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“So what happened? Did it just rip or—”
“I told you: that drunk guy grabbed me.”
She snaps her fingers. “I do remember you saying that. I think. It’s hazy.”
“Because you were barely conscious on the ride home last night.”
“No judgment,” she reminds me with a scolding finger. “We were having fun. I wouldn’t have seemed so drunk if you’d also been drinking.”
I hold up my hands in surrender. “You’re right. No judgment. But that goes both ways.”
Jorden considers, her mouth twisted to one side as she cleans off the six-top in the middle of the dining room. “Okay, but…”
“No exceptions!”
She winces. “Okay—except you came home with no panties, so I want to know—”
“La la la la la! I can’t heaaar you!” I sing over her, drowning out her voice.
Jorden groans. “Fine! Don’t tell me. You probably hooked up with a bazillionaire, but why would I want to hear that story? It’s only my entire life goal.”
“Dating a guy like that isnotyour life goal.”
“You’re right,” she deadpans. “My goal is to be a waitress here until I die. Because I’ll never make enough to retire. Pension? Who needs it! I’ll pay for a nursing home with my middle-school boy tips and $2.13 an hour.”
I replace the salt and pepper shakers on the tables with fresh ones and check the clock hanging above the fake ivy wreath. We open for the brunch crowd in ten minutes. Joy, oh joy.
“No thanks,” Jorden says, continuing her rant. “I plan to find me a sweet little sugar daddy. That party was chock full of them.”
If Jorden knew what having a “sugar daddy” was really like, she wouldn’t want it so bad.
I could tell her. I could walk her through my mom’s life. Through what was supposed to be my life. But I didn’t run away just to dive back into that cesspool again.
Clean break.That’s what I want. Which means I can’t tell Jorden that I’ve seen her fantasy up close and personal, and it doesn’t look anything like the advertisements.
“Guys like the ones from last night want girls in ballgowns who are eternally tipsy on champagne. They aren't interested in working class girls like us,” I say. “And it’s their loss! We’re awesome.”
“I never would have thought of you as a snob, Cora.”
“I’m not a snob! I just…”
“You just judge people based on how much money they have.” She smiles and shrugs when I turn to look at her. “It’s fine. Be a snob if you want. I’ll still love you even when I’m rich beyond belief.”
I throw a damp towel over my shoulder and lean against the corner of the booth. “It’s not that they have money. It’s that none of them know what it’s like to work for it. They look down on people who don’t have money and they think they should be in charge of them just because they were born with a perfect credit score and a trust fund.”
Jorden wrinkles her nose. “Sorry, babe. But I’ve been working for as long as I can remember. If a man with deep pockets wants to take me away from all of this gum scraping, then I’ll gladly let him.”
“You want to be dependent on a man?”
“If it means I can finally breathe, then yeah.” Jorden winks as she passes, bumping my hip with hers. “But until then, I’ll sign on for the brunch shift with you and accept compliments from middle schoolers.”
Just then, Francia swings through the kitchen door with a heavy sigh. “We havegotto hire more kitchen staff. I’m not getting paid enough for this.” Her hair is frizzed out around her face and her cheeks are red.
“Just tell Dino you won’t help him with the pastries anymore. It’s his job,” I tell her.
She puffs out a breath, blowing her bangs off of her forehead. “I know. I will. It’s just that, when I don’t help him, we run out of pastries. And you know who customers yell at when I don’t bring them a cinnamon roll? I’ll give you a hint: it isn’t Dino.”
“In a perfect world, customers wouldn’t yell at anyone. But if they have to,” I say, mulling over the way Dino swats at waitresses’ asses with his dishtowel, “it should always be Dino.”
