Chapter 5

“Can you just not?” I snap at Lorraine, the other waitress in this hellhole, and shove her out of the way with my arse as she lounges in the hatch in my way for the millionth time today. I am already tense and irritated by my day, and having her fat ugly face hanging around me makes me even more so.

“What’s eating you, sugar?” She drolls lazily, that fake New York twang she tries to mimic, even though she is from Texas, and eye rolls at me.

Her frizzy, over-processed nest of almost white hair over pudgy fake tanned and poorly applied makeup gives her an air of late fifties rather than the forty-two she told me she is. I swear she’s on the verge of getting a fork in her eye today, and I am not in the mood to deal with a menopausal old hag with a laziness disorder. She needs to tuck her disgusting spotty food baby away as it overhangs, giving her a muffin top on the trousers she has on today, and I wonder why I am the only one who gets stuck with the shitty pink waitress dress.

I hate working here most days, but I think that turned to extreme loathing in the last forty minutes.

I have the first traces of a mega cold, banging sore head, and swollen glands, and if one more sleazy construction worker feels my arse when I am serving him lunch, I may scream. Flu doesn’t make for a witty and happy, overworked slop server.

Four months, five days, seven hours and twenty-three minutes since I walked out of that hospital with only three suitcases and a hatbox, and here I am.

Living the fucking dream!

That is if your dream is to be a shittily paid, overworked grease servant in a grubby back alley diner that stinks every day of fried food. Manhandled by sweaty mucky men and barked at by your Hitler of a boss as he also eye rapes you and can’t seem to dig his eyeballs out of your cleavage on a daily. I don’t think it’s a mistake he supplied me with uniforms that are two sizes too small, and I can barely move without a button popping over my bust.

I am working to pay for a crappy one-bed shithole across town in the dump dive, better known as the lower west side of the meatpacking district. It’s hardly a safe environment for a young woman alone, but it’s all I can afford if I want to stay in the city.

I told myself it was downtime, a plod-along stop gap until I got stronger and more able to climb back on the horse. And then I kept telling myself I wasn’t ready to get back on the street to start hustling for a better life. Really should have known from the moment I was arguing over my reasoning that I was not Okay.

I’m different somehow.

Alexi broke me in so many ways, and the thought of going back to canoodling with dark-hearted, suited men in the world of d***s and sex terrifies me. I’ve lost my confidence, and my ambition is shaky. My heart is fragile and bruised, and I don’t think I would have the ability to swoon and charm men in a bid to get the upper hand anymore. He showed me that there are men who are more terrifying and effective than being sexually assaulted. It’s a different kind of brain fuck, and the afterwards is equally devastating.

I am still healing from being touched by him.

I’m biding my time and figuring out where to go and what to do from here on in. I have enough money to live this out for a while, putting away what I can to make a real start somewhere else. Making plans for a different life, a safer one.

I have no ambitions of grandeur, not anymore. I never finished school or earned any qualifications, and besides my looks and effortless skill at making men want to have sex with me, I haven’t a lot else to work with. I know my youth and beauty won’t stay with me forever, so I need a better plan for a life that outlives it. That doesn’t translate to many jobs when you’re trying to avoid men and attention. These are the only things I have ever been good at.

I manoeuvre around her with a glare, avoiding any more chit-chat with a woman I can barely stand looking at, let alone breathe the same air. She’s a clumpy and grubby pain in my ass, constantly chewing on chicken legs and lax when doing her job and hygiene. She has favour with the boss, though, as she lets him put his hand down her pants whenever his wife is out at the wholesale. And then their weekly fuck session when she is on her day off isn’t hard to hear. Grunting, pig snorting and humph sounds echoing from the back make it obvious they aren’t baking a cake together.

Getting behind the crowded table and dodging the kid spitting peanuts all over the floor between the tables, I get there as the nearest customer jumps up from his seat, startling me with his over-enthusiastic appearance. He has headphones in, listening to today’s game, and I guess they scored. Unfortunately, his elbow catches my tray and flips it at me at super speed, pouring two putrid soups, a swimming fried breakfast, two icy shakes and water right down my already grubby pink uniform with a magnificent crescendo.

I gasp and then grimace with an ‘Ughhh’ as hot and cold assault me simultaneously and soak through most disgustingly. Clothes are moulding to my body as it all slides down me with vile aplomb. My body shivers and recoils inside my sodden outfit as I cringe all over, eyeing him up with a furious glare as he tuts at me and slides back into his seat as though I am the one who did something stupid.

Dickhead!!

“Meghan!!! What the fuck?” Today has been one of those crappy ‘all bad things happen to me’ kind of days. Joe, my boss, screams at me from the frying pit he calls a kitchen, and I stand there in utter disbelief. His voice has the same effect as nails on a chalkboard, and I have to inhale very slowly before moving.

“Stupid bitch.” The middle-aged customer mutters at me, and I bite my tongue to stop cussing back at him with a vengeance as I peel plates from my tits and wiggle the crockery to fall back on the tray, which is still in my hands. I count to ten inwardly and keep reminding myself how much I need this job, ignoring Joe and his aggressive rant about my incompetence. He’s banging around in the kitchen, hollering abuse my way, and I try hard to zone him out. I am more fixated on the liquids running down my legs.

I balance what I can, then swoop down with one hand to retrieve things in the pool of mess on the floor. Internally pissed at life and hating that I now have to clean this shit off the chequered black and white tiled floor and still serve this utter arsehole with more food that Joe will no doubt dock me for. He doesn’t care whose fault it was.

“While you’re down there, baby.” The customer juts his groin at my face as fellow workers laugh dirtily, egging him on with macho snorts and more vulgar lewd remarks aimed my way. I keep my eyes on my task, bite my bottom lip to silence myself, and give no response. Anger simmering low in my belly, and my body stiffens with aggravation.

I am so sick of these daily minor sexual jibes and groping, but it’s a far cry from the life I knew as a teen. I can handle this crap, as annoying as it gets in my daily routine. I need to remind myself that this is nothing compared to the life I just got out of. No idiot man with harmless sexual innuendos could ever be as bad as the emotional torture from that one sadistic prick whose name I will never utter again.

I smile his way haughtily, lifting a brow, trying to curb my rage inside my fiery vessel and continue what I am doing while ignoring the crass comments over my head.

“She has some tits on her. Hey sweetie, how about bending some more so I get a better view.”

Another male voice grunts with an amused laugh that makes my skin crawl, and once again, I ignore it. I get up and walk back to the kitchen with as much confidence as I can muster and no backwards glance or reaction while wearing an entire order. I stink.

“I’ll get you a new tray,” I throw back verbally, lacking sass, but I know better than to bite at the customers. I was on a warning three weeks back for pouring an entire jug of lukewarm coffee in a man’s lap after he stuck his hand up my dress, and no danger am I walking on eggshells again to keep this measly job.

Joe used it as an excuse to keep cornering me at every opportunity, to breathe down my top and suggest joining Lorraine in the ‘quick fuck when the wife is gone’ brigade. He has no chance in hell, and if he could learn to keep his smarmy hands to himself, I would be entirely grateful.

He’s a massive chunk of a man with a skinhead and facial piercings. Not my cup of tea and has as much grace and class as the greasy mess on his diner floor. Joe is working-class, ex-construction, with a suitable vocabulary and a lack of respect for women. He thinks nothing of pinning you to the counter as you pass and pressing his dick into your arse while breathing into your ear with so-called orders.

I am biding my time until I figure out what I will do with my life, and I can guarantee it won’t be as a waitress in any way, shape or form after this.