Better Off Dead (3 page)

They also froze all of her father’s assets, so all her mother left with was three hundred dollars in cash, no mode of transportation, and a suitcase of clothes that were deemed to have no value. 

On the other hand, Lucy’s brother Seth left the house with almost everything he owned, including some of his video games. 

She stood out on the sidewalk in front of their five-hundred-thousand-dollar Spanish villa style house with her mother and brother, waiting for the taxicab an agent had taken pity on them and called. 

Her mother, Lila, had had two choices as she’d stood there waiting for the taxi.  They could have probably afforded to stay in a flea bag hotel overnight, and then they’d be flat broke in the morning.  Or, they could take a cab to the bus station and buy three tickets to her grandmother’s place in Four Corners—a tiny town about an hour east of their home in San Bernardino.

Standing in her bedroom in Four Corners, California, she took in the blue and yellow uniform that hung in her closet (replete with a tacky sun visor emblazoned with
The Golden Arches
) and was reminded again that she worked at McDonalds. 

Her father had rolled over on his law partners, to secure a ten-year prison sentence served in a minimum-security facility.  But that deal hadn’t included Uncle Sam returning any of her father’s assets to the family, so her mother was now a cocktail waitress in nearby Barstow, and Lucy had to take the bus just to get to work every day. 

That alone had been an all too humbling experience, and the only thing she clung to now was the hope that one day she’d be able to buy herself a used piece-of-shit car.  That way she could drive herself to McDonalds for the next ten to twenty years.

Dreams of marrying a multimillionaire or going to a good college had gone up in smoke months ago when she’d first taken the bus to work, had missed her stop, then had scrubbed a public toilet as her initiation into the fast food service industry.  She had felt that her life had gone down that toilet the instant she’d flushed it.

And now, as she pulled her uniform on (amazingly Gram always seemed to be able to get the grease stains, and most importantly, the smell of McDonalds out of her uniform), her heart sank and shrank in her chest. 

Today was her eighteenth birthday. 

Happy Birthday!!!

As she pulled her still long, yet not nearly radiant, hair back in a tight ponytail, she considered for the hundredth time just calling off.   But truthfully she had nothing else to do, and no one to do it with.  She had no friends to go out with.  She’d gone from teen queen to a complete nobody in her new high school—the new girl with a mean chip on her shoulder and discount clothes on her back.  Her mother was working her usual Saturday night shift, and her grandmother was busy at a church bake sale.  So calling off would mean being completely alone on her birthday. 

And anyway, she had already seen the ugly truth: her life was pretty much over, and working on her birthday was just one more thing she’d have to get used to.

She trudged downstairs and poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot her grandmother had made fresh before she’d gone out.  She was tempted to just drink it black.  There would be no more apropos symbolic gesture for the turn her life had taken.  But the mere thought of coffee without cream and sugar made her want to gag.  So she made her coffee just as she always did—some milk and three sugars—and stood leaning against the worn metal and Formica kitchen counter, taking in the tattered yet spotless old kitchen, and the lonely silence of the house.  Even her loser brother had friends in Four Corners, and he was staying the night with one of them as she sipped her coffee.

Another thing she’d lost that he hadn’t.

~*~

The bus ride from San Bernardino to Four Corners had only been the first of many trips she had taken on a bus.  Though all buses looked alike, they certainly didn’t smell alike.  Some smelled of feet and body odor.  Some smelled of industrial strength air freshener (the driver’s halfhearted attempt at masking the stench.  But that usually just made the bus smell like lilac scented gym socks). 

But there was one driver—her name was Shirley—who actually kept her bus spotless, and Lucy always took a seat close to the front on the days she’d catch her bus.

Shirley talked to anyone and everyone, her curiosity seemingly boundless.  The best part for Lucy, though, was that Shirley would just let you sit there in silence as she happily drove and chatted up others.  Yet somehow she made you feel as if you were in on the conversation.

Today Lucy caught Shirley’s bus and she happily took her usual seat, fading into the scenery as Shirley told a rather old man with a wrinkled radish for a nose that her petunias were shriveling on the vine.  “It’s just not natural,” she continued, pushing a large frizzy strand of her red hair out of her eyes.  “I water them three times a week.  I even have one of those Miracle Grow attachment doohickeys.”

Mr. Radish Nose scratched his ginormous red nose and then asked, “Are they in direct sunlight?”

“Well, of course they are!”  Shirley smiled.  “I read the packet the seeds came in.”

“Well, that’s true for out east.  But for the climate out here the sun’s just too harsh.  And though pretty and hearty, those things fare better in the shade in these parts.”

Shirley made a little humph noise, and then straightened her shoulders.  “Makes sense.”  She smiled into her rearview mirror at Mr. Radish Nose.  “I’m off in two days, so I’ll go ahead and transplant them to the other side of the house.  There’s a good shady spot right beneath my kitchen window.”

Mr. Radish Nose nodded his head in agreement.

Lucy smiled and caught Shirley’s bright green eyes looking at her.  “Gotta work on your birthday, huh?”

Lucy’s jaw dropped and she shook her head.  “How did you...?”

Shirley smiled knowingly as she smoothed her dark red hair back again into the little flip she’d styled it into.  “When you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you can just tell.  And the look on your face invariably means it’s your birthday, and you have to work.”

“You’re amazing.  You should be on TV.”

Shirley gave a honking laugh.  “I’d sure as blazes be better at it than that god awful Dr Phil.”  She shook her shoulders with a chill.  Lucy knew what would come next.  “And that Oprah’s gotta know there’s a studio apartment waiting for her in hell for exposing the world to that lunatic.”

Shirley hated Dr. Phil with every ounce of her rather substantial, curvy body. 

She pulled the bus over and said, “This is your stop, birthday girl.”  And sure enough, as Lucy got out of her seat, waved goodbye to Shirley and then half tripped down the three little steps of the bus, there she stood under the Golden Arches. 

She sighed.  “Now my birthday is complete.”

~*~

McDonalds was bombarded with customers, and not the usual Saturday night crowd.  This was pure chaos and mayhem, and at first Lucy was glad for it.  The busier it was, the faster the time would fly by.  But her assignment tonight (the grill) had her stuck over a hundred patties of scorched meat, and her hands and arms got burnt by the overly sizzling grease.

When it’s really busy, management will turn up the heat on the grill—to hell with corporate’s rules and regulations for the cooking of their prized beef patties.  Management just wanted the burgers done and out the door with the customer. 

End of story.

About an hour into this hot, smelly mess of special meat, she was coated with sweat and grease, and she had all sorts of tiny red welts all over her arms. 

“Lucy!”  Greg, her night shift manager yelled, though he was standing right beside her.

She looked up at him unenthusiastically—she no longer jumped in surprise at his all-too-often sudden outbursts.  “Yeah, Greg?” 

Greg was on the cusp of turning thirty, his hair was starting to recede, and he always looked like he was constipated.  “Go to the cooler and get two containers of the Special Sauce...”  He plucked the spatula from her hand.  “I’ll watch the grill.”

“Okay.”  She turned and started to walk away when Greg hollered again. 

“Grab a bag of sandwich lettuce too.”

She nodded her head and waved that she’d heard him, but she didn’t bother to look back at him. She stayed close to the wall as she navigated further back into the bowels of the fast food restaurant.  Twenty-three workers ran around like computer animated chickens with their heads chopped off, with no rhyme or reason, and just barely missed running right into each other.

She yanked open the cooler door, almost getting bowled over by an acne pocked kid named Gibson, and then slipped into the cool, clammy embrace of the walk-in cooler.  If it wasn’t for the smell—an overtaxed refrigeration unit, fresh and rotting vegetables and fruits, the grease that coated every square inch of the store, and of course the mildew of refrigeration moistened cardboard boxes—she  would enjoy the temperature dip.               

Plus the unit itself made a white noise that blocked out all other noises.  So it was kind of peaceful.

She stood there for a lovely moment and let the cold envelope her—and forgot that she was this Lucy now, and let a flash of her old life, the old radiant and amazing Lucy, warm her.  She tried not to take a breath.  This lasted for exactly ten seconds, and then she had to take one.  That alone snapped her back to reality, and she started to move toward the shelves she needed to pull stock from.

First the bag of leaf lettuce.  In most McDonald’s stores even the lettuce is pre-shredded and the tomatoes pre-sliced.  All so everything about the burgers you buy are exactly like the burgers you get in any other McDonalds, anywhere you go.

Gram had said it’s called the
Socialization of America
.  That it’s a real thing, and that’s why it’s taught in almost every college in the land.  But since she wasn’t going to college...or anywhere else...she’d decided
not
to give the lettuce and tomatoes at McDonalds much thought.

The large plastic tubs of Special Sauce were only around five pounds apiece, yet they were not only physically cumbersome, but always rather slick and hard to hold onto.

She set down the bag of lettuce, picked up two jars of sauce—arranging them so her arms and her chest were holding them snugly in a pincer—and then grabbed the lettuce again.  She pushed against the cooler door, yet it didn’t give a bit. 

Nothing unusual.  The door was notorious for sticking.  So she put some muscle into pushing against it, but it still wouldn’t budge.

Shit!  I’m
so
not getting trapped in the walk in cooler on my freaking birthday!  I’m...
she pushed against the big metal door with all her might...
Just
...she pushed again, really putting her back into it....
Not!

The door swung open and she stumbled out, her arms full and her feet suddenly slipping-sliding beneath her.  She skated and spun across the floor, amazingly missing all the other McDonalds workers, and crashed with a rather loud thud into the opposite wall.  Her feet slipped out from under her and she dropped to the fetid tile floor with a sickening crunch.

~*~

“Hey, Lucy...wake up!”  The guy’s voice was so familiar, yet it felt as if she hadn’t heard it in years.  Her eyes snapped open—Jeff Haas knelt over her.  His smile was wide and his eyes so pretty and happy to see her.  Then she realized she was laying on the ground...correction, on the tiled floor of Mrs. Henderson’s Spanish class, and everyone from her old school—her old life—was clustered around her.  Afternoon sunlight drizzled in sparkling rays through the large unadorned windows.  The light played against Jeff’s cheek and made his eyelashes shine. 

She felt tears well up in her eyes.  She was so glad to see them all and the looks of worry etched on their faces. 
Had that all been just a bad dream?

“Sorry, Lucy,” Jeff said, running his fingers softly over her forehead.  “I was just trying to surprise you for your birthday.  You kinda jumped and fell down when you saw it.”

“Saw what?”  She was so confused, and her head was spinning. 

“Your gift.”  Jeff’s smile was so bright and warm she couldn’t help but smile back at him.

Mrs. Henderson prodded her way through the assembled students and stooped down to look her hard in the eye.  “The school nurse is on her way, and she’s called your father.”

“Daddy?”  The thought of him coming there made her heart tap-dance in her chest.  There was nothing she wanted more than to see him.  That realization, that he was on his way, made it undeniably true.  All of that—the FBI/incarceration/moving to Gram’s/working at McDonalds mess—had really all only been a really horrible, really annoying dream.  And now that she thought of it, her head really did hurt.  She’d probably hit it when she fell.

“See, Lucy.  Everything’s fine.  Your dad’s on his way, and it’s still your birthday.” Jeff’s wide smile turned shy and his brow did that sexy furrow thing it does when he’s unsure of himself.  “So, you ready for your gift?”

“Presents!”  She chimed as she sat up fast and felt her head throb with a burning pain.  “Are you kidding?  I’m all about the presents.”