Running on Empty (4 page)

“You gotta be kidding me.” The owner slash manager slash head server at Kenny’s Café—who, weirdly, was not named Kenny—slid the resumé back across the table.

Ethan knew what the problem was. He’d already had four other conversations like this at four other restaurants. “Yeah, I know I haven’t done any actual serving, but—”

“Look, kid, you’re probably a great lifeguard and all, but I need someone who knows how to operate our computer system, can handle a dozen different orders at once, and won’t drop the ball when things get crazy. I don’t have the time to train you.” He waved his hand around the room where people sat at all but one of the café’s tables enjoying a Saturday snack. “We’re not big, but we’re busy. And up to now we haven’t needed somebody with Red Cross lifesaver training.”

Ethan looked down at the single sheet of paper that summed up his work history in four words:
lifeguard and swimming instructor
. Pathetic.

The man who wasn’t Kenny stood up. “Sorry, kid. Come back when you’ve got some experience, okay?”

Ethan stood, too. “Thanks anyway,” he said, but the man had already moved off to seat two more people who’d just walked in. Sighing, Ethan reached for his resumé and slid it back into its folder. He wasn’t sure why, though. It wasn’t like it was doing him any good.

But he still had one last place to try.

“A friend ‘a Selena’s, huh?” said the thin woman in the pink uniform and white running shoes as she gestured toward a table. She looked to be in her forties and wore a name tag that said “Lil” and an apron around her tiny waist that was splattered with a bunch of faded stains, one of them either ketchup or blood.

Sitting down, Ethan found himself wishing her apron was a little longer because her bony kneecaps looked eerily like doorknobs. For a moment, he couldn’t help thinking how this woman and Beaker, his physics teacher, were made for each other. Not only were they both maybe ninety-eight pounds soaking wet, they even had the same sharp nose and close-set eyes. In a sudden weird leap of imagination, Ethan pictured the two of them naked in a heated, horizontal frenzy, and it was like picturing two sticks being rubbed together to start a fire. Struggling to erase that mental image, he said, “I’ve known her for a couple years. Her boyfriend, Kyle, is the brother of a buddy of mine.”

Lil nodded, then set a glass of water on the table before sliding into the seat across from him. “Welcome to The Chow Down,” she said.

Looking around the diner, Ethan counted more than a dozen tables arranged on worn red and white tiles. Several booths lined two walls, one of which had a plate-glass window overlooking the harbour two blocks below them. A couple of the booths and four of the tables were occupied by solitary customers, every one of them several times Ethan’s age. The tables were made of wood and stained a diarrhea brown, and lying on their scratched surfaces were vinyl placemats with faded pictures of Nova Scotia tourist sites like Peggy’s Cove and the Cabot Trail.

“You wanna order?” the waitress asked him.

“No, thanks.” Glancing at the menu, he’d been surprised by how long it was, but most of the people eating there now seemed to be going for the All Day Breakfast. The smell of bacon hung heavy and cloying in the air, and behind him he could hear someone spreading something on toast as crisp as cardboard.

“So you’re lookin’ for a job,” said Lil.

Ethan nodded. “Who do I—”

“—see about applyin’? You’re lookin’ at her. The owner, Mr. Anwar, drops in maybe once a month. He’s got places all over the city. The Chow Down ain’t at the top ‘a his priority list, if you know what I mean.”

Ethan wasn’t sure how to respond so he just nodded.

“Me ‘n’ Ike pretty much run the place,” she continued, nodding toward the kitchen behind her. “Ike’s the cook.”

Ethan handed her his resumé. He felt bad now about asking Allie to help him with it last night; they’d spent over an hour trying to find ways to make him sound more hirable, time she could have spent doing something far more worthwhile. Like staring at a wall.

He was surprised when she gave it only a passing glance. “A recommendation means a lot more to me than a piece ‘a paper,” she said. “If Selena sent you, that carries a lot ‘a weight.”

Selena
hadn’t
sent him. In fact, Selena didn’t even know he was there. Last night while he was online copying names of Halifax restaurants that were hiring, he’d suddenly remembered Pete talking about Selena giving up her job at The Chow Down. But if Lil thought Selena had sent Ethan to the diner, he wasn’t about to change her mind.

Just then, a bell rang at the diner’s entrance. Lil shot a look over her shoulder as a balding, heavy-set guy came in. He gave the waitress a wave.

“Take a load off, Clarence,” she told him. “Be with you in a minute.”

Clarence nodded and moved toward one of the booths beside the window, the door of the diner shrieking shut on a hinge that clearly hadn’t seen oil for a while.

The waitress turned back to Ethan. “You got any servin’ experience?”

Ethan’s heart sank. He shook his head.

“Ever done any cookin’?”

“For myself. Not in a restaurant, though.”

“Dishwashin’?”

He thought about their dishwasher at home, a state-of-the-art stainless-steel tall-tub that did everything but load itself. He shook his head again.

“And I should hire you because …”

Ethan took a deep breath. Riding the bus over here, he’d tried thinking of ways to offset his lack of experience, but only one thing had come to mind. It was dumb, he knew, but what did he have to lose? “I’m a blank canvas,” he said. “You get to train me exactly the way you want.” It sounded even lamer than he’d imagined it would.

Lil threw her head back and laughed, the sound much deeper than Ethan would have expected from such a scrawny woman. With her mouth wide open, he could see lipstick lining the edges of her front teeth and, beyond them, dark fillings in her molars. He took a swallow of his water as an excuse to look away.

“Blank canvas, huh? So now I’m an
artiste?
” She used the French pronunciation, and Ethan couldn’t imagine anything more bizarre in that greasy-spoon diner. Except maybe the image of Beaker and the waitress doing the nasty. Yeah, definitely that.

Her laughter subsiding, she scanned his resumé. “Still in high school, huh?” she asked after a moment. When Ethan nodded, she continued, “If you’re lookin’ for somethin’ part-time, why not try Costco or The Brick? Or even that jeezly Bed Bath & Beyond?”

“I need to make a lot of cash fast.”

She raised her eyebrows, which were little more than pencilled lines on her narrow forehead. “You musta seen my Mercedes in the parkin’ lot, huh?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Probably ‘cause it looks a lot like a Ford Focus with bald tires and a trunk that’s tied closed with a coat hanger.” She grinned. “What makes you think The Chow Down’s the place to make a lot ‘a money?”

Embarrassed, Ethan shared something Kyle had once told him: “I heard Selena cleaned up in tips.”

“That’s because she had a couple assets you’re sorely lackin’.”

“Experience and regular customers?” he asked.

“Great tits.” Lil shrugged. “Maybe you’re right about that blank canvas.” She looked across at the heavy-set man by the window. “Clarence,” she said, “just be another minute, okay?”

“No hurry, Lil,” he told her. “My meetin’ with the lieutenant-governor can wait a bit.”

She shot him a grin—”Thanks, sweetie”—then turned toward the kitchen. “Hey, Ike!” she called. “Stick your ugly mug out here.”

Ethan heard something from the kitchen behind her that sounded like a blend of grunt and snarl, and a second later a guy nearly as wide as he was tall pushed through the batwing doors rubbing a wad of paper towels between his hands.

“Ethan,” said the waitress, “Ike Turner. Ike, this here is Ethan Palmer. He’s interested in the job.”

Ike Turner looked like he’d been a cage fighter in another lifetime. An
undefeated
cage fighter. He had huge shoulders and a massive chest, and his arms were nearly as thick as Ethan’s thighs. Even under his apron and baggy workpants, his legs looked sturdy enough to support a truck. He wore a baseball cap and T-shirt that looked the colour of grease, and tattoos covered
most of his exposed skin. Ethan wondered what Raye and Jazz would think of the tat on his right forearm, a green dragon with glowing red eyes being ridden by a voluptuous blonde. As the guy got closer, Ethan could see the blonde was having a pretty good time given her lack of clothing and the way she was gripping the dragon’s tail.
Nothing phallic there
, he thought as he stood up. “Nice to meet you,” he said, extending his hand.

Ike ignored it. “You waited tables before?”

Ethan let his hand drop. “Not really.”

“You either have or you haven’t. Which is it?”

“Haven’t,” Ethan admitted.

“Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out,” Ike said, turning back toward the kitchen.

“Selena sent him,” said Lil.

Ike hesitated and looked back. “You know Selena?”

“Her guy, Kyle, is my best friend’s brother.”

“And she sent you?”

“That’s why I’m here,” Ethan lied.

The cook looked at Lil. “Up to you,” he said. “You’re the one’s gotta work with him.” He pushed through the batwing doors and disappeared.

Lil turned to Ethan. “Say I give you the job. When can you start?”

“When do you need me?”

“I could really use someone this afternoon. My other part-timer’s in Cape Breton visitin’ family, ‘n’ there’s an American destroyer and two cruise ships in the harbour. With the city full ‘a sightseers, we’ll be packed to the rafters when the gawkers get hungry.”

“Sure,” said Ethan. “Why not?”

Lil grinned at him, unveiling the lipstick on her teeth again. “You got chutzpah, kid. I’ll give you that.” She pushed back and got up. “Come meet your first customer.”

Ethan slid out of his chair and followed her over to the man in the booth by the window. “Sorry to keep you waitin’, Clarence,” she said. “Meet the new Selena. Name’s Ethan. Mind if he busts his cherry on you?”

The guy grinned, his double chin doing a little dance. “Anything for you, Lil.”

“Thanks, sweetie. Be right back.” She walked over to the cash register and rummaged in a drawer beneath it.

Clarence studied Ethan for a moment. “So you never done this before?”

“Nope,” said Ethan, shaking his head. “But how hard can it be?”

Lil returned with a pen and notepad in her hand, and Clarence winked at her. “A real crackerjack, this guy.”

“We’ll see.” She handed the pen and notepad to Ethan. “I figured you’d probably wanna pass on the apron,” she said, grinning.

He grinned in return. “You figured right.”

“I’ll give you this section for now, okay?” She gestured toward a group of six tables, including the booth Clarence sat in. “Everything you need to know is on the menu except for the special.” She pointed to the small blackboard to the left of the kitchen doors on which someone had chalked—in surprisingly elegant handwriting
—Liver and Onions
, along with the price. “For now,” she continued, “just take the orders, bus the tables, and keep the food comin’. I’ll look after the cash register for you. I can show you how that works another time. If there
is
another time,” she added.

“Thanks,” said Ethan.

“Be gentle, Clarence,” she warned the heavy-set guy, then moved off, stopping to fill an elderly man’s water glass.

“So,” Ethan said to Clarence, “what can I get you today?”

“My usual.”

Great
, thought Ethan. A
wiseass
. “And what’s that?”

“The number four.”

Lifting the menu from its metal stand on the table, Ethan scanned it. “Uh, I see we got three number fours. You here for breakfast, lunch, or dinner?”

“I’m workin’ the night shift over at the hospital. Whaddya think?”

“Clarence,” said Lil from the other side of the diner. “Give the guy a break.”

“Just showin’ him the ropes,” Clarence replied. “He asked me how hard it could be.”

“He’ll find that out soon enough,” she said, nodding toward the kitchen.

Clarence guffawed, his laughter sounding like it came from the bottom of a barrel, both of his chins dancing again. “You sure got
that
right, Lil.” He turned to Ethan. “Gimme the Rib-Eye with extra fries, coleslaw, and a side of mayo. And a Diet Coke.”

Yeah
, thought Ethan as he wrote down the order
. The diet drink makes it the heart-healthy choice. You and Big Ben Cleveland must be on the same program
. He turned toward the kitchen.

“You forgettin’ somethin’?” asked Clarence.

Ethan stopped. “What?”

“How I like my steak.”

Ethan forced a smile. “How would you like your steak?”

“Close to mooin’.”

“Put down ‘rare,’” said Lil, who had just come out of the kitchen with a plate in her hand. She frowned at Clarence, who raised his hands in surrender.

Ethan pushed through the batwing doors and found himself in a kitchen that had obviously seen better decades but was unexpectedly tidy. Scarred tiles checkerboarded the floor between a long white countertop and a row of stainless-steel
appliances, each nicked and gouged but all scrubbed clean. They included a griddle the size of a small table, two ovens stacked one above the other, a deep fryer, two microwaves, eight gas burners, a fridge and upright freezer, an enormous contraption that Ethan assumed was a dishwasher, and two sinks. Open shelves lining the opposite wall held an assortment of pots and pans as well as plates, saucers, cups, and glasses, and several large bowls on the countertop were filled with ingredients and condiments. And in the middle of it all stood Ike Turner, flipping eggs on the griddle before dropping what looked like hand-cut potatoes into the deep fryer.

“I’ve got an order,” said Ethan, tearing the paper from his notepad.

The cook grunted, nodding toward a length of string looped between two tiny pulleys hanging above the counter. Dangling from it were two similar pieces of paper. “Goes there,” he said.