From His Perspective

Chapter 10

Charlie sat in her car in the small parking lot in front of Second Breakfast. She dug around inside her purse for her cigarettes and a lighter. “I blew it,” she said out loud.

She had considered lying about her experience. She could have said she waitressed during high school at a Friendly’s or something. Most of them were gone now anyway. Who would bother checking waitress references? Why would someone lie about having been a waitress?

“I should have lied about it.” She lit the cigarette, sucked in a lung full of smoke and held it until her nerves settled some.

She should have known the guy who interviewed her wasn’t Tubs. He was far too good looking to have earned such an icky nickname. She hated cliches, but the man had the most dreamy hazel eyes. No one in their right mind would refer to that guy as Tubs.

When she checked her phone she wasn’t surprised to see that she didn’t have any missed messages. It was a new number. Brand new. Only her mother and sister had it. In her mind, she’d had the interview going in a completely different direction. She expected Tubs to be so taken by her charm he’d offer the job on the spot. In her head, that was how it was supposed to have gone. Saying she felt mildly disappointed was an understatement.

She started her car and backed out of the parking space. The last thing she wanted to do was go home.

Home. That was a joke. It was one of the few places in Rochester she could find that she could afford and on short notice. Both her mother and her sister wanted her to temporarily move in with them. Her mother swore she could move out once she got back on her feet. Actually, her sister had said the same thing. She appreciated the support. The idea of moving in with her mother made her feel uneasy. The two of them always got along, it was just her mother would constantly be in her business. She did so in a concerted way, but the questions quickly sounded like nagging. The last thing she wanted was to resent her mother.

HomeThen there was Wendy, her kid sister. Wendy had a husband and a newborn to care for. The last thing Wendy needed was her older sister taking up space in their already too small house. That was a perfect recipe for disaster. While she would rather live with Wendy, she was sure Wendy would end up resenting her. One way or another someone would end up resenting someone.

She quickly decided she could do this on her own. There was just enough in the bank, money she’d managed to squirrel away, giving her a big enough pocket of security, so starting over was possible. She’d found a place to live, and even though she hated quitting her last job and moving halfway across the country, she knew she’d land one soon.

New Beginnings. Her new day. A new sun rising. Everything would be okay. No! Better than okay. Things were going to be great. It was what she told herself over and over. Charlie thought she was either being confident or would damned sure convince herself the mantra was true.

No! The waitress position at Second Breakfast felt like a sign. It was close to her place and she figured with her personality, she was bound to supplement the hourly wage with good tips.

A restaurant on Ridge Road had a Help Wanted posting for a bartender. She had thought about applying but worried if there was some kind of a drink making test she’d fail it. People went to school for bartending. If they hired her the charade would end almost immediately. She didn’t know what the hell was in a cosmopolitan, a Long Island iced tea, or s*x on the beach.

It took her less than three minutes to get home. She lived literally around the corner from the diner. She had taken Lake to Beach and turned left on Wilder Terrace. The house sat at the corner of Wilder and Meriden Street with a side door entrance to her place.

She parked on the far right in the driveway and then walked around the front of the house to the side entrance. Stepping inside, she stood at the threshold and sighed. The apartment came partially furnished. There was a black fabric sofa, a round kitchen table with two chairs, and a tall lamp with a dingy, yellowed lampshade in a corner of the living room.

yellowed The only thing she bought when she got in town a few weeks back was a twin mattress and boxspring. They were on the floor in the closet-sized bedroom off the right.

She flopped onto the sofa, and without realizing it would happen, fell asleep.

The room was much darker when she woke up, and she felt restless. Charlie undressed in the bathroom. The clothing she’d worn to the interview was wrinkled from sleeping on the sofa which was a shame since she hated ironing. As she dropped the clothing onto the floor in the corner and stepped into the shower she wondered if tossing the items in the dryer would remove the wrinkles? It was worth a try.

Although she was hungry, the thought of doctoring another bag of ramen noodles felt a little nauseating. She wasn’t going to lie, but her desire to work at Second Breakfast was partly because she needed a job, but maybe more so because when she was outside she constantly smelled the food being cooked there. There must be some kind of employee discount on meals.

Her stomach rumbled.

In a yellow cotton towel, Charlie walked with wet feet into the bedroom. She quickly dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. She shook the water from her hair and resolved to wear it pulled back into a long ponytail, and then hid most of it under a Minnesota Twins baseball cap. When her dad was alive he would take them all to a few games a year.

There was no full-length mirror in the apartment. With a hand swipe, she removed the steam from the medicine cabinet mirror in the bathroom. There was a time when she had to cake on make-up. It was part of the reason why she left Minnesota. Now that she didn’t have to do that, she preferred not wearing make-up at all. Maybe some eyeliner, or gloss over her lips. She stuck her feet into red converse sneakers, lifted her jean jacket off the coat rack on the back of the front door, snagged her purse and left the apartment.

She wanted a burger and fries. She deserved to treat herself. It had been an interview day. Despite having no experience as a waitress, she felt good about Second Breakfast. So good about the interview, in fact, she was going to go there for dinner.

there It was a perfect night for a nice walk. The extra steps before and after the meal would make her feel better about the sins she was about to commit.

Going to dinner alone took time. Doing anything alone, for that matter.

She lit a cigarette as she walked. Autumn in Rochester, New York did not seem much different than autumns in Rochester, Minnesota. The vibrant orange, red and yellow leaves clung to the trees, while just as many covered the ground inside the state park. She could smell wood burning stoves working to heat houses. Winter came faster in Minnesota. That much was for certain. Snow didn’t bother her. The cold didn’t bother her. It was what she was used to. Although she couldn’t see Lake Ontario, once she made a right onto Beach Avenue, she could hear the waves rolling.

Her father was why she moved from one Rochester to the other. Their connections seemed obvious. More than just the matching city names, there was the baseball teams. The Rochester Red Wings were the farm team for the Twins. If that wasn’t kismet, then what was?

Checking her phone she saw that it was nearly eight. The businesses along Lake Avenue did well. It didn’t seem to matter if it was the middle of the week. There were quite a few cars in the Second Breakfast parking lot. She hoped the guy who had interviewed her was gone. If he was still working and saw her he might think she was stalking the place, which wasn’t the case. She was simply hungry.