October Snow (6 page)

Sam came around the corner to ring in an order. “Jo, you sure you don’t want a table? It’s filling up out there.”

“I’m not officially here for…” she pulled out her cell phone as the office door opened, “four minutes.”

“
Put that phone away or I’ll take it!
” Barb was standing in the office door. Max rushed past, her face wooden, looking as if she’d been crying.

Jo watched her hurry out of the kitchen, then set her cup on the counter as she turned back to Barb. She could feel her face getting hot, but not from embarrassment. It was exhilaration. It was, finally, the end–of three years of scurrying, and groveling, of sucking up to Barb, and the cooks, and the taskmasters they called “guests”. Three years of filthy, backbreaking work, and of hoarding her money. And her anger.

After a few moments of staring her down, she said softly, “Barb, I wouldn’t try that if I were you.”

As if on some kind of cue, and by some sort of radar–that instinct that develops among people who work together under too much stress–the kitchen got very quiet. Jo could feel the eyes on the back of her head.

Barb glanced beyond her, at the crowd of workers in the kitchen; Jo, her eyes still directly on Barb, thought that the woman actually gulped.

Jo folded her arms, her cell still in her hand. She thought about her favorite piece of art, which hung over the front door of her apartment: a black-and-white sketch of a shadowy male figure, screaming at a terrified child. An obviously enraged woman stood behind him, her fists raised above his head. The caption read,
Nothing like the moment when reality hits the bully
. She often thought of having someone draw part two of that picture; and, as she stood there watching Barb, she thought the look on the woman’s face at that moment would be perfect for “The Bully, Part Two.”

I’d name it “Comeuppance
.”

She raised an eyebrow, still grinning. “Well?”

Barb inhaled deeply, puffing out her fleshy cheeks, which vibrated as she exhaled. “In my office.
Now
.”

“Uh, no. Not a chance. I’m not going
anywhere
with you, and
especially
not alone. You look kinda homicidal at the moment, and well…You’re a
whole lot
bigger than me.”

She slowly, deliberately opened her phone again to check the time. “A
lot
bigger, yup,” she murmured.

The staff was busying themselves as close to the office door as possible, and Jo made sure they could hear her clearly. It was a parting gift to them all.

“So,
Big
Barbie, I need you to either fire me or let me clock in–but this you-say-jump-I-say-how-high crap, well, that’s over.”

Barb’s face was deep red, and she seemed to be exhaling more than she was taking in air. Jo wondered if she’d be held liable if the woman had a stroke, and the thought broke her grin into a laugh. “You don’t even have the guts to fire me.” It occurred to her then: Barb had just fired Maxine.

Barb opened her mouth to respond, but said nothing and then snapped it shut again, her expression that of someone whose pants had been pulled down to her ankles in front of everyone. She was looking earnestly around the kitchen, but no one there was about to say anything, and certainly not in her defense.

Amy, the assistant manager, suddenly appeared from the dining room. “Jo, maybe you’d better go home.”

She held up her index finger toward her, never taking her eyes off of Barb. “Hold on.” She pulled the elastic band from her wrist. “One more thing.
You
,” the smile left her face as her eyes narrowed, “go find the next servant to hustle your meatloaf and kiss your massive ass,
Barbie
.” She finger-flicked the band at Barb’s feet.

She backed toward the doorway to the dining room, exaggerating a feigned wariness of what Barb might do. She heard some of the workers laughing. In the dining room, on her way to the front door, she pulled her apron over her head and tossed it into the fireplace. It was May, so there was no fire there, but Jo liked the message it sent.

Sam stood beaming by the big windows at the back of the room, and Jo extended her thumb and pinkie into the “call me” sign, and then a thumbs-up, as she jogged to the front door.

It was a warm, cloudy day; yet, everything seemed to be oddly defined, with strange, sharp lines, and the jog became a sprint to her truck.

She slid into the driver’s seat, breathing hard. She felt good. It all felt right. It was time.

A hard-rock song about survival was playing on her CD, and she turned the stereo all the way up as she sped out of the parking lot.

At the apartment building, Jo sprinted down the hallway to Max’s first floor apartment. After knocking hard a few times with no response, she went up to her own place. There was a note on the door:

I’m at Barley’s. Probably till close.

She unlocked the door quietly, so Daisy wouldn’t bark, and shut it carefully. She slipped off her dirty, torn black work shoes, then smiled as she picked them up and put them in the waste can by the door. “Daisy?”

She heard the thump at the other end of the apartment as the dog jumped off the bed, then the jingle of her tags as she trotted out to greet her. “You’re getting slow, Daize. Treat?”

Daisy’s ears went up as she recognized the word, and she led Jo to the kitchen cabinet where the bacon strips were stored. “What’s up, baby? Where’s all the jumping…?” The dog started coughing, a hoarse, hacking sound that came out with such force that Daisy sank to her haunches. She looked up helplessly as Jo crouched and studied her carefully.

“Daisy?”

She wagged her tail slowly, and put her paw up as if asking for her treat.

Jo studied her, suddenly afraid. “Here you go, baby.” She put the strip in Daisy’s mouth, and watched the dog amble back to the bedroom, laying on the floor and gingerly nibbling at her treat. She looked up at Jo a few times, wagging her tail as if to tell her not to worry.

“You can’t be done yet, Daize.” Her voice trembled slightly. “Not yet. I can’t lose you.” She sat on the floor beside her, her hand on the dog’s back, massaging between her shoulders. “You’re all I have left.” Daisy licked her face. She seemed better.

She put Daisy’s favorite furry throw on the bed, and patted it so the dog would jump up. Eventually, Jo had to lift her; she sat with her while she dozed off, stroking her head. “You sleep, baby.”

She ran her fingers through the graying fur on Daisy’s neck, thinking about the years gone by, for both of them: they were both getting old.

Somehow, watching Daisy age, and knowing–but not really acknowledging–that the dog was likely in the last part of her life, Jo sometimes felt hopeless for herself. She felt cheated in her own life, which she saw as mostly having been spent by others, while she had come away with nothing to show for it. She felt like she was done. Or getting there. But it was a curiosity to her, how–especially in recent months–that very thought was one of the few concepts that she could consider which actually calmed the adrenaline she was always running on.

Every now and then, she would have that same strange, electric sensation she felt as she ran to her truck that day: something fleeting, ethereal, that felt like she was floating in some realm of unreality; where the outline of things was sharper, brighter than it should be. Then, she’d notice that she wasn’t, for that moment, kicking out adrenaline.

She grabbed a water bottle from the refrigerator, deciding against lunch. In the bedroom, shedding her work clothes for the last time, she rolled them around each other and stuffed them into the garbage can in the kitchen. She retrieved her shoes from the waste can by the door, putting them with the clothes, and then set the bag by the front door.

Back in her bedroom, she slipped on her favorite old jeans, faded to a pale blue and ripped at both knees, and a T-shirt that read,
I don’t have an anger problem. I have an idiot problem
.

Her cell was beeping with a text from Max.

You have time to come to the bar after work?

Yup about an hour

Max responded with a question mark.

Explain when I get there

Hurry up then

Jo didn’t respond, turning off her phone and leaning her back against the kitchen counter. The fact of having cut the oppressive ties to Barb, and walking away from needing the approval of customers whom, for the most part, she hated–it all was just starting to sink in. She wanted a little quiet time, some space to relish her new reality.

Freedom.

Really?
She laughed out loud, delighted. She resisted the impulse to clap her hands. She felt like a child seeing fireworks for the first time.

Looking around her tiny apartment, she felt like she was truly experiencing the entirety of the moment she was in. As she stood there, in her second-floor walkup on the iffy side of Manchester, New Hampshire, she realized that she was entering the very first time in her life that no one–no one at all–could tell her what to do.

It feels like I worked for this forever
. She sat on the floor, feeling like she could finally cry,
should
do so, actually. It would be appropriate.

She got to her feet, filled Daisy’s dish with fresh food, and reached for her car keys.

Bobby was behind the bar. “Hey, beautiful. Max is on her third already.”

Jo rolled her eyes. “I’ll look after her. Got my beer for me?” She looked around. Max was sitting at a table at the far end of the narrow bar, staring into her mug.

“Here ya go. What happened at The Crate today?”

“Personnel adjustments.” She grinned.

“Uh oh. I asked her, but she said she’d tell me after a few drinks.”

“Yeah. Hey, one for Max, too.” She looked up at the old stereo speakers, suspended from the ceiling in each corner over the bar. “Crank that, will ya, Bobby?”

He slid another mug to her. “Can’t hear it over the crowd?” There was only one other person in the tavern, a tired-looking woman with orange-red hair. She checked her cell phone every few seconds, looking disgusted.

Jo laughed and picked up the drinks, then danced her way to the other end of the tavern.

She put Max’s mug next to the empty on the table. She reversed the chair opposite her, swinging her leg over the seat and leaning her arms on the chair back, and then looked pointedly at her friend. “So…?”

“Fired.” Max chugged half the beer. “Thanks.” She looked up then, making a face that was somewhere between indifference and depression.

“I figured. What happened?”

She shrugged. “Apparently I had two other write-ups that she never mentioned.”

“Ooh. She got you good, huh?”

“I suppose. Anyway, some guy called this morning, said I was rude, and slow, and pretty much an incompetent bitch who’s responsible for him never coming in to another Crate
ever
again
.”

“Nothing like saving a life.”

Max snorted. “Yeah.” She looked over to Bobby. “Hey Robert, mind if I have a quick cigarette?”

“Just stand near the vent.”

She nodded, taking her drink with her to the exhaust vent at the back wall. “I guess the guy was all pissed off because his meatloaf was soggy.” She looked back at Jo, her eyes wide and miserable.

But Jo was starting to laugh, looking away, shoulders shaking. “His meat was limp, you mean?”

Max considered it for a second, then burst into laughter. Within a few seconds, they had managed to relay the story to Bobby, and the three of them spent several minutes thinking up double entendres and laughing helplessly.

“Oh, Bim, how pathetic is this?” Jo wiped at her eyes, putting a hand on her stomach.

Bobby slid two more mugs across the bar toward them. “Here, girls–on me.”

“Thanks, man.” Max dropped her cigarette in the decoy can they kept near the back vent, and retrieved the beers. As she set them on the table, she bent down and put an arm around Jo’s shoulder, hugging her quickly. “That felt good. I needed to laugh.”

“It’ll be okay, Max. Really.”

“Hope so.”

“But we need to start this adventure with a shot of something.”

“What adventure?”

“Hey Robert, my love, two tequilas.”

Max hit her on the arm. “What are you doing here anyway? It’s not even two o’clock. You’re supposed to be at work.”

“Darn. Knew I forgot something. Actually, I quit.” She nodded at Max’s look of incredulity. “Yup.” She reached into her purse for a cigarette. “And I didn’t realize how much I was looking forward to that expression on your face until right now.”

“I don’t…Wow. What are you going to do now? What happened?”

“Let’s sit at the bar so Bobby doesn’t have to walk so much. I’ll tell you there.”

By four-thirty, Barley’s was filling up for happy hour, and Max was singing at the top of her voice.

Jo put her hand over Max’s mouth. “Bobby, find another station, will ya? She knows the words to everything before 1985.”

He gave her a thumbs-up, reaching for the tuner.

“Hey, honey,” the voice was too close to Jo’s ear. “She’s just having a good time. Leave her alone.”

Jo and Max glanced at each other, then turned together to look.