Wonder When You’ll Miss Me (7 page)

On the kitchen table was a note:
Emily—Clark's
, and a phone number. I folded it, tucked it in my pocket, drank a glass of skim milk, and left for school. The fat girl met me at the corner of Darby Road.

“Ugh,” she said. She looked awful. She was wearing an enormous gray coat over her shapeless blue dress. Her hair was matted on one side and she had dark bags under her eyes.

“You look terrible,” I said, but she just glared at me and lumbered along. Each car that passed seemed to fill her with pain. “Ugh,” she said. “Oh.”

“What's wrong with you?”

She didn't speak. I fingered the note in my pocket. “I'll call after school,” I said.

She stopped short and swayed a little. Her face was shiny and pale. “You okay?” I reached out to touch her but she backed away, then turned and walked in the opposite direction of school. I waited for a minute, watching her. After a few more steps she turned and bent double, vomiting into the ditch by the road. I dropped my bag and ran over. I pulled her hair back and ran my hand in circles on her back. When her heaving finally stopped she straightened slowly and wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve.

“You're going to be late,” she said.

I stood uncertainly and then walked ahead, scooped my bag up, and headed towards school. I checked over my shoulder. She was still standing there in her gray coat but I went ahead anyway.

 

Jenny Sims was a cheerleader like Andrea. She had big pouty lips and a way of listening with her head tilted gently. Today she wore jeans so faded they were almost white and a gray zip-up sweatshirt over a pale pink T-shirt. Her streaked blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail that hung with just the right amount of bounce. Her heavy bangs brushed her eyes, which were clear and lashy and so blue they were almost violet. She was endearingly shy and very smart. All the guys were in love with her. Everything about her was feminine—she even walked in a quiet, girly way. Everyone wanted to be near her. Though I'd been in classes with her since elementary school, I had never actually spoken to her, but she was best friends with Andrea Dutton, so she must have been who Mrs. Dutton meant.

After third period American history I followed Jenny Sims into the hall. I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what. All around us people called to each other and slammed lockers. I couldn't tear my eyes from the back of Jenny Sims's tiny head or her swinging ponytail. The fat girl stood by my side.

Jenny reached her locker and fumbled with her combination. I shifted from one foot to the other, unsure of what I wanted to say. Someone walked past and bumped me so that I banged against the lockers. Jenny Sims looked up.

“Hi,” I said. My mouth was dry. I was acutely aware of the fat girl humming beside me.

Jenny focused on her locker and the business of exchanging books. I tried to remind myself that she was shy. “I'm Faith,” I said.

Silence, then a small “I know.”

I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. “I was at the hospital yesterday. I mean I had to visit someone, so…my uncle, I had to visit him and so I was in Gleryton Hospital, you know…”

She faced me, hands crossed over her textbooks, a patient, slightly bored look on her face. I could tell she was watching people pass by to see if they noticed us talking.

“…and so I just happened to be near the twelfth floor and so I stopped in to see Andrea Dutton—”

“What?” She gave me her full attention now. “You did what?”

“I visited Andrea and her mother—”

Jenny Sims shook her head, turned around, and walked away. I followed. I had to dodge people to keep up with her. “Hey,” I called. “Hey!” But she just kept going, slipping up the stairs towards the library.

“She wants you to visit,” I yelled after her retreating figure. “That's all.”

People in a hurry jostled past me so that I bounced to one side, then the other. Jenny Sims disappeared through the library doors. I just stood there, my whole body loose and confused.

“Smoke,” the fat girl said.

Tony Giobambera could have finished his cigarette by now, but I hadn't the heart to hurry. Who was I to care whether Andrea Dutton got visitors if her best friend didn't even care? We pushed outside and plopped down on the cold ground.

“I can't take much more of this,” the fat girl muttered. I saw frosting on her cheek. She had her head back as though sunbathing, but the day was gray, the light was thin.

I lay back and closed my eyes and tried, like her, to feel the sun.

I
CALLED
Clark's restaurant and was told to report for training that afternoon. I hung up the phone and leapt around the room whooping and shouting.
Job! Job! Job!
I didn't care how hard it would be as long as I could make some money, stash it away, and go somewhere else, somewhere it was possible to start over. The fat girl watched me from the couch, a pint of mint ice cream in her lap. She didn't say anything, just shook her head and licked the back of her spoon.

I arrived at the restaurant wearing the white oxford shirt and black pants I'd had on when I applied. Emily introduced herself as the night manager and then presented me to Chuck, a tall stringy guy with spiky red hair and tattoos that wound up his arms, disappearing under his rolled-up sleeves and reappearing at the edge of his neck. He didn't look directly at me but handed me an apron and showed me how to tie it, then pointed things out to me—bus buckets, bar mops, lowboys—I thought that even the lingo was exciting.

I had a dull flicker I couldn't place. I recognized him as the guy who'd been wiping glasses when I came in to apply, but I also had the sense that I knew him from somewhere. I expected this feeling to diminish over the course of the evening, but it didn't. While Chuck showed me how to set a table, where the utensils were kept, how to pour water from the side of a pitcher, it grew, slow and steady, like a subtle warmth. I knew that I knew him.

We were halfway through the shift when I figured it out.

“You have to empty the trash periodically,” Chuck was saying. “Otherwise the wait staff can't scrape for the dishwasher and he'll get mad and call
you a son of a bitch and the chefs can't toss their shit and they get mad and you don't eat, right? So here's the fresh bags and out there's the Dumpster.”

He had a way of talking and moving at the same time, illustrating things with his hands by slicing the air in big circles or, now, hoisting a huge garbage bag over one shoulder.

I followed him to the Dumpster. “We can smoke out here,” he said. “Provided it's not too busy. If it's busy they'll kill you. Or if they're just in a bad mood.” He laughed. “Whichever.”

“Are they too busy now?” I asked, but he ignored me.

“Make no mistake. You're the fall guy around here. Someone needs a scapegoat, you're it. It's always the bus. Waitress gets a bad tip, her first reaction is
Chuck, did you take money off twenty-six?
”

He said this in a high squeaky voice with a hand on either hip, his lips squeezed like he tasted something sour. He shook a finger at me.
“Because they were nice people and I know for a FACT they wouldn't leave me such a shit-ass tip.”

He fished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered me one, then leaned back against the Dumpster. “Now you listen to me, girl. Everyone'll leave a shit-ass tip now and again. Some more than others, but everyone's capable, and”—he hit his chest—“Charlie Yates doesn't swipe tips.” He grinned, then struck a match and inhaled. He leaned his head back and blew smoke at the sky while handing me the matches on his open palm.

But I didn't take them, or even hear what he said next, because I was too busy hearing what he'd just said: Yates. Charlie Yates was Starling's twenty-year-old brother, I was almost positive. He was from Yander and he'd visited her in the hospital once, though I'd only seen him from a distance. She'd told me so much about him. I didn't know what to say.

“—fucking dishes, too. I mean it isn't like they don't break a glass here or there through the course of the night, right, but who do they look to when the count is low? Bus. That's your answer—”

The door opened and a pissed-looking blonde stuck her head outside. It seemed like it pained her to speak to us.

“Hel-
lo,
Chuck,” she said. “I need water on four, twelve, and sixteen, and Marcy has
two
tables that need to be cleared.”

She turned and went back inside.

Charlie sighed, dropped his cigarette, and ground it into the pavement. He mumbled something under his breath and shook his head. I still couldn't think of what to say, only that this was Charlie who Starling had
whispered about; Charlie who had a boyfriend in the circus; Charlie who she'd thought could save her. This was Charlie who'd done all those things she'd told me and here I was set to work with him every night.

I dropped my unlit cigarette and tried to grind it like he had. Then I followed him back inside.

 

We refilled water and cleared dirty dishes. We brought clean forks and warm bread to people who didn't even notice us. All the while we were careful to keep our white aprons pristine and our expressions polite. We emptied garbage. We fetched clean napkins. And at the end of the evening we sat down to eat.

For the first time in almost a year I was starving.

We had chicken and corn bread, black-eyed peas and greens. When Emily, the night manager, wasn't looking, Charlie poured half of his beer into a glass and stuck a straw in it for me. “Your ginger ale,” he said loudly when he set it down in front of me. I thought I saw a waitress roll her eyes but kept myself from double-checking.

Instead, I watched Charlie.

He ate quickly and with great concentration—gusto, even. He used the corn bread to sop up the gravy on his plate and every so often he gave a satisfied grunt. “Mmmhmmm,” he said, and washed it all down with beer.

He ate all of his and half of mine, which was okay with me, as it hadn't taken much to fill me up. The beer and the sounds of the empty restaurant made me drowsy. It echoed with our movements and those of the wait staff in the booth behind us. Even the kitchen was quiet. The chef and the dishwasher sat at the bar nursing drinks.

“It ain't a bad place to be,” Charlie said, looking at me with the sleepy eyes of a big meal finished quickly. “I've worked here a while and don't have many complaints, you know. I don't mind it so much and they're good about letting me go when I need to.” He closed his eyes and let out a huge resounding belch that prompted groans, snorts, and giggles from the table behind us.

“Chuck, you are so nasty,” someone said.

He grinned and tipped the last of his beer at me. “Hey, you were good tonight. You'll work out just fine.”

“Thanks,” I said. It was the first he'd really addressed me, instead of just talking or teaching, and I warmed at his words.

“I'm real happy to have a job,” I said.

And something washed over me then, something warm and comfortable. I found myself wanting to tell him things, wanting to explain about leaving and ask his advice. But I kept quiet.

“You'll do fine,” he said again. “Just fine.” And then he looked at me strangely, almost like he was seeing me for the first time. He shook his head and got up to clear our plates.

 

Outside Clark's, the fat girl was perched on a wide concrete planter, smoking a cigarette. “Since when do you smoke?” I said. My head still spun from the night. I was deeply and thoroughly exhausted—even my bones felt heavy. The fat girl sneered, narrowed her eyes, and fell into step beside me.

The evening was nippy and I wished I'd worn a coat, but I was too satisfied with the way things had gone to worry much about it. The voices of the restaurant swam through my head—laughter, orders, music, the clinking of glasses and scraping of forks against plates. I found myself grinning at things I'd overheard, and at Charlie's praise.

“Hello,” the fat girl said.

“What?” It came out harsher than I'd meant it. I kept walking. There were crickets chirping and from one of the small houses off in the distance I heard the laughter of a television. The fat girl's hands were free and swung by her side. She marched along, not looking in my direction. Her voice was nasty and sharp.

“So you don't feel like filling me in on your evening?”

“What do you want to know?”

“What do you think I might want to know?” She gave an angry grunt. “Why are you playing games with me? You know very well what I would want to know.”

She stopped and grabbed me by the arm so that I jerked back.

“Ow.”

I didn't meet her eyes. Instead I watched the street and looked at the quiet houses streaming up the road, lit only by porch lights. I thought of all the people sleeping peacefully inside them. Dreaming dense, lovely, unworried things. My evening's elation evaporated slowly, floating away on the chilly breeze.

“Listen,” I said, finally. “There's not much to tell. You could have come inside if you were so interested.”

“Would you have liked that, Faith?” She jerked my arm again, and I saw that her teeth were clenched. There were tears in her eyes.

“What do you think I do for you, Faith?” She pounded her chest. “I protect you. I keep you as safe as I can. You can't shut me out.” She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me to her. I was stiff and wooden but she hugged me just the same. “You need me,” she crooned, rocking back and forth. “You do. Remember that, okay? You need me.”

 

The next morning, when I turned into the driveway of school, I saw Tony Giobambera locking up LilyAnn in the parking lot. I didn't know whether to wait or not, but I slowed my gait enough that I arrived at the walkway almost the same time he did.

“Hey,” I said. It escaped before I had time to obsess over speaking or not speaking, and Tony, who I suppose was accustomed to people speaking to him at school, nodded in my direction, lifted a hand, and then held the door open for me.

I felt everyone looking. I passed by him and it was as though the world had slowed to turn and watch as we walked in, him just a little behind but unarguably
next
to me, close enough to establish that we were walking
together
, through school. And then, like thunder, it all crashed back to normal speed, lockers slamming, people calling to each other, books falling and sliding along the linoleum, the click of locks opened and shut. And there, in our path, stood Jenny Sims, books balanced on one perfect hip, head a little to the side so that her white-gold ponytail tickled one shoulder.

“Hey babe,” Tony said, and reached down and kissed her full and long on the mouth.

I couldn't breathe. She gave me a look, part smile, part ice, linked her arm through his, and pulled him along. I stood still, frozen to my spot on the floor. Tony looked over his shoulder at me and nodded good-bye.

And, just a hair too late, I nodded back and the bell rang.

 

“What did you expect, Faith?”

I ignored the fat girl, outside on the wall—left her to her mountain of crab legs and what was left of the cocktail sauce. I watched my breath clouding in the morning cool. We had to get to English. I was supposed to have read
The Scarlet Letter,
but I hadn't. I hadn't read much of anything, but I knew Mr. Feldman would leave me alone.

In the hall I tried to get my bearings. Here was the school I knew as I knew life itself: the goods and bads, the things I understood and things I
never would. And then there was Clark's, where I'd felt myself evaluated purely on the basis of how I carried trash or replaced a dropped spoon. I was useful, needed, but without context.

I liked it.

I didn't have to see Fern for another few days and as I walked towards my locker I thought about what I might say, the things she'd want to hear, that would prevent her from trying to climb inside my head:
taking responsibility, learning acceptance, trying my best.

 

Clark's quickly became routine and familiar. My ability to escape detection was an asset—no one wants to see the busgirl—and somehow I was able to refill water, replace silverware, and wipe tables without anyone really focusing on me. I loved the mindlessness of it—pure energy, physical response without thought. I liked the surge of chatter, the music of crockery, of glass and utensil. I liked following Charlie around and the careful conversations we had out back while sneaking cigarettes.

I waited to tell him about Starling. Not intentionally, but I hadn't told him when I first figured it out, and now it felt weird to say anything. I didn't know how to bring it up or how he would react. In the four shifts I'd worked with him, he still hadn't mentioned her, or even his family. All he talked about so far was circuses and sideshows and his tattoos. He dreamed of becoming a fully illustrated man.

A huge, fierce tiger crouched across his left shoulder. It was red and orange and yellow and black. There was a brown-and-red falcon flying along his forearm. On one of his hands, above the knuckles, small dark letters spelled
PRINCE
, and on the other,
FLAME
. A colorful, complicated band of dancing Gypsies circled his right wrist, and on the side of his neck, just under one ear, a finely scaled snake curled in loops. And though I hadn't seen it, I knew what was inked over his heart: three chickens—one pink, one pale green, one light blue.

But I'd begun to fixate on how to confess all I knew about him, that I'd seen Starling sleeping night after night, that she'd told me how their mother had left when she was a toddler, about their spaced-out father and raising themselves.

Then one night Charlie said, “You're funny. You listen really hard.” We were out back, leaning against the enormous Dumpster and watching through the large windows as the staff set up for dinner.

“Why is that funny?” I asked. I was very tired. The fat girl had kept me
up the night before, bothering me endlessly while I tried to study and then shaking me awake to ask me when we should go, where we should go. North? West? What about New Orleans? All day I'd felt like my head was full of syrup.

“I don't know,” he said, thoughtfully. “I guess people aren't usually interested in other people the way you are…but that's cool.”