Daisy
Sarah isn’t working today, so the only thing I have to contend with is the prospect that Hound might have already killed Dad. After he dropped me off a couple of nights ago, my head was a mess, spinning like crazy, and I wanted to talk to Dad. I needed to check he was okay, too. When I called him and there was no answer, I didn’t think it was a big deal. I mean, he sometimes doesn’t even keep his phone charged. But when I went to his apartment and used my key to get in and found a pile of letters overflowing in his box and no sign that he’d even been back there, I started to get worried. Now, after hours of calling all his scumbag friends and being told that nobody has seen him, I have to smile and be sexy and flirty with the assholes at the Shack all while wondering if the man I’ve fucked twice now has killed my father. Not exactly a good start to a workday!
It’s made even worse by the customer I’m dealing with. I’m always wary when men come here alone, like this man has. If men come in groups, they might egg each other on, but usually there will be one or two sensible ones who will keep the others in line, or the wild ones will be too embarrassed to act like total freaks in front of their friends. But this man sits alone, smiling blandly in a way that makes me uncomfortable. He’s tall, thin, with a sleek nose and hands with long, manicured fingernails. He wears a buttoned-up shirt with a bow-tie and pleated trousers, with shiny brown shoes.
I go over to him and say, “Hey, honey, I hope you’re having a great day!”
“You hope, do you?” the man says, snorting out a laugh. “You really hope I’m having a good day?”
I roll with it, exclaiming stupidly that I really, really do! God, I hate when my voice is like this.
“Right. Maybe you should show me how much you hope by getting on your knees—No, no, now, Charles, don’t be rude.” He wags his finger at himself as though disciplining a child. “The nice lady—” leaning forward to spy at my name-tag, and my breasts “—Daisy is going to get us our food, okay? I’ll take a glass of water with five ice cubes and a burger without cheese or lettuce or pickle or onion or tomato, just the bread and the burger, okay?”
“Sure!” I beam. “That’s great!”
“Great,” the man—Charles—echoes. “Great. Hmm, is it? Great?”
“Well, sure!”
“Okay, then. Isn’t part of your job walking away so I can look at your ass? Seriously, how do you women fit into those skirts? Go on then, walk away. I want a look.”
The way he says this really creeps me out, even more than if he was some asshole frat boy reaching for me, but I have no choice but to turn around and take his order to the kitchen. As I pass Marsha, she says, “That’s Charles Wheeler. He’s a bit, well, off, you know? So just, well, you know, sort of be careful.”
Be careful? I want to ask. Be careful about what? Is he really that bad? But Marsha is swept away by another Shack girl and I’m left to my other tables, before Charles’ food is ready and I’m forced to return to him. As I carry the food to his table, painfully aware of his eyes locked onto me, I plaster a smile over my face. “That’s the Shack girl way!” Steve told me when I first got this job. “If a customer spills a drink, you smile! If a customer says something inappropriate, you smile! And if a customer reaches for your ass?” He left the question open for me there, and I felt I had no choice but to chime in with an enthusiastic, “Smile!” Now, I lay the food and water on the table, smile, and tell him to please enjoy his meal. I’ve walked no more than four steps away from him before he clicks his fingers at me and yells, way too loudly, “Here, girl!”
Swallowing my rage, my smile faltering for less than a moment, I turn around and go to him. “What is it, honey?”
“Honey,” he mutters. “Honey. That’s always confused me. Who says honey is a good thing? Is honey a good thing for a bear when he has bees buzzing all around his face? Is honey a good thing for an obese person who’s spent their whole fatty life slurping the stuff and now they’re so fat they can barely walk? Honey.”
I want to slap this man across the face. I want to head-butt him. Things I’ve never thought about before, like filling a glass with boiling water and throwing it in his face, come to me now. But I’m a Shack girl and I know that Steve is lurking somewhere in the kitchen, that I’d risk my job if I stood up for myself. I barely have time to reflect how pathetic this state of affairs is—especially after my tiny liberation with the realtor—before Charles is clicking his fingers at me.
“Hey, hey, don’t go floating off into the clouds. I’m talking to you. You shouldn’t be so rude when someone is talking to you.”
“What is it…?” Sweetie, I was about to say, but who knows what rant that will send him on. I see why Marsha warned me, now. “Is there something wrong with your food?”
“How would I know?” He looks at me like I’m the stupidest person he’s ever seen. “I haven’t touched my food yet. No, Daisy, sweet Daisy, I want you to do your Lady Shack thing with me, like lean over the table and pretend to clean it so I can get a good look at your titties. Those are darn nice titties!”
“I’m sorry,” I say stiffly, “but I don’t think that table needs cleaning.”
Charles seems taken aback by this. He points to a table of men in suits, and then says, “I just saw some blonde slut, some fucking whore—no, no, don’t be rude. I just saw some blonde woman leaning over there and shoving her titties in their faces.”
My palms sting and for a second I wonder what the hell’s going on. Then I unclench my fists, releasing the place where my fingernails have bitten into my skin. “Perhaps that table was dirty.”
“Oh, no, no, no.” Then, moving too fast for me to react, he jumps forward and grips his hands down painfully on my legs, yanking me toward him, muttering under his breath, “Tried to be nice, tried to be nice.” His manicured fingernails are sharper than they look, biting into my skin as my own bit into my palms moments ago, and before I can slap his hand away or yell out for help—not that yelling out for help is a good idea—he’s pulled me into his lap. “Ooh, that’s the stuff.” He licks his lip. I think about the way Hound pulled me into his lap, how that was exciting and this is revolting.
“Get off me!” I hiss, but I’m keeping my voice low. After all, my catchphrase still holds true: I need the money.
“Ooh, wriggle. That’s it, wriggle—”
Somebody’s strong hand lifts me to my feet by gripping my torso, a massive paw which covers my entire chest. I’m lifted up and set down, and then Hound is leaning down over Charles. Charles is fidgeting with his bowtie in Hound’s shadow. Hound grips the man’s neck and lifts him, one-handed, completely off his feet, holding him in the air and staring into his eyes with anger I couldn’t imagine on Hound’s face before now: not his smiling, carefree face. “You see those fucking rings on her finger?” he growls, and then he roars: “Do you see those fucking rings on her finger?”
Restaurants are never like movies. They’re louder, and people take far longer to react. So when Hound shouts, the place doesn’t immediately go quiet, the music doesn’t die, and everybody doesn’t stop what they’re doing to look. But people at the surrounding tables begin to stir. I jump to Hound and place my hand on his shoulder, aware that Steve could emerge from the kitchen at any moment. “Please,” I whisper in his ear. “Hound, let him go. Please. This is—this is part of the job!” When he doesn’t drop him, Charles’ face turning the color of beet red and his legs kicking uselessly, I thump Hound in the arm. “I said let him go!” I snap.
“Anyone touches my wife,” Hound says, his ice-blue eyes cold with rage, “I’ll break his goddamn neck. You’ve been warned, you bowtie-wearing fuck.”
He tosses Charles like a toy onto the seat and then swaggers from the restaurant. For a second, as I watch him go, I’m just stunned. But then anger rises in me like fire. He can’t just come in here and risk my job and then walk out like that! He can’t just disrupt my entire life and then leave! And what about Dad? Has he done something to Dad? My anger propels me out of the front door, into the parking lot where Hound is climbing into his jeep. It’s another sweltering day, the heat making me all the angrier, making it hard to think after the coolness of the Shack. I go to his car and slam the door before he can climb in.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yell, and since the parking lot is quieter and less busy than the restaurant, a few people turn and look at me. But I don’t care. I get even angrier when Hound just turns his smile at me. “Don’t give me that cheesy grin, Hound! What the hell’s the matter with you? This is my job, my job, this is how I pay bills, rent…this is how I live. Do you understand that? What makes you think you have the right to just barge in here and put all of that at risk? What makes you think you have the right?” On the last word, I slap him in the chest. He doesn’t stagger, or even look like he notices it.
“You’re angry?” He tilts his head at me like he can’t understand it. “I don’t understand why you’re angry. That freak was grabbing at you and—and how can you be angry? I don’t get it.”
“I just explained to you why I’m angry,” I say, turning my back to him. “If you don’t understand that, then maybe you’re just as dumb as you look.”
I know it’s a low blow and even through my anger I feel mean, but I don’t take it back. We stand like that, me looking away from him at the Shack, at Marsha taking my place at the table and placating Charles, at the restaurant thrumming along in my absence. I’ll have to work through my break when I return, I know, but at least Hound’s performance hasn’t resulted in anything disastrous for me. But this annoys me even more, because now it means my anger might be unfounded; the foundations are slipping away and if I don’t quickly rebuild them, I’ll sink into apologies and meekness like I always do. Fold in upon myself and become the Shack girl, the waitress, the high school dropout.
I turn back to Hound and see that he’s just watching me. He’s very good at hiding what he’s feeling, but I’m sure his expression is wounded. I feel the word, “Sorry,” on my lips and know that if I want to win this argument, which suddenly seems important, I have to spit something out else instead. “And I know you’ve killed my dad,” I say, even though I don’t know anything of the sort. But he’s missing, and Hound is the man I witnessed threatening him. What have I been doing? Why have I been falling for this man? Just because I have to be his wife-slave, it doesn’t mean I have to like it. “Here’s what you thought: Oh, she’s just a silly girl, almost a hooker, so I’ll just make her my pretend wife and tell her I’m getting rid of her father’s debts and then I’ll just go ahead and kill her dad anyway. That’s what you thought, isn’t it, you sick bastard?”
Hound watches me calmly, which is about the most infuriating thing a man can do when you’re trying to have an argument with him.
“You killed my dad!” I snap, taking a step to him and standing on my tiptoes so I can look right into his eyes, or as close into his eyes as a five-something woman can with Hound. “Didn’t you? Just admit it!”