One Good Hustle (19 page)

God, I hate it when she sounds like her mother.

“Minimum wage isn’t good money,” I say.

“Minimum wage is $5.50. This pays $6. Plus tips. And you only work when you want to. Weekends mostly.”

I’m no sucker
, I can hear Sam say.
I don’t carry a baloney bucket to work
.

What if he calls and asks me what I’m up to. I suppose I don’t have to tell him that I’m waiting tables.

“Would I have to wear a hairnet?”

“No.” Jill laughs. “We’d be working in banquet halls. Weddings and stuff. They wear a white nurse’s uniform—those dress-things. It’ll be cute. Mom says they have loads in second-hand stores so we could pick a couple up for next to nothing. Have you got a social insurance number?”

Is she kidding?

TWENTY-ONE

JILL TALKED ME
into going with her to some government office this morning. We had to show our birth certificates and fill out forms and then they gave us each a social insurance number. Our permanent cards should come in the mail in the next couple of weeks.

Seems like every time I turn around, some government-type wants to suck out more information, assign me a number. I can’t get past the sensation that every new number is like another crack in me, another way for the whole world to come seeping in. Marlene doesn’t seem to care about this any more. Suddenly she’s living in the nuthouse, gabbing with her social worker—
Margaret
, she called her the other day, as if they’re best buds or something.

Before I left Oak Shore the last time, I noticed Marlene had an Alcoholics Anonymous pamphlet on her nightstand. I made
a crack about it. She plucked up one labelled Alateen from underneath it and stuck it in my hand.

I let my lips move as I read.
Alateen is part of Al-Anon, which helps families and friends of alcoholics recover from the effects of living with the problem drinking of a relative or friend
.

“
Pass
,” I said. “I don’t think I need to snivel to a roomful of dorks about my fucked-up childhood.”

Marlene inhaled and released the breath slowly. “You were exposed to many things that you shouldn’t have been exposed to,” she said. “Much of that was my fault. I apologize for that.”

I stared at her. “Oh really.” I couldn’t wait to see where this was going: A request to steal her some Valium? Get some cash together so we could have a fresh start? “And?”

“And you sound like you have some anger issues. Alateen might actually be a good thing for you.”

Anger issues? I threw the Alateen pamphlet in the garbage can down the hall on the way out.

Jill and I are in side-by-side change rooms in a second-hand store.

Looking in the mirror, I do up the last buttons of a dowdy white uniform. It’s Wednesday. Maybe Marlene’s already been released. Maybe she’s in her living room right now, sitting on the couch, staring at the walls. Maybe she’s at an AA meeting spilling her guts. On the other hand, it wouldn’t surprise me if she painted herself green again so she could stay a couple more weeks at Oak Shore.

Jill and I have filled out our applications at Pacific Inn Catering. They told us we could start this weekend if we wanted.

Jill said to me through the partition: “Wanna call in for hours when we get home?”

“
Want
is a strong word.”

I tie the white cotton belt. I try pushing the knot to the side to see if I can make it look jaunty or something.

Fuck fuck fuck
. Look at me—a pathetic little dishrag. If you had told me two years ago in the cab with Marlene—before we even got to Las Vegas—if you had said to me, “This is going to be the night that sends everything down the tubes,” I wonder what I’d have done. Maybe I would have paid more attention to the little hairs standing up on my arms. Maybe I would have faked the whooping cough and said,
Forget it, I’m going home
. Vegas was the plan of someone who didn’t have her head on straight. It was a new-low kind of hustle, but I didn’t say so. Or maybe I did but I didn’t say it with conviction.

“What’s taking you?” Jill bellows. “Have you got it on?”

I pull the curtain aside and step out of my cubicle just as Jill steps out of hers. In front of the large mirror she tries to cinch her waist a little. The white cotton belt seems to sit right under her boobs. “Shit,” she whispers. “I look like a big white maggot.”

I raise one arm and check the tag dangling there. $4. “At least it’s cheap.”

She puts a hand on her hip. “Baby, I am a whole lotta woman. This uniform is not built for a body like mine.”

“Mine neither.”

Jill fidgets in the mirror. “Maybe if I put some darts in the waist.”

“I deserve to look like a maggot—just more karma.” I go back into my cubicle and drag the curtain closed behind me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” I pull off the nurse dress.

Just before four o’clock Friday afternoon, Jill and I get off the bus outside the Pacific Inn. It’s our first night on the job. They load us and three other staff into the white and blue catering van and haul us with the food to a banquet hall in East Vancouver.

Jill and I are both in uniform. Each of us has her hair pulled into a ponytail, though Jill has managed to tease out some big curls to frame her face and the usual geyser of bangs jets off her forehead. We’ve each been handed a bibbed apron to wear over top of the nurse outfit, which I like, because it looks sort of Amish, which means that I can imagine I’m Kelly McGillis in that movie
Witness
.

While the rest of the staff set up the chairs and unload chafing dishes, Jill and I are given a service lesson by a fussy little man who says his name is Hugh Tink. Hugh Tink is the team captain for tonight’s service: a wedding reception for eighty.

“Knife on the right,” he says. “Forks on the left, followed by the teaspoon and soup spoon.” Then he moves on to the coffee cup, wineglass and water glass. When the place setting is down, he goes on to the next step. “To maintain uniform
service, each of us must serve from the right and clear from the left. Understand?”

“Sure,” Jill says.

“Repeat please,” Hugh says.

“Excuse me?”

“How do we serve? Serve from the …?”

“Left,” Jill says. “And clear from the right.”

“No.” Hugh raises his finger straight up and down between his face and Jill’s nose. “Serve
right
, clear
left
. If you serve them
right
, you can clear what’s …?”

“Left,” we say in unison.

“Exactly. Remove dishes only when every guest at the table has finished eating. I’ll leave you girls to it.” He hurries back to the kitchen.

As the door swings shut behind him, Jill says, “Hugh T’ink he’s gay?” and the two of us giggle uncontrollably. Mostly, I suppose, because we’ve already forgotten what Hugh said.

We study his place setting and duplicate his example in front of each chair, at each table, seventy-nine times.

By seven o’clock, a blister on my heel has bloomed, busted and bled all in the space of three hours because I forgot to wear socks and these stupid white sneakers I bought at the second-hand store don’t fit properly.

Five minutes ago, the bride came barrelling into the kitchen with a cloudy-looking wineglass.

“Excuse me!” The hand that held the glass was inflamed, the skin cracking. There were scaly pink patches on her cheeks, and she’d covered a rash on her chin with chalky makeup that continued down onto her chest. She looked as if she wanted to beat someone’s head in. “I mean, for pity’s sake, it’s filthy! Do I have to go through the whole place and inspect every glass? That is not my job. That is not my
job!
”

“Of course not, madam,” Hugh Tink said. “This is
your
night.” He gazed at her as if she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

“Well—well, maybe if you didn’t hire children this wouldn’t happen!” She waved her red cracking hand in my direction.

Hugh didn’t need to turn his head. He knew who she was talking about. “This is Samantha’s first night. But the rest of our staff are more than equipped to handle your every need. I assure you, you will see nothing but crystal-clear glass from here on in.”

Once she had hauled her lacy white train back out the swinging kitchen door, Hugh Tink turned on Jill and me. “Did it not occur to you to inspect the glasses as you set each place?”

“I
looked
, Hugh. I honestly did.” Jill’s voice was suddenly thin and high. “I’m really sorry.”

Hugh barely came up to Jill’s chin. He turned to me.

I glanced at the kitchen door. “Well, it’s not exactly screaming bright in there and my feet are blistered to hell.”

Hugh glared. “There are Band-Aids in the first aid kit. Part of your job description is to own a pair of comfortable shoes.” He walked away.

“Holy shit,” Jill said. Blood from a burst blister had seeped
pink through the back of my white canvas shoe. “
First aid!
” she hollered to the kitchen brigade. “Who’s got the first aid kit?”

I’m all bandaged up, running back and forth from the banquet room to the kitchen. It’s quarter past eight and we’ve begun clearing. Hugh has told me to keep away from the bride’s side of the room. He wants the experienced “team members” to take care of the head table and, he said, he’d prefer she not be reminded of that spotty glass by catching sight of me.

I hate Hugh and I hate this hall and I really hate the
ping-ping-ping-ping
stuff. Every five minutes, we hear another jerk rapping his spoon against a wineglass, demanding the bride and groom kiss before he stands up and tells some boring, crappy story about their romance.

“She’s going to punch your lights out if you don’t stop staring,” Jill says to me as we rush back into the kitchen with more armloads of mucky plates. “He’s taken.” She’s talking about the groom.

“I’m just trying to figure out where I know him from.”

“Sure, baby.” She winks at me. “You gotta admit—he’s cute.”

I’m telling the truth, though. The bride is still miserable and rashy. The groom is tall and thin with blond hair and a pretty-boy face and he can’t stop refilling his wineglass. Dinner’s barely over and he nearly fell on his ass when he stood up for the last toast.