Chapter 3
As a girl, Rachel didn’t have the best upbringing, nor did she have a good reputation during her time at school. She was constantly bullied, name-called and taunted, though she never told anyone. Never once did she speak up for herself. She had one or two friends there, but they weren’t really friends, they just pitied her. Rachel knew that, but again, never said anything.
She grew up with her older brother Toby and they had been very close as they grew up together. Unfortunately they had stopped speaking once she started college to study medicine. With the amount of course work she had and the research required for her studies, she simply didn’t find time to talk to her family. After a few months on the course she had found it too much of a struggle to keep up with all the written work and essays, so she had given it up and decided to live on her own. She would eventually find a job that paid her a decent wage to get by on. It had been her dream to be a nurse and at the beginning it all seemed so exciting and new, but when she actually did it for real, she realised it wasn’t for her, and that was that.
A few interviews and some phone calls later, she was offered a job working as a waitress at the Harley Hotel in Manhattan, New York. The job was demanding and the hours were long, but she needed it, so she bought herself a smart, gray pencil skirt and matching jacket and then progressed through the interview with an up-market profile and false smile. This wasn’t her, but it didn’t matter, the money was important.
Bert Pilley was the boss there. He had conducted all of the thirty-something interviews. He was a tall, lanky guy with short gray hair and a stern expression on his dry, wrinkly face. Not the friendliest of people, he knew how to run a business. No-one would dare talk to him unless invited to; he was not a man to be toyed with.
One evening, Rachel had received a phone call from Marc. Her husband, an attractive man with short, dark hair, always smartly dressed and regarded as a James Bond look-alike, had phoned to let her know that he may not be able to make it back home that night. She thought nothing of it and went back to work.
Todd Dremmel, a guy in his mid-twenties and one of the many waiters at the hotel, had been working late one evening and needed some help closing up. Everyone-else had left; nobody stuck around after evening service had finished, so he had asked Rachel to stay and help him.
She thought logically: start at the top end of the restaurant, then work your way down, won’t take you long. Collect in table covers and napkins, always remembering to fold everything up neatly, you would get a warning if you didn’t, and take in all the empty glasses as well. There, done. After she had finished, she walked over to the bar to find Todd mopping out the back, the chefs had left the floor in a disgusting mess. Todd was the only person willing to clean it up; no-one else would even go near it.
She walked behind the bar and went over to him; it was time she went home.
“Hi, I’m all finished out there. Did you want me for anything else?”
‘Just come here and find out…’
“Well, I’m nearly all done myself. Fancy having a drink with me at Bernie’s up top? It would be fun…” He pretty much worshipped her, knew that he loved her, yet he never found the right opportunity to say anything to her. It seemed pointless, he knew about her and Marc being a couple. He hated calling them that and just wished it wasn’t true; didn’t want to believe it, but had to accept it, especially as he had to work with her every day.
“I can’t... you know I’m with Marc. Remember?”
“Yeah... I know. Sorry, I didn’t mean to...” he continued mopping the floor behind him in an effort to avoid the awkwardness of this situation.
