This didn’t help my cause.
But today as I cha-cha’d around the dining room with an arm burgeoning with dirty dishes, it won me all the tips. My, how times had changed.
When the song ended, I curtsied to scattered applause.
“Do ‘Jailhouse Rock’!” someone called.
“Put a quarter in the jukebox and you’ve got yourself a deal,” I said on my way toward the back.
“Yes, ma’am!” I heard as I pushed through the swinging door and made to unload my burden.
“If you keep that up, we’re gonna either have to start charging admission or pay the Presley estate royalties,” Bettie said, shuffling from the office with a smile on her ruby red lips.
The hundred-pound, ninety-year-old icon was everything I wanted to be when I grew up. Her silvery, chin-length hair was perfectly curly without looking like she’d bothered to touch it, and she always had on crazy, quirky glasses to frame her bright eyes. Today, they were big and round and hot pink to match the text on her black t-shirt that read Not dead yet. It was knotted at her waist like she was twenty-five, and her high-waisted, pipe-legged pants swept the ground, covering all but the toes of her Converse.
“You’ve gotta get out there and sing with me. I’ll help you up onto the bar.”
“Honey, if my voice box hadn’t devolved into 80-grit sandpaper, you wouldn’t be able to stop me. How’s the floor?”
“Slowing down.”
“Well, when you clear out the dining room, do your sidework and head on.”
“Thanks, Bettie.”
“Sure thing. I figure you’ve got a Vargas boy to see.” She slid her glasses down her nose so she could give me a salacious look.
“You people need to get hobbies,” I said as I washed my hands.
“Oh, don’t get all up about it. Nothin’ happens ‘round here anymore. Can’t blame us for being nosy. It’s a beloved Lindenbach pastime.”
“Still annoying,” I said in a sing-song tone.
“Be flattered. Coulda been much …”
I glanced at her when she trailed off, but her eyes were trained through the steel kitchen window and into the dining room. When I followed her gaze, my mouth went bone dry.
Because Marnie Mitchell-Vargas had just taken a seat at the counter, and she did not look happy.
Granted, Marnie never really looked happy. How the spoiled daughter of the mayor ended up being a nurse was beyond me. I wanted to be the bigger person and say she must have a kind, giving heart—she was a caregiver, and Sebastian married her, so she couldn’t be all bad—but when you’d been her favorite target for rumors, pranks, and the occasional catfight, there wasn’t a lot of grace left over.
Her eyes snapped to us, and Bettie and I looked away too quickly. Bettie laughed like I’d just said something hysterical, saying, “Don’t give her the satisfaction,” through her smile before patting me on the arm and gently pushing me toward the door.
With a deep breath, I put on my best waitress smile, hoping Aggie was around to help Marnie, but alas, luck was not on my side—Aggie was caught at one of the big corner booths, taking the orders of a pack of rowdy teenagers. I didn’t know who had it worse, her or me.
When forced to make eye contact with Marnie again, I decided it was definitely me.
I tossed a cocktail napkin in front of her with that smile still pasted to my face. “Hi, Marnie. What can I get for you?”
She wore a bored smile in answer. “Could I see a menu?”
I reached under the register for one like I was supposed to even if she didn’t need it—every human being in a thirty-mile radius knew the menu by heart, seeing as how it hadn’t changed in thirty years. Marnie’s personal mission in life was to fuck with me, and the best way to fight back was to not fight at all.
“Here you go. I’ll be right—”
“What do you recommend?” she asked, browsing the menu. “Lemon meringue or peach pie?”
“I think anything with lemons would be right up your alley.”
“Peach it is.” She folded up her menu and handed it back. “A la mode. And a cup of coffee with two creams.”
“Creamer’s on the counter—”
“Aggie always gives me creamer fresh out of the cooler.”
“Absolutely,” I said with a fake-ass smile.
One saccharine word, and her face soured.
Billy Pruitt, who’d requested “Jailhouse Rock” said, “You ready?”
“Gimme a few, would you, Billy?”
He winked at me and put his quarter on the table.
I turned for the pie case and cut her a generous piece, hoping she ate every bite and couldn’t fit into her pants tomorrow. Into the microwave it went, and while the clock ticked down, I poured her stupid coffee and got her two fresh creams from the little cooler under the counter. All the while, especially through excavating ice cream from a three-gallon tub of Blue Bell, I played through all the things she’d say and how I’d respond. In a few of them, I smashed hot pie in her face. In another, I grabbed the scoop of vanilla with my bare hand and slopped it into her perfect blonde hair.
But Marnie wouldn’t play it straight with me, not if I knew her. We’d suffer through this uncomfortable dance and part ways hating each other as per the usual.
If Bettie knew about the party last night, Marnie had probably been sitting in his driveway in the dark alternating between screaming at the top of her lungs and crying to Adele.
Be nice, I told myself. I might hate her, but I had no small amount of empathy for her situation, fueled in part by guilt for the part I’d played. But she and Sebastian were never good together, never staying together for more than a few months at a time before breaking up again. They fought like cats and dogs, but if you asked Marnie, Sebastian was hers, end of—the fact that she left him was moot. As such, the target on my back was bigger than the Lone Star State itself.
He must have loved her to keep going back, even though they looked toxic from where I was standing. How they ended up married was a mystery to me, but that they were in the middle of a divorce surprised me zero percent. But I couldn’t ignore the fact that she loved him and lost him. It had to be impossibly painful. Especially once she found out I’d had his child, the child he wouldn’t give her.
Still, I didn’t take well to being bullied. Once at a party after senior year, she cornered me and picked a verbal fight that turned into a physical one. I wasn’t proud that I’d popped her in the eye—I didn’t even realize I knew how to punch somebody until that moment—but I couldn’t deny the satisfaction when I saw her walking her shiner around town.
We’d been pulled apart and carried off like a couple of feral cats, her by Wyatt and me by Sebastian. He’d practically thrown me over his shoulder and dumped me in his truck, sweeping me away from the party and to the river. We sat on the rock overhang and talked all night. His mom’s health was in decline, and she was wasting away from chemo, and that night, he told me he wouldn’t ever have kids. That carefree levity only teenagers can achieve had weighed him down, sobered him. Aged him. He became an adult that summer, long before any of the rest of us.
It was also when he told me he wanted out of Lindenbach, wanted to see the world and change it for the better.