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Before she could greet the table, a commotion arose behind her—a crash, several gasps and cries, and a man’s voice shouting, “FUCK YOU!”
Adrenaline shot straight through Siena’s veins. Without a thought, she dropped to a crouch and threw her arms up, covering her head with the tray.
“Back off, man,” the same voice said, with slightly less volume.
Every muscle in Siena’s body had tautened to the breaking point, but she managed to carefully turn her head.
Parker was forcibly ‘escorting’ a man out of the bar. The other patrons were interested but not terrified.
Several other waitresses, however, had ducked for cover, too. The ghosts of Brady Everdeen and the many people he’d murdered would forever haunt the Cadence.
Siena blew out a shaky breath and made her body unclench enough that she could stand. The three couples watched her with various looks of curiosity and compassion.
“Sorry about that. Hi, what can I get you this evening?”
One of the women, a pretty redhead, gave her an almost maternal smile. “I guess it’s hard to work here after what happened.”
Plastering a brave, bright smile on her face, Siena answered, “Sometimes, yeah. It was a hard day.”
“Were you working?” one of the men asked—and got a slap on the arm from his date/spouse/whatever.
But Siena answered him. “I was. I wasn’t hurt. But I lost good friends that day.” She’d been working the no-limit poker room, and Everdeen hadn’t made it as far as the high-roller rooms. On the other hand, he’d killed three waitresses and two bartenders working the Andante and wounded two other waitresses, one of whom ultimately lost her leg. If Siena had been working her usual gig, she very likely would have left Geneva entirely alone in the world.
Coming back to work here after that day had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done. Notthehardest thing; her life had been hard as shit, so there was a lot of competition for the top spot. But that day had been really fucking hard. If she’d had any other option, she’d have quit. But there were no other options that kept roof overhead, food in bellies, et cetera.
“I’m so sorry,” another woman said, and the table took on the infernally awkward quiet of people all having a downer at the same time.
She shouldn’t be talking about this. “Thank you.” Getting that bright smile back where it belonged, she repeated, “Well, today marks a new year and a fresh start, right? What can I get you?”
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~oOo~
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Siena got home justpast one in the morning. As she pulled into the driveway, her headlights hit the ‘For Sale’ sign of the house next door, and she noticed that the ‘Sale Pending’ sign had been removed and a shiny ‘SOLD’ sticker had been plastered across the sign. Looked like they were getting a new neighbor.
Desert Lanes was a ‘manufactured home’ community, which basically meant a trailer park without the wheels. All the houses were identical—three bedrooms, two baths, living-dining combo room, kitchen with a bar connecting to the dining half of the combo room, laundry room. Décor varied, but the bones did not.
They were identical on the outside, too: white siding, a strangely pinkish color for the trim, pinkish awnings over the windows and over the carport. Reddish gravel for a yard, an eight-by-twenty concrete slab in the back for a patio, wood fence with a faux-iron front gate. The carport was advertised as ‘two car’ but only if you didn’t mind getting boxed in when the second car parked behind you. It did have a little storage shed at the back, though. White, with pinkish trim.
Really nothing special to look at, in or out. She’d only been able to afford to buy any kind of house because her grandparents had bought one decades before. That had passed to Siena’s mother when her grandmother died. By the time it passed to Siena, the ‘deferred maintenance’ had gotten pretty extreme, almost too extreme to support habitation, and far beyond her capacity to afford the repairs. So she’d sold it as is and used the proceeds for a down payment on this place in a glorified trailer park.
But it was better than a trailer park in that the land came with the house, so there were no exorbitant slot rental fees. There was a ‘community fee,’ but it wasn’t an HOA—just a fund to pay for the upkeep of the pool and picnic area and the little playground and park. In this section of the development, the neighbors were, as a rule, decent. Most were older folks who’d moved to the desert for their health. The rest were mainly young families just starting out. Young or old, everybody minded their own business.
Siena didn’t know where she and Geneva fell in the demographic. They were family, and young, but ‘starting out’ seemed more hopeful than their lives could support. She wondered what demographic their new neighbor or neighbors would fit into. Mr. Torrance had lived there for almost two decades, after his wife had died and he’d sold the Iowa house they’d raised their children in and moved out here. Mr. Torrance had been a nice old man.
He’d died in his sleep the day after Halloween, at age ninety-three. His part-time home health attendant had found him that afternoon.
Siena and Geneva had gone to a lot of funerals last fall.
Shaking that melancholy off, Siena got out of her car and minced to the street to check the mailbox. Geneva never remembered to check.
Her feet were killing her. After a full shift in these damn boots, every step was like tiptoeing across a bed of nails.
Most waitresses changed into and out of their uniform getup at work; there was a communal back room serving as dressing room, bathroom, and break room. But Siena didn’t like to dress or undress with an audience, so she risked the possibility of humiliation should she at some point need to get out of her car between home and work. It was just much easier and calmer to put herself together in her own bedroom.
Pulling the mail from the box—nothing but bills and circulars, of course—she turned and took a moment. She liked the neighborhood best at night, especially during the holidays. In the daylight, everything was washed-out, bland sameness, fading into the desert. At night, though, the dark obscured the repetition, and the lights from the windows made the whole street glow. And right now? With Christmas lights still on display? Lovely.
