Scarlet
THIS USED TO be a time of peace for me. Cleaning up after closing. I would clean tabletops, vacuum, sweep, mop, and think about nothing. Just work silently and alone. This week, things had been different. I glared at the door to the kitchen where some awful loud music was playing. I didn’t even know what to call that. Diesel was banging around in there sometimes singing even louder than the music. He was ruining my peace.
I had told Ethel I could do closing myself. She argued that I work too much and Diesel would give us all a break. If I heard what a good boy he was one more time I was going to start screaming and throwing shit. Possibly that potato salad that was causing so much fuss with the older crowd. I imagined throwing a bowl of that in Diesel’s smiling face and it made me feel better. I liked that idea.
“You want some of this peanut butter pie? It’s amazing,” Diesel called out from the doorway. I glanced back to see him standing there with the pie plate in his hands and a fork.
“We serve slices of that pie to customers. Are you seriously eating out of the pie plate? We can’t serve that now.” Idiot I wanted to add and didn’t. How stupid!
“Calm down, boss. Ethel told me to eat the rest. She said it’s two days old and she doesn’t serve it after two days.”
He had taken to calling me boss and I hated it. Just like I hated his dimples. Just like I hated his singing. And his always happy attitude. He had been in prison for God’s sake! Shouldn’t he be angry at the world?
“Speak now or I’m finishing this up. It’s too damn good.”
As if I would eat from a plate he had been eating from. Not likely. Then I let the snarky out. “I’m sure after eating prison food that it doesn’t take much to make you happy.” I was tired. I wanted silence. He asked for it by talking to me.
He winced playfully, then chuckled before taking another bite. “You’re a bitchy one, aren’t you? I stopped making the coffee, I’ve tried to get the trash out before you have to carry it out, and I even attempt to share my good fortune in food with you. But not one inch. You haven’t given one little inch. Tell me, Scarlet, what is it about me? You hate me but you don’t even know me.”
This. He wanted to talk. Waste my time. Annoy me. Charm the customers. Make them laugh. Get big tips. His stupid name. Ugh. All of it.
“It’s the package,” I snapped, then picked up the mop bucket to fill it with fresh water. I refused to mop with water once it started getting dirty.
“The package . . . Ooookaaaay, and what does that mean exactly? What is the package?”
I stomped past him into the kitchen. The loud music was better than his constant talking. I wouldn’t have to say anything in here. He couldn’t hear me if I did. I used to like this job. It was an escape. I worked hard. Exhausted myself, then went home to sleep. Now, I had to deal with Diesel. He was ruining the already shitty life I had.
Dumping the water out the back door, I turned to fill it and the music cut off. Rolling my eyes, I didn’t look at him.
“I’d like for us to be friends. We work together. I’m trying to get past that icy wall you have built around you like a fortress. Help me,” his voice was lower than normal. It was as if he were trying to get a point across.
Frustrated, I cut off the water and lifted my gaze to meet his. “I don’t need friends.”
He frowned. “Yeah, you do.”
“No. I don’t. I have friends. I don’t want more.”
“You have a job you work at all the time. You leave to sleep, then return. You can’t have any friends,” he argued.
“Why don’t you stop trying to figure out my life? That would be great. I’m not asking you about your prison time, or your stupid name. Do me a favor and stay out of my business.”
I took the mop bucket and headed back to the dining room hoping I got my point across.
“Shane. He’s been my best friend since we were six. His girlfriend just had a baby. They need his income to live. When he chose to sell weed for extra cash and I was pulled over while driving his car because mine was in the shop, the cops found the weed I didn’t know was in there. If I’d claimed it was his, he’d have been busted. They were after him already. He’d been selling to high school kids. I took the blame.” I had stopped walking and was listening, because although I hadn’t asked the story was interesting.
“When I was eight, Pop told me to put gas in his truck while he paid for it. I didn’t want to tell him I didn’t know how. My dad was never home. I was here visiting Pop and El. Pop telling me to pump gas made me feel big. I didn’t want to let him down. I filled the tank, with diesel fuel. And he had to get it towed and drained.”
It took me a moment to realize I was smiling as I stared at the door in front of me I hadn’t walked through yet. His name was a nickname. One he’d been given from a childhood mistake. Not because it was a cool prison name. I made myself stop smiling and I took a breath before turning back to look at him.
He shrugged. “Pop called me Diesel from that day on. Back home I’m Charlie.”
Charlie. His name was Charlie. It fit him better. He was an ex-con but he looked nothing like one. Maybe that was what annoyed me the most. I would be lying if his reason for going to prison wasn’t getting to me a little. My first thought was that went beyond friendship, but then I realized I’d do the same for Dixie. I would think she was insane and needed to be slapped but I would do the same thing.
“Charlie fits you better,” I finally said.
He nodded. “That’s what my mother says. She hates when they call me Diesel. But I like it. Reminds me of a time when life was simple.”
My childhood had never been simple. I didn’t respond.
“You don’t have to tell me why you hate me. But at least tell me why you never smile.”
I’d rather tell him why I hated him. I wasn’t sure I did anymore. How could I hate a guy who did something so selfless for his best friend? “I don’t hate you,” I said, then held my bucket up a little. “I need to finish mopping.”
He just smiled and shook his head.
I started to open the door, then stopped. He had done nothing to me. I was taking my frustration and pain out on him. Being difficult wasn’t fair. He was working just as hard as I was. Turning back to him, I smiled. “If there’s any pie left, I’d like a piece. I’m starving.”
His smile widened, then he held out the pie plate. “It’s yours.”
I sat the bucket down and walked over to take the plate. As my fingers touched the cool tin I said, “Granted you don’t have some nasty prison disease I should know about before I eat after you.”
He was still smiling when he replied, “Only the cooties. Got those in kindergarten from Jamie Quinn and haven’t been able to get rid of them.”
Hearing him say cooties made me laugh. Really laugh. It felt good.