With not one empty seat in the diner, I found myself wondering if everyone in Manhattan had run out of food for breakfast. I mumbled, “Sorry,” to no one, put on my apron, and grabbed a couple of plates without asking, “What table?” I’d just look for empty tabletops and hungry faces and ask until I found the right match.
By seven fifteen, the sounds of people talking, forks colliding with plates, and sausage and bacon frying had reached a dull roar. I was about to drop a stack of potato pancakes in front of a couple when a man walked in. He stood more than a foot taller than me and wore a blue pin-striped suit accompanied by a red silk tie and a shirt as stiff as his shellacked hair. His stature, raven-colored hair, and emerald green eyes set him apart from the morning diner clientele, who mostly looked like they had just rolled out of something, and it wasn’t bed. We did get the occasional fancy-dressed man (usually the guy looking out for his “lady” around the corner), but this one was different. His clothes reeked of expensiveness, and I knew expensive, because Betty Jane was a connoisseur of fine clothing and footwear, and I generated monthly credit card charges equaling the debt of a small nation to prove it.
“Well, now,” said Betty Jane inside my head. She usually didn’t bother to get up until midway through the morning shift. More
surprising than seeing her awake this early was finding her attired in a freshly starched uniform with her sunflower pin affixed to her apron like an evil lapel pet. Even though nobody but me and the other Committee members ever saw Betty Jane, she liked to dress for the occasion, be it an afternoon in the public library or a trip to the supermarket.
“Sit wherever you can find a spot,” I said to the man. He walked quickly toward me instead. I stepped back and slid sideways. He stopped at the counter and leaned in. Even though the purple Formica separated us, I pressed against the metal shelves holding the coffee cups and silverware. He probably stole the clothes, I thought.
“That’s a real Rolex,” said Betty Jane inside my head.
“I’m looking for Holly,” said the man.“Holly with the Southern voice.” Then he did what people always did when they looked at me for the first time: He tipped his head to the left. I pressed my palm against my jaw to force my head into a vertical line. Ruffles tumbled off her pillow. I felt as if someone had flipped a big rock against my skull.
“Tell him you’re Holly,” said Betty Jane. I shook my head slightly.
“Holly isn’t here?” said the man. He straightened his head and dropped his gaze from my face to my name tag. I covered it with my hand. “You’re Holly.” He extended his hand. “Walter Torrent.” His deep voice echoed off the morning din. “I heard about you from my PA, Robbie.”
Robbie was a regular customer. A real climber. Exactly the kind of guy who appealed to Betty Jane. She always took over to wait on him, and I didn’t mind, because I’d never liked him.“Why would he talk to you about me?” I said. “And what’s a PA?”
“I came in to hear your Southern voice myself,” he said.
Before I could respond, Betty Jane seized control. I fell back
into the Committee’s room as she extended my hand to meet Walter Torrent’s.
“Why, hello.” Betty Jane’s breathy Southern drawl tumbled out of my mouth.
Ignoring their conversation, I said, “Did you see what she did?” to the other Committee members.
“What’s she doing up this early?” asked Sarge.
“Holly, pay attention,” said Ruffles.
She heaved herself up off her pillow.The Committee’s house swayed.We all gripped any available furniture to keep from toppling over. Betty Jane stood stock-still. Her uncanny ability to manage my body perfectly no matter what we were doing inside reminded me of my mother, who could be in the middle of a raging battle and still answer the door with a smile.
“Holly!” snapped Ruffles. My eyes alternated between Sarge and Ruffles. I saw blotches of anger and concern on her face. The scar that ran from the corner of Sarge’s jawline, diving down the collar of his T-shirt, pulsed white against his red neck.
I refocused on Betty Jane and Walter.
“Not bad.” Walter pointed at my mouth.
“You mean perfect,” said Betty Jane as she raised a hand to fluff my hair.
Walter waited. Betty Jane giggled. “Oh, my, are you going to eat, or are you here just to stare at li’l ol’ me?” she said.
“Is she flirting with that guy?” I asked. My confusion combined with the awareness that I was the only one who seemed to be missing something here rushed at me.
Ruffles narrowed her eyes.“No. But she’s up to something. I may need to intervene.”
“Hush,” said Betty Jane. She pressed my hand against my lips. “We will have none of that.” Walter smiled as if the comment
were addressed to him, and not me and the Committee that he couldn’t see. “How about you sit down right here?” My hand waved at a just vacated table.
Walter sat down. Betty Jane stood with poised pen and order pad at the ready. “I need a menu,” he said.
“Of course you do.” She sashayed my body to the counter, retrieved the menu, and sauntered back. With my short legs and wide hips, I never had the confidence to blatantly do the cat-walk like that for any man. Somehow, when Betty Jane was in control, I had a model’s body—thin and very tall.We all watched, mesmerized.
Betty Jane held out the menu for him to take. “Why, here you go.”
Walter’s gaze burned so intently it seared me where I sat on the Committee’s couch inside my head.
Betty Jane smiled coquettishly.
“That’s enough!” said Ruffles. Sarge stood up.“You step back, or I’ll have Sarge make you.”
Betty Jane could read Sarge’s scar thermometer. She didn’t hesitate to cede control.
Walter ordered eggs, toast, and coffee from me.A few minutes later, I felt his eyes on my back as I ceded control to Ruffles, whose favorite customer had just walked in the door. Just as with Betty Jane, my body felt different. Uncomfortably different, like a severe bloat that accompanies a late period. And I knew from the way Walter was watching me, because I was grew up with a man just like him, that he was a man who hated an ounce of fat on a woman. Good thing Ruffles didn’t care about her bulk. In fact, she celebrated it.
I turned my attention to the other hungry patrons in my area and forgot about Walter. After about twenty minutes, Robbie
entered with another tall, casually dressed man.They sat down at Walter’s table. I saw them speaking; then Walter pointed at me. Robbie nodded in agreement.
“Miss?” a voice behind me said. I turned around.The woman speaking pointed at the food in front of her. “I didn’t want these as an appetizer. He doesn’t have his meal.” Her finger now aimed at her thin companion sitting across from her. “We wanted our food together.”
I split my gaze between her table and the table one over from it, where Walter and Robbie conferred while the companion listened. If I read their faces right, Robbie was selling something Walter wasn’t too keen on buying. I couldn’t read the other guy.
Robbie noticed me surveilling them. He made a gesture I didn’t know how to interpret.
“Well?” barked the woman. I shook off my confusion. “Are you going to stand there staring into space or are you going to do something?”
“Oh—”
Betty Jane pulled. As I landed on the Committee’s floor, she fixed my eyes on Walter and his companion and fluttered my fingers at Robbie, and then she turned to the unhappy woman. “Miss,” Betty Jane purred, “I am terribly sorry for the mix-up. I can take these and bring out a new batch with your order.” My hand reached for the plate.The woman grabbed my wrist. “I am going to take these right back to the kitchen and have them make three orders. No charge.”
“Could be Violet,” said Walter. “I don’t know. What do you think?” he asked the guy sitting between him and Robbie.
“Or, if y’all like,” said Betty Jane,“I can leave these as a li’l ol’ snack for you to share. I’ll bring the other two orders with his meal. Sound nice?”The woman nodded and let go of my wrist.
The guy sitting between Walter and Robbie nodded and said, “I’ve heard enough.”
Enough what? I didn’t know what this was about, but whatever it was, Betty Jane wanted it. Badly. She was never this nice to any customer.
Robbie,Walter, and the third guy sat quietly at their table. Betty Jane stood watching, still holding the plate of potato pancakes. I sat frozen on the Committee’s floor as anxiety and indecision did the tango in my stomach while confusion watched from the side.
“Well,” said the woman, obviously dismissing me.
Shit.
No indecision now. “Betty Jane,” I said, “what are you doing?”
“Nothing.” She ceded control. My knees buckled. I dove forward to catch my body just before it went down. When I felt the ground under my feet, I bolted through the kitchen toward the back exit.
“Yur stackin’ up orders here.Where da hell ya goin’?” yelled the exasperated cook.
“I need a cigarette.”
“Fuggedaboutit.” He handed me food for another table.
Luna, the only other waitress working that morning, walked in and said, “Holly, your friend and that other guy want to order.”
Betty Jane blindsided me again. My head smacked on the Committee’s coffee table. I rubbed the swelling bump and watched as the plates of food dropped from my hands and crashed to the floor.
“Watch it!” screamed the cook.
“Oh, my,” exclaimed Betty Jane from my mouth. Then she turned my body, leaving the dishes where they’d fallen.
“The dishes?” I cried.
“Do you mind?” Betty Jane said sweetly to a busboy. “I have so many tables.”
“What the hell is wrong with her?” I asked Ruffles. She waved me off and turned her attention back to Betty Jane and the trio of men.
“And this is Mike Davey, the director for Walter’s new animated television show called
The Neighborhood
,” said Robbie.
Betty Jane smiled as Robbie handed her some sheets of paper that looked like a script from a play. He nodded and she read a few lines. He read the response and then it went back to Betty Jane.
“Oh,” I said with more relief than I felt.“They’ve been doing this for weeks. Nothing to be alarmed over.”
Ruffles shook her head. Instinct told me she was right, something was up, but I didn’t have it in me to fight Betty Jane. I decided ignoring her might carry more impact, so I picked up her discarded copy of
Vogue
and started paging through it.
“Holly,” said Luna. I looked up from my reading. Betty Jane didn’t even recognize her presence. “You’d better take care of your other tables and orders, or you’re going to be fired.”
I stood up and tried to move forward to take control. Betty Jane held on tighter than a barnacle to a ship’s hull. Guilt over not trusting Ruffles when she said Betty Jane was up to no good spread from my abdomen up into my throat. I remained standing, waiting for any opening.
“I get the part as Violet and Robbie gets his money?”
Part? Money?
“What is she talking about?” I asked Ruffles.
“In a minute,” said Ruffles. “Now shush.”
“Not so fast,” said Walter. “You might have a great voice—might—but the question can you use it behind a microphone? Can you act?”
I paused. I didn’t know what he meant about a microphone, but this guy had no idea how well I could act.
“Why don’t we get her some training and see how she does?” said Mike Davey.
“That sounds like a plan. Set it up.And, Little Waitress . . .” He looked at me. Betty Jane flashed a twenty-four-tooth smile at the insult. I’d have returned a face shot through with repugnance. “Just remember, Walt’s World only has stars.” He dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table and stood up.
“Give Robbie your contact details and someone will get back to you about classes and so forth,” said Mike.
Walt tapped his watch and said, “Let’s go.” He nodded at me and Mike waved. Robbie high-fived Betty Jane and followed them out the door.
I turned to Ruffles.“What did I miss?” I said with apprehension. “That guy Walter Torrent offered ten thousand dollars to anyone who found him the exact voice for the lead character, Violet, on his new show,
The Neighborhood,
or something,” she said. “Guess who wants to be that voice.”
I couldn’t do anything other than sigh as Betty Jane waited for me to transition with her.
“Holly,” said the cook, “nobody drops plates and walks away in my diner.”
“But the busboy—”
“I warned ya already about that Southern diva crap,” said the cook. “And ya drop a plate, ya pick it up.” Luna and the busboy looked away, and I knew I was about to lose another job because of Betty Jane.
I opened my mouth to argue.
“Forget it, Holly,” said Ruffles inside my head. She was right. Goddamn Betty Jane. We’d had this job for only three months. This was a record, even for her.
“Here’s your pay for today.” The cook handed me some bills in exchange for my apron.
I grabbed my bag, and went out back for the cigarette I’d wanted earlier.
I leaned against the wall and lit my next cigarette with the remains of the last. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” I fumed.
“You should be thanking me for what I’ve done,” said Betty Jane inside my head.
“Thanking you?” I yelled.
Betty Jane sat demurely filing her nails. She paused mid-scrape. “Well, no thanks required, really. I know that deep down you are pleased.”
See what I mean about a terrible intimacy? But we had an unspoken rule, the Committee and I. Even though they could read my mind, the Committee still had to treat my private thoughts as if they were the family laundry—and we didn’t air the family laundry. Betty Jane had carried me unscathed through the patch of secrets, delivering me safely on the other side and on the path to a new life. She knew it, and she knew I knew it, and that was why she sat there arching her left eyebrow, daring me to chastise her for this latest violation.