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“You little slut,” Kimberly growled. “He likes actresses. Is that what you are? Some aspiring actress who wants to make it in the business but needs a sugar daddy to fund her career?”
“Is that why you married him?” Jessie shot back. The whole diner took in an audible breath at the same time, and from one of the counter's barstools a kid who appeared to be in his late teens let out an, “Oh, snap!”
“How dare you?” Kimberly advanced on Jessie who took a step back, trying hard not to spill the soup, her hands trembling from the unexpected confrontation. “You just keep out of my life! Stay away from my husband and our home, you ghetto whore. I saw the pictures you posted. You're trash, and if John had anything to do with you it was purely physical and it meant nothing.” Kimberly blasted the word “nothing” into Jessie's face.
Just like that, Kimberly Harwood blew out of the diner along with her entourage. In a testament to her work ethic, Jessie's first thought was to deliver the two bowls of soup she was holding but the unsettling incident had rattled her so badly she mistakenly set them down on the wrong table.
“We didn't order this,” the man sitting across from a woman who was presumable his wife remarked kindly, seeming to understand and forgive the mix-up.
“If that's the chicken soup,” someone called across the diner, “you can take it back. I'm sure it's cold by now, and I also don't want Kimberly Harwood's spit in it – even if she is hot.”
The diner burst out in laugher, the silence broken by the young man's quip, and Jessie turned to see Melanie cackling hysterically at the cash register. Burt, on the other hand, did not find the incident so funny and his face was red with anger. Beckoning with his finger for Jessie to follow him outside, he led her through the kitchen and into the alleyway out back.
“Burt, this has nothing to do with me,” Jessie said before Burt could even open his mouth. “I don't know that woman, and I've never met her husband in my life.”
“How can you say that?” Melanie's voice chimed in from behind them. Not one to miss out on drama, she had followed them both and stood with one hand leaning on doorway while holding up her cell phone.
“Back off, Melanie,” Jessie snarled on her. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“Well, it's got everything to do with the rest of the world, girl. Do you have any idea how many people saw your little messages to your boyfriend on Twitter?” Melanie waved the phone in her hand. “You know, you really gotta' be careful about what you tweet. These things have a way of getting back to wives and getting them all sorts of pissed.”
Jessie stepped towards Melanie and grabbed for her cell, but Melanie quickly pulled it out of her reach.
“What is that? Let me see,” Jessie demanded.
Melanie held her phone in front of Jessie's face, and Burt leaned in to look at it as well. There were streams of tweets, all made by Jessie, directed at the Twitter account of John Harwood. In each of them, her tweets told the story of how they met, how Jessie was madly in love with him, and how she couldn't wait for the day he'd leave his wife — just like John had promised.
“This is bullshit!” Jessie said, finally grabbing the cell phone out of Melanie's hand. “I don't even have a Twitter account!”
“Well, that's your picture, isn't it?” Burt demanded, looking even closer, his eyes squinting to make out the photo on the small screen.
“It is, but someone clearly got hold of it somehow and I'm going to find out who!” Jessie could see quite plainly that the picture was indeed of her. It was a rather salacious one of her in very scant underwear that left little to the imagination. It had been taken by an ex-boyfriend two years earlier during a weekend away, and she had no idea how anyone could have gotten hold of it.
“Stop ogling this picture, Burt,” Jessie fumed as she handed the phone back to Melanie. “This is someone's idea of a sick joke, and whoever it is better take the profile down.”
“Whoever it is?” Burt replied incredulously, still visibly upset. “Whoever it is better watch out they don't lose their job by doing crazy stuff like this and causing a commotion in my diner. I don't want anything like this happening again, Jessie. You fly off the handle in front of customers, you come in an hour late at my busiest time, and now you've got women coming in here and accusing you of adultery.”
“Burt, please. You know me. I couldn't do a thing like this,” Jessie pleaded.
“All I know is I'm trying to run a business and this doesn't look good. I'm sorry, Jessie, but you've got one last chance. Anything else and you're out of here.”
“But...” Jessie began.
“I don't want to hear another word. Melanie, you get back to work. There's still a half an hour to the end of your shift and a room full of hungry people. Jessie, you get out of here and the next time you come in, I want a new attitude,” Burt said with a stern face while pointing a finger at her.
Jessie nodded her understanding as Melanie shook her head disapprovingly at her and placed her phone back into her pocket. The two scurried back inside, and Jessie stopped by the back room to collect her things. After removing her apron off, she slipped her cardigan on over her uniform. She began to shove her apron into her bag, and that's when she noticed the assignment she'd spent the previous night slaving away over.
“Shit,” she said under her breath, scolding herself for sleeping through her bus ride into school. She'd worked so hard on it this paper, but since it would be handed in late there would be an automatic decrease in her grade. Any more delays and she was likely to receive a failing grade that would tarnish her otherwise fantastic performance.
Wearily, she got onto the bus and sat through the hour-long journey to her college. The ride gave her plenty of time to reflect on the bizarre events of the day, and she had a plethora of questions she wanted answers to. On the ride back home, she fell asleep on the bus but was lucky enough to wake in time to get off near her apartment building.
She thought long and hard about the past few days. It was as if the world was conspiring against her. She knew she had to keep on top of things. There was no way she could lose her job now, and there was no way she was going to allow herself to drop out of college, either.
Chapter Three
Two days passed without incident, and Jessie foolishly thought the whole Harwood Twitter nonsense had been forgotten. Unfortunately for her, it hadn't. Somehow the press had picked up the story, and although it wasn't front page news, it was still in the city's daily paper. The interview with Kimberly Harwood was titled “The Other Woman Almost Ruined My Life,” and the piece featured a photo of the confrontation between her and Kimberly in Burt's Diner. Her mind raced back to the faint sound of a camera she'd heard during the ordeal, and she wondered if whoever snapped it made any money from the picture.
Earle Jackson of table four had evidently read the interview, much to Jessie's chagrin. Like clockwork, lunchtime rolled around and he was back in the diner to tormenting Jessie as usual. If he wasn't trying to make a grab for her as she passed his table with an order, he was asking her for the millionth time why she wouldn't go on a date with him. He'd lingered at the table longer than he normally did, quickly getting on Jessie's last nerve with his obnoxious comments.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked him with a heavy sigh.
“Yeah, what about some of what you've been giving the billionaire dude? Why are you still working here anyway?”
“What do you mean?” Jessie replied while attempting to keep her cool.
“With the amount of money he's got, maybe you should ask him for a raise for your 'services.' You know what I mean?” Earl cruelly joked.
That was the final straw for Jessie. She reached to the center of his table and, picking up the plastic bottle full of ketchup, aimed the nozzle at his face and squeezed with all her might. His hands shot to his face, attempting to block the stream of red tomato sauce as he screamed and jumped out of his seat. Jessie did not relent, emptying the contents of the
bottle all over Earle's face and sweaty white t-shirt.
The whole diner was in an uproar. Jessie's heart was pounding, adrenaline surging through her along with a wave of excitement mixed with fear. She'd never done anything like this before, and standing up for herself felt damn good. Knowing she likely just lost her job, however, didn't feel very good at all. With the reality of what she'd just done sinking in, her head dropped slightly knowing she'd just sealed her fate.
