Grief Girl (19 page)

June 1985

I'
m finally old enough to drive and I want to buy a car. So it's time to get some better-paying work. Goodbye, Cookie Man; hello, seafood and candlelight. I just got a job at a five-star seafood restaurant outside the mall.

“I'll pay you twelve dollars an hour and you can keep all the tips from the nights you work—your tips and mine,” the tall, dark-haired Egyptian owner tells me upon giving me the job. He waits tables too sometimes.

“I don't expect to take home your tips,” I say, not knowing where to look. His right eye floats, like one of those pop-out, wandering crab's eyes.

“No, if you're a good worker, you'll deserve it. This is not an easy job, you know,” he says with a wink.

After about a week, he introduces his girlfriend to me, which I don't understand, as I've also met his wife. The two of them are sitting at the dark red bar. The lights are low “for atmosphere.”

“Nice to meet you.” I smile as sweetly as I can before slowly walking back to the kitchen, finding it difficult to move in my tight black skirt.

“Your skirt must be stylish and tight,” he had emphasized when he'd hired me. “It gives the place a gourmet feel.”

Doesn't the food do that, or are the customers going to eat me?

         

The tips are amazing! I've been working here three or four nights a week for two weeks, and it appears I'll not only have money for home, but will also have my car in no time! That's if I can stick it out.

I don't know if I'm imagining it, but I'm starting to think that the tips he gives me are to compensate for letting him squeeze past me and brush up against my butt when I'm taking orders (even though there are more open routes to the kitchen) and to entice me to join him for a meal after a hard night's work, which I always say I can't do.

Maybe it's harmless. But what about the wife/girlfriend thing? And the fact that the brushing, squeezing, and pinching are getting more frequent?

“Chris, you're a man. What do you think of this?” I ask him one night, filling him in. He'll probably just think I'm being a drama queen.

“Erin, you can't go back there.”

“What, you honestly think he'd attack me or something?”

“Trust me. You can't go back.”

Damn! Damn! Damn! I knew he'd say that, because I already knew it myself. I may be stupid sometimes, but not that stupid.

So I call the restaurant the next day.

“Oh, hi. It's Erin. I won't be coming in anymore. Sorry.” I hang up and that's the end of that.

Oh car, Oh car, you seem so very far….

I get another job working at a pizzeria up the road owned by two Italian brothers. Joe is sweet and married, and Mick, the younger one, is single but seems nice as well. I don't think I'll have any trouble here, although the money isn't nearly as good.

         

It's been a month and I love it. No carrying lots of plates at once or being nice to rude rich people. I'm even learning to toss pizza dough.

“Hey, Erin, do you want a ride home after work?” Mick asks me one night. He's just bought a white muscle car, which he wants to drive everywhere.

“Yeah, sure, that would be great.”

This is the third night Mick has driven me home, and he wants to sit in the car outside my house and talk for a while. The front is one long seat, and he moves in a bit closer and I almost hug my window. He's your boss, Erin, and all he said he wants to do is talk; don't jump to any conclusions.

What should we talk about? It's not like we have anything in common. He's in his late twenties, and I'm sixteen. He goes on and on about the restaurant and how well he's doing, and hey, don't I love this car? He tells me how I'm so great and he loves the way I'm always smiling and all that.

I swear, these men must be desperate. Boys my own age don't go after me—they don't even notice me. I don't get it. It's not like I'm anything special to look at.

Don't jump to conclusions, Erin.

I love this job, and we all love the pizzas I get to bring home. Tracy won't eat them because they're fattening, but Trent and Chris devour them.

         

It's been a week since our boring chat in the car, and Mick has taken to kneading my butt instead of the pizza dough. I almost jumped over the counter from fright the first time he did it.

I tell Joe I'm quitting one night when Mick is taking a delivery order. He looks sad. “Is it the money? We can give you a raise.”

“No, really, I just can't work nights anymore.”

“Well, if you ever want your job back, it will always be here.”

I do want my job back, now! But your stupid loser brother is a creep—
he's
the one who should quit. But Joe and Mick are family. I'm just the hired help.

         

I've found the answer to the car problem.

I'm going to win one. Not just any old car, a bright yellow one with four-wheel drive. I can feel it in my bones; I'm going to be the winner of the Good Ones Car Contest. It's meant to be. All I have to do is drink as many small cartons of Good Ones, a carob and honey soy milk drink, as I can, because you can enter their contest as many times as you like. You just cut out the side panel and send it in. So it's Good Ones on the way to school, at school, on the way home from school, and at home.

Tracy and Chris can't keep driving me everywhere. They're not my parents. They hate it and I hate it, and we hate each other every time we're in a car together. I feel so dependent on them, like I have no freedom. Ronald refuses to give us money to help us pay our bills, so there's no way he'd pay for a car for me.

I'm sick of Good Ones, but I can't stop. I'm at the point where I buy Good Ones and dump them down the sink (sorry, starving people of the world), I've had that many over the past month.

         

I didn't win. I'll never win. I have no destiny. I have no car. I think I'm now allergic to carob and honey.

Grandma and Grandpa are my last hope. What a dilemma! When I think of them, I don't think of happy, hopeful things, especially when it comes to their best friend—money.

Grandma believes that once you have money, you hold on tight and don't let go. You don't put it in the bank for the government to get hold of, and you definitely don't stick it under the mattress like all the other stupid old people who are sure to be robbed. You bury it in the yard, put it behind the washing machine in a sock, or stick it in the freezer with the peas and chops.

I know it's useless, but I have to try.

I decide to ask when they come over to see Trent next. They come over every month or so for a quick visit, and it's always the same thing. Almost two years after Dad died, they still complain that we don't understand how much worse off they are for losing a son and how we're ruining Trent's life by not letting him live with them.

“You have no idea. You're lucky, you're young and have each other, but what do we have?” Grandma asks.

“Umm…us?”
I feel like saying. They've never been all that thrilled with Tracy and me, being evil Mum's evil daughters and all.

“I'm all alone, I have nothing. Nobody cares about me. It's worse for me, you know. What about me?” Grandma cries.

“We care, Grandma, don't be silly. And what about Grandpa? You still have him. And all your nice neighbors,” I say, although I know they hate my grandparents.

She eventually calms down. Grandpa is in the backyard. I figure it's now or never. There will never be a right time.

“Grandma, I was wondering if I could ask you a favor,” I say, scrunching up my face in “I know you'll hate me for asking” pain.

“What could I possibly do for you when I need help?”

“Well, you know how I can drive now? Well, I've been trying to save up for a car so Tracy and Chris don't have to drive me everywhere and also so I'll be able to drive Trent around. I still don't have enough money and was wondering if you could possibly loan me some.”

“I don't have any.”

She's lying. Just two weeks ago she was complaining about having an extra thirty thousand dollars she had to hide so the government wouldn't find out and stop her and Grandpa's pensions. “I think we'll buy some new leather furniture and change the guttering and maybe repaint the front and get one of those extra-thick wire-screen doors,” she'd muttered.

Maybe in her old age she's forgetting what she says and what she doesn't. Then again, she and Grandpa are the sharpest old people I know.

“They'll probably outlive us all,” Mum used to say. She was right. The good die young; the horrible people of this world always survive the longest. I think their meanness keeps them strong.

“Grandma, I promise I'll pay it back as soon as I can.”

“How much do you want?” she snaps.

“Well, I have money saved, but I need another, say, two hundred dollars.”

Grimace. “I don't know if I have that much to spare,” she says.

“It won't take long for me to pay it back, I swear. And just imagine—I'd be able to visit more with Trent.”

This gets her thinking.

“You'll bring Trent around to see us?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Maybe you could help me do my grocery shopping every week and drive me to the doctor when I need it…and drive me to the Veterans Club and—”

“Sure, Grandma, whatever you want.”

I knew it would come at a price higher than two hundred lousy dollars. But maybe I'm seeing this all wrong. I should be positive. Maybe this is her way of trying to be close to me, to see me more. Maybe she just can't express herself well. This could be a good thing. I might get to know her as a person and actually like her.

“Yeah, and we can go out to lunch together and everything,” I say.

She pauses. “I'll have to see if I can afford it.”

“Okay. Let me know. We could have a nice time, Grandma.”

Who am I kidding?

But I need a car.

The next day Grandma calls. “I can manage two hundred dollars, but only just, mind you. It isn't easy for me.”

“Oh, Grandma, I know. Thank you so, so much. Thank Grandpa for me too. I really appreciate it.”

This is fantastic! So I have to visit them and go grocery shopping and kiss Grandpa on the cheek every time I see him and drive Grandma to the doctor if she needs it. It's either that or no car.

I'm free…but not so free.

         

“So, Julie, what do you think?”

I'm parked in Julie's driveway in my new car—a little white Corolla. It's a bit of a bomb, but it was the cheapest one I could find that wasn't falling apart. At least it's tiny and cute.

“It's fantastic. Is it yours?” she asks.

“Yep, I got it today. I saw it in the paper, Chris came with me to see it, and that was that. Do you want to go for a drive?”

“Abso-bloody-lutely. Hang on, I'll just tell Mum.”

She runs inside and comes straight back out with her mum, who has a tea towel over her shoulder, as usual.

“Where are you going?” she says to me, waving, or should I say flicking, the tea towel.

“Hi, Mrs. Price. Just around the block a few times.”

“Well, no speeding, and wear your seat belts. I want you back here in an hour, Julie. All right? One hour.”

Julie opens the creaky door and gets in.

“Isn't this fantastic? We'll be able to drive to school every day. I can pick you up in the mornings,” I tell her, excited at the prospect of not catching the bus anymore.

“Umm…Erin, it's stick shift. I didn't think you knew how to drive manual,” she observes.

“I don't.”

“So how the hell did you get here?”

“Well, Tracy and Chris each gave me a disastrous lesson ages ago.”

Lots of screaming, lots of cursing. But for once, it wasn't because of the accident. All of the girls at school say their parents yelled at them when teaching them to drive.

“So I'm learning as I go. I've driven here mostly in second gear.” We decide to visit Megan.

Julie bounces in the seat and quickly discovers it doesn't really have much bounceability.

I'm driving in second gear and…
crunch
…third.

“Oh no, here comes a hill. I haven't done hills yet.”

“Well, let's go the other way,” Julie says wisely.

“Nah, how hard can it be?” I say. “I have to do it sometime.”

“You're the driver,” she says. “This is so great! We can go anywhere!”

I start up the hill in first gear, then second. “Shit! We've stalled.”

We're rolling backward until I remember where to put my foot for the brake.

“Chris said to avoid hill starts. Apparently they're the hardest thing.”