Authors: Sennah Tate
Carrying Hope
CARRYING HOPE
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Red Lily Publishing
Copyright © 2014 by Sennah Tate
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Table of Contents:
My hands shook as I dialed the number. A fresh wave of nausea came over me and I clutched my stomach, dashing to the bathroom. The phone rang and rang with no answer. My insides churned and I expelled the remnants of my breakfast into the toilet. The phone rang again.
“Sal’s Diner,” a gruff old man answered, sounding distracted.
“Sal, it’s me, Marcie,” I croaked, trying to sound less pathetic than I felt.
“Where the hell are you? You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.”
I cringed. My boss Sal Martucci was known for many things, but lenience wasn’t one of them. My auburn hair was plastered to my damp forehead and my stomach gurgled again.
“I know. Look, I think I have food poisoning or something, I don’t think I can make it in.” I’d dreaded making the call. It wouldn’t matter to Sal if I was on my deathbed. There were no excused absences from the diner.
“I don’t want to hear it. You either come in or I’ll give your job to someone else.”
The line went dead and I realized there was no hope of arguing my case. I felt horrible and I didn’t know if I would be able to make it through an entire shift, but I had to try.
I stood up slowly, hoping to tamp down the rising tide of bile. I’d never felt this awful in my entire life. The mirror painted a grim picture: a grayish pallor to my skin, dark circles under my eyes and a fine sheen of sweat to top it all off. I looked like I belonged in a quarantine ward, not serving people food in the diner.
Regardless, I had to go to work. I couldn’t afford to lose my job. My boyfriend Kevin and I barely made ends meet as it was. Missing a day of work would hurt, but losing my job entirely would be a disaster. I just needed to suck it up, push through it and baby myself when I got home.
I splashed cold water on my face in hopes of bringing some life back to my complexion. My skin felt feverish and I wanted to just dunk my head in the sink.
My phone rang and I glanced at the caller ID: Sal.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I said after answering the call. I grabbed my purse and my keys and headed toward the door.
“You have ten minutes,” he answered, his voice as rough as sandpaper.
“I’m heading out the door right now.”
Being employed at Sal’s certainly wasn’t my ideal situation. Working under a sixty-five year old Italian’s dictatorship isn’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy. Sal pushed his employees; we worked long hard hours for minimum pay and zero thanks. If I had another option, I would’ve taken it years ago.
I cursed my luck as I flew through the back door to the kitchen and peeked out front: in three years I’d never seen the dining room so full. Of course that would happen on the day that I felt like death warmed over.
Bernie, the cook, took one look at me and frowned.
“You don’t look so good, chica,” he said in his thick Cuban accent.
“Believe me, I feel worse than I look,” I griped, tying my apron strings around my waist.
He made the sign of the cross at me.
“Whatever plague you have, keep it away from me.” He meant it playfully, but I didn’t have the energy to play along today.
I rolled my eyes, giving him a half-hearted smile.
“If Fidel couldn’t get you, I don’t think a stomach bug will.”
I heard his laughter echoing in the kitchen as I hurried out to the front counter.
“I’m here, Sal!”
The balding man eyed me up and down with a scowl.
“You look terrible.”
“I told you I didn’t feel…”
“Who’s going to want to eat when you’re bringing them their food?”
I frowned, not knowing what the right words were to get me out of this awkward situation.
“I’m sorry… I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”
He threw his hands up in exasperation.
“Just go take that table’s order.”
Frustration gnawed at me. He acted like I was the most useless employee. How was it my fault that I was sick? It didn’t matter; I was good at my job and I’d still be good at it feeling like shit.
I plastered my best fake smile on my face and pulled out my ticket book as I approached the table.
“Hi, welcome to Sal’s. My name’s Marcie, can I start you off with some coffee or juice?”
The morning went by in a blur. I was here and there and everywhere. Taking orders, busing tables, delivering food and cashing customers out; I did it all. As the day wore on, I started to feel better, though Sal kept getting on my case about stupid little things.
It was near the end of my shift and I only had forty dollars to show for all of my hard work. I realized one of my tables had been waiting for their food for nearly twenty minutes and went back to the kitchen to check on it.
“Hey Bernie, do you have that chicken a la king and Salisbury steak for me?”
“What are you talking about? I don’t have a ticket for those.”
I looked at him in disbelief. Surely he was pulling my leg. I distinctly remembered punching the order into the computer right after taking it.
Then again, our computers weren’t exactly reliable. Sal was a cheap old bastard and never bothered to upgrade our systems. When I first started, we didn’t even have computers. A few months later, Sal bought a few from a restaurant that was going out of business. Someone convinced him that bringing the diner into the 21st century was going to save him money. If there’s one thing Sal loved, it was saving money.
So we had these terrible old computers that froze at least twice a day and our printers only worked about fifty percent of the time. Typically, Bernie was on top of it all. During the breakfast rush, I normally just called orders out to him and then put them in the computer for the customer’s check.
Today, Sal had an extra stick up his ass, so he got on to me about shouting orders out (”If I wanted to listen to a woman scream in my ear all day I’d be at home with my wife!”) and I was forced to rely on our ancient computers.
Surprisingly, the antiquated machine had been cooperative all day, so I hadn’t even thought to verify that my order made it to the kitchen.
I glanced back to my table and noticed that they were getting restless. I sighed, knowing there was no way that I was going to get a tip after this.
“Okay, Bernie, I need you to do me a solid and get those out ASAP. They’ve already been waiting for twenty minutes.”
He raised his bushy eyebrows at me and clucked his tongue disapprovingly.
“I’ll do it for you Marcie, but you know if
Il Duce
finds out…” he drew his thumb across his throat menacingly.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I groaned, trying to figure a way out of this mess. With a massive sigh, I decided it was best to just come clean with the customers and hope that they’d understand.
Hearing a death march in my head I walked over to the table.
“Hi guys. I’m really sorry about the wait. There was a little mix-up in the kitchen, but the cook is putting a rush on your food to get it out right away. Is there anything I can get you while you wait?”
I was met with blank stares. They were a younger couple, probably around my age: mid-twenties or so. They both had an “alternative” look, tattoos, piercings, leather and spiky hair. Working as a waitress taught me to both ignore and embrace stereotypes. There was always someone to prove the stereotype, but there was also always someone to disprove it. I really hoped these two would be the latter.