Babygirl and the Mean Boss (2 page)

             
Nicole wrinkled her nose and then shrugged.  “
Marty’s
not my type.”

             
“How can you tell me that you don’t thing he’s hotter’n shit
?
!
Don’t tell me that y
ou
’re against
in interracial dating
.
”  Kendall
said
pointed
ly.  Nicole was used to her bluntness—it seemed to go hand in hand with her beauty;
as if beauty
gave her license to be nosey
and rude
.

             
It wasn’t even worth
explaining
that her ‘type’ had nothing to do with looks but with content. 
“
His color has nothing to do with it.  It’s just him—all him.”
 

             
Kendall bounced up in her seat, having dismissed their previous conversation. 
“Oh my
g
od!  I can’t believe I almost forgot to tell you.”  Kendall whispered excitedly.  “Marty cussed out your boy this morning.”

             
Nicole frowned.  “Who?”
  Her boy?

             
“Fred.”

             
Her mouth
opened i
n surprise.  “Fred? 
But w
hy?”

             
“Well, you know how
Marty
goes into his office and he lets Fred take over?”

             
“Yeah yeah.” 
Marty might think of himself as superman, but even he had to take a break. 

             
“
While he was in his office, o
ne of the regulars complained that her pork chop
s
w
ere
tough as leather.  It was that old ex-nun lady.”

             
Nicole nodded.  The ex-nun was eighty years old
if she was a day -
and tough as old shoe leather herself.  She never tipped more th
a
n 50 cents and had even left a nickel once.  Nobody liked her…except maybe Marty who would come from behind his fryers to chit chat with her every once
in
a while.

             
“Well apparently she had complained about her meal months before and
Marty had given her
a credit.  She tried it again but Fred wasn’t biting
and he told her that he’d bring her out a fresh order of chops.  Of course the old hag had already scarfed them down,
s
o naturally she didn’t want anymore.  I won’t lie, it did get heated, especially when the old hag referred to Fred as boy.”
 
Nicole gasped. 
M
arty cursed him out on top of that?

             
“Anyway, Marty comes out slamming that big
ass spatula of his on the pass through.  He doesn’t even wait until they’re in the office before
chewing him out
.  I heard Marty say ‘
That’s bullshit
!  If she says it was tough then the shit was tough.  Who the fuck are you to blah blah blah.”

             
Nicole just shook her head incredulously.
 
“You’d think considering that Fred’s the hardest worker her
e
, and the only one he trusts to fill in
,
that he’d give him the benefit. And
the
very least he could do was take him into the office so he doesn’t lose face.  Jeez!”
She didn’t like hearing about her friend being disrespected.
It brought back the memory of Nicole’s one and only run in with
Marty
, and the reason that she would never like him
.

             
It was the last Friday before Christmas and it seemed everybody was o
u
t finishing up the last minute shopping.  CALABASH being a neighborhood restaurant was popular for its
low
prices and good food, and it seemed like every customer they’d ever had showed
up
that day.

             
They ran out of tomatoes right in the middle of the dinner rush: meaning no salads, no burgers dragged
-
through
-t
he
-
garden and B L sandwiches with no T
.
 
She grabbed $30 out of the slush fund and sent one of the dishwashers to the grocery store.
 
Marty had not had a problem with any of it until he went into the walk-in and found a full box of tomatoes tucked behind a 50 pound tub of pickles.

             
He bellowed her name so loud that
it stopped everyone in the back.  Even the waitresses were trying to see what had gotten him ups
et now.  Alarmed,
she stopped in the middle of an order to see what he wanted, rushing into the walk-in with him.

             
“What the hell is this?”  He toed the box in annoyance.

             
“Oh
…
I didn’t see-
”

             
“And now,” He interrupted.  “I have thirty dollars worth of hot house tomatoes.

             
He handed her the heavy bag and walked out letting the door slam behind him.

             
That
had
ruined her day.  She wanted to crawl
under something and lick her wounds
.  Instead she worked just that much harder.  But did Marty acknowledge her additional effort?  No.

             
So, the question was;
did she think he was sexy
?
 
WHO THE HELL CARED?!  She didn’t like being around him so o
f course she had never looked at him in that way
.  Besides, it was a documented fact
that white men like Marty went for white girls like…Kendall. 
And
in all honesty what man, period
, would look at her
twice
with her quickie ponytail and jeans and t-shirts.  Nicole was on a mission and that didn’t include trying to be cute.
 

             
Grudgingly, though, she had to admit that Marty was a good looking specimen of a man; black or white:  tall, muscul
ar physique, shaved head, goatee, tattoo around his bicep, pierced ear and a deep, low sexy voice.  His gray eyes were brooding just enough to make
anyone- other tha
n her-
look twice.

             
W
hy was she even thinking about it?  Marty was
Marty
!

             
They finished break and went back on the floor.
The rest of the night w
as pretty quiet but Marty didn’t like to see people just standing around.  His motto was, ‘if you have time to lean, you have time to clean.’  Nicole concentrated on
cleaning
the mini fridge below her workstation. She had to practically get on her hands and knees just to get at everything shoved in the back.  She cursed when she came upon a tub of feta cheese, never opened and already
past its expiration date
.

             
She chucked the tub into one of the large garbage cans, still on her hands and knees and noticed that Marty was
staring at
her.  She just knew he was going to say something about the unused cheese.  But he wordlessly turned back to the grill.

She swabbed out the inside until it sparkled and then neatly restacked everything
.

             
“You know you’re the only one that does that.”  Marty spoke.  Nicole
glanced
up at him.

             
“
Oh,
I
’ve
noticed.”  Her reply was mildly sarcastic, because she was still bristling at the idea of him
cursing Fred... and because she
was
the only one that ever
cleaned it
.

             
He turned back to the grill without another word.

             
She was dying to say, ‘
And y
ou’re welcome.’

             
One
thing Nicole liked about the job is that while everybody else had to wait until everything was cleaned before they could go, she cleaned as she went so she could just walk out the door at 11:00.

             
“See you guys tomorrow.”  She yelled as she hurried outside.

             
Nicole hopped on her bike and pedaled furiously down the street.  It was her goal to be stepping though her apartment door by 11:15 each night.

             
After a long day of classes and working in the hot restaurant, Nicole relished the
feel of the wind against her face and the exertion of her thigh muscles as she pedaled to the top of the first hill.
Luckily she didn’t live far from the restaurant. But she did have to travel on the outskirts of some woods that left her apprehens
ive
,
so she always went as fast as she could at night. The pay off was that there were two hills and once she reached the top of the first one the momentum practically carried her to the top of the next one.

             
As always
she
had an urge to close her eyes and pretend
that
she was a bird soaring through the sky.  Briefly she gave into
the feeling
and closed her eye
s
allowing the exhilaration to surge through her
.
 
After the momentum carried her as far as it could
Nicole took a deep breath and began
pedaling again.

             
And
that’s when she saw
the SUV
make the sharp turn from
the darkness of the woods
and directly
into her path
.  Almost
as if she were detached from herself,
she
noted the l
ook of shock on the driver’s face as the older women realized that she was about to hit
her
.  Briefly, Nicole felt sorry for the driver
.  She looked like she was someone’s mother…probably one that actually cared…

~
***
~

             
Nicole’s eyes opened slowly.  Then she felt a pounding in her head that was magnificent.  She blinked, not able to see a thing. 
Everything was black! 
Terror instantly engulfed her
. 
S
he
scrambled
to sit up but was stopped short by a sudden and sharp pain in her shoulder.

             
She cried out hoarsely and touched
the
shoulder carefully. 
Then in
relief she realized that she actually could see—she was outside and it was dark
, that’s all.  And the knock on the head had just made everything out of focus..
.Slowly, she moved her legs.  She was sore all over but her legs moved okay.  She tried to look around but when her head moved it felt like someone was trying to impale her with a railroad spike
.
  Nicole planted her hand on the ground and pushed herself up into a sitting position
clenching her teeth against the pain. 
Why was she on the ground?
Where was she? 

             
With a
slow hiss
, she let out her held breath then tentatively
touched her head.  Her hand came away bloody.  Nicole felt a wave of nausea at the sight of her bloody hand.  It took everything she had not to
black out
.