slotted them in the diner’s payphone. It was two rings before Trixie answered.
“Big Mama, it’s my day off. You said you wouldn’t be calling me in anymore—”
“Trixie? It’s not Big Mama. It’s me, Misha.”
“Oh! Mi-mi, hey! What are you doin,’ calling from work?”
“My interview was today,” I reminded her.
“Oh! It was, wasn’t it? How’d it go? I hope Big Mama wasn’t too mean to you.”
I laughed.
“Don’t worry, she wasn’t. She hired me!”
“No way!”
“Yeah. It’s preliminary, so I can train, but it’s a guaranteed month and I’m sure I’ll be able to pull through enough that she’ll keep me on longer than that.”
“Ah, hell, that’s awesome, Mi-mi.” She gasped. “We gotta celebrate!”
“That’s what I was thinking. Wanna meet me out at the diner? We can get dinner, on me.”
“You betcha. Though, let’s not eat at the diner. That old woman will have me stay a whole shift! Be right over. Oooh, we’re gonna be coworkers, I’m so excited!”
Trixie’s squeals left me, and I couldn’t help but smile. People could say what they wanted about her being dumb as a sack of flour; I liked her—even if I did get the odd look here and there for it.
I waited out front for Trixie to show up, and she didn’t disappoint when she pulled up in her hot pink bug. She’d apparently saved up for that baby, and it was her pride and joy as much as any of the bikes belonging to the boys of the Pride were. She hopped out, waving at me, wearing a hot pink dress that damn near matched.
Well, no one could say that she didn’t know how to turn people’s heads, that was for sure.
I bounded over to her and hopped on in. She sped off as soon as I was buckled up, and immediately started talking my head off.
“I can’t believe that we’re gonna be coworkers,” she chirped excitedly. “This is. So. Cool. We’re gonna have to tell the boys, too. Big celebration and everything—”
“Woah, woah,” I said, laughing. “Slow down there. I don’t need a huge celebration!”
Trixie practically screeched.
“Of course, you do! This is, like, huge girl. Huge. I’m sure Trip would put out for you.” She nodded. “Yep, I know he would.”
I chuckled a little at that, but didn’t say anything—honestly? She was right. But … I also didn’t want to get into a conversation about Trip.
“Uh oh.”
I looked over to Trixie.
“Uh oh?”
“Uh oh. You have that look on your face, girl.”
I frowned.
“What look?”
“The ‘boys are dumb’ look. Come on, girl. You know I get around. I know that look. Do I need to kick Trip’s ass?”
At that, I laughed.
“Definitely … Definitely don’t kick Trip’s ass. Please.”
“Mmm, well if he’s gone and made you all sad and stuff, I will. He’s a hard-headed butthole sometimes, but you just got back! Come on. Tell a girl what he did!”
I shook my head. Where did I even begin on this?! I’d avoided talking about the little incident at the diner after it happened. Throwing myself into getting a job had helped, and Trip was busy with club affairs and hadn’t pushed for that again, thankfully.
I laughed a little again, if only to placate Trixie and her curiosities; I didn’t want to talk about what had happened, or about how it had made me feel—which was another thing that I was wholly, vehemently avoiding. Like the plague. Instead, I shook my head. Trixie and I didn’t talk much about Trip and me, and I figured that the good thing to do was keep it that way.
Best way to do that?
Deflect.
“Trixie?” I asked.
“Yeeah?”
“You and Trip. You’ve been together, haven’t you?”
“Mhm.” I was happy to see she didn’t seem faze in the slightest over the conversation topic change.
“And it doesn’t … This isn’t weird for you?” Admittedly, it’d been a little weird for me, even with Trip’s steadfast assertions that he and Trixie weren’t sleeping together anymore.
“Girl, why would it be weird? Trip’s been all up in a bunch of other girls—no offense,” she said, looking over at me apologetically.
“No need to be sorry.”
“Whew. Anyhoo. Listen. I know what I am, okay? I don’t have any delusions. Trip’s nice and all, but girl, I knew that wasn’t going anywhere! You being his old lady and all, and you got his girl—”
“I’m not really his old lady,” I interjected. “I’m not really his anything.”
“Girl,” Trixie said, rolling her eyes. “Anyone a mile away can see that’s bullshit. Besides …” She trailed off, rolling her lip between her teeth. “I was actually kinda afraid you weren’t gonna like me. I don’t pretend like I don’t know what most old ladies think about club girls, you know. It would have been okay if that was what you thought, but I’m glad you don’t. Besides, I don’t sleep with boys with attachments. It gets too complicated, and I just want to have fun while I’m young enough for it to matter!”
She beamed at me with a smile, and I couldn’t think of even a second where I could honestly have disliked her. I patted her hand as we came to a stop at a light, just across the road from Lancaster’s.
“Trust me when I say I understand the rap is generally unwarranted,” I told her. “Besides … You were there for Trip when I left. Even if it was just sex. It was something. It was obviously something that he needed.”
She looked like she was going to cry, and that beaming smile widened.
“I’m so glad we’re friends, Mi-mi.”