When The Sun Rises | ✔

24 | White Noise

Chapter 24 | White Noise

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        I purse my lips against a smile as Vino does his best to be patient with Trina who has him cornered at the end of the bar. She has been hot on his trail since we stepped into the restaurant.

        "Help me," he mouths across the room as she turns her back to him. She listens half-heartedly to whatever the woman at the bar is saying, glancing back at Vino every few seconds.

        I gesture to my ears and mouth back, "Can't hear you."

        His expression blanks. Making sure to lock eyes with me, he raises his hand, slowly lowering each of his fingers until only one remains aiming straight at the ceiling. I grin sweetly at the gesture and head in the direction of the table I have been waiting.

        It is my fourth patron of the day and undoubtedly the worst I have experienced in my week and a half as a waitress. The elderly woman with a voice fit for a plantation, sits alone, blowing the steam from her coffee, as the lenses of the glasses perched on the tip of her nose fog up with a thin white mist. Her skin resembles that of an un-ironed t-shirt, and the small pouch of skin between her neck and chin flaps when she speaks.

        I force a smile as I approach the table, applying rule one of server etiquette that Rondo taught me: "You can forget your tag, but never forget that smile. Serving here ain't just a job youngin, it's a lifestyle."

        "Is everything alright over here, ma'am?"

        Her plate of food remains untouched, the grits hardened into a saucer of salt and pepper next to three strips of bacon and a scoop of scrambled eggs. Without saying a word, she tears open a packet of sugar and empties it into the coffee, unraveling her silverware and dipping the spoon into the mug before dragging her eyes up to mine.

        "No, young lady. It isn't," she says with a bite in her tone.

        Taking a noisy slurp of the coffee and leaving a smudge of cheap red lipstick along the rim, she pushes the mug a few inches forward.

        "Is there something wrong with the food?" I ask, the irritation in my voice thinly veiled. My fingers flex behind my back and my face strains against the instinct to scowl.

         "The real question is, is there anything right with it. The bacon is still too crisp, the eggs are watery, and if I recall properly, I certainly asked for cheese in the grits. There is none."

        Thick folds of skin bunch around her eyes, chalky blue and squinted, a condescending smile stretching her lips into a line; her demeanor spits years of deluded superiority and willful ignorance. Heat spreads across my neck as I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. This has been her third complaint about the food, each more trivial than the last.

        "Well, would you like me to — "

        She raises a pale hand. "I wouldn't like for you to do anything except take this plate and not come back unless it's with your supervisor or whoever is in charge of you here."

        Her tone makes it clear that she expects nothing less than blind obedience, for me to walk away with my tail tucked between my legs like a scolded puppy. Anger shovels into my chest as I nod stiffly and grab the plate from the table, thinking things I wouldn't dare say, things that would redden her face and have her clutching her fake pearls.

        She mumbles beneath her breath and takes another sip from her coffee.

        Ducking between tables, my mind reels with thoughts of the decades of experience she probably has of making people feel like this – pissed off and defenseless. I keep my chin up as I walk, thoughts strangely drifting to the lunch counter protestors during the Civil Rights Movement who sat straight-backed as condiments seeped into their scalps, and I wonder if this is how they felt. I wonder if she did any dumping in her day.