Short Stories

Just Bring Your Own Food

The owner of the place asks me when I can start working with the enthusiasm of a turtle who’d just taken a Vicodin. Plastic plates move through the air, quick as birds in flight. Conversations blur into one loud murmur as the smell of bacon grease and cigarette smoke surrounds us.

“Right away!” I say, trying not to sound as hopeless as I feel. I stand straight as a Marine in a floral sundress and Birkenstocks.

She scrunches up the leathery skin of her face, and her eyes turn dark with disappointment.

“Or whenever you want me to start,” I say, desperation leaking through my voice.

“Right away is good,” she says. “I guess.”

It’s some $1.99 breakfast special joint. Their motto, “Just Good Food,” is written on the front cover of every menu. It’s a small place filled with smokers. Not only do they allow smoking; they seem to encourage it with ashtrays at every table.

Still, I want the job, and even more, I want to be good at it. Failure has become a way of life for me since I dropped out of college last year. Now, I’m determined to turn things around, to save money, and re-enroll in school.

Besides that, I don’t have a ton of options. It’s summer in Phoenix—also known as hell. I don’t have a car, and I need something that’s a short bike ride away. Other than Jams, the only businesses within a short distance from my home are convenience stores, gas stations, and fast-food places. No thanks!

“Well, let’s get you started with a pad and an apron,” she says, walking towards the back of the place, her long, skinny legs taking awkward steps. The gray walls look like they may have been white at one time. There are no comfy booths—only small tables that surely wobble and chairs with hard seats. The floors are greasy in spots, so I walk slowly and carefully. I decide to wear sneakers for now on.

“My name’s Stacy, by the way,” I say as I walk behind her, hoping to get her name.

She just responds with a bland “Nice to meet you.”

I follow her to the end of the long, narrow place and through a big, steel door that leads into the kitchen. There, a short, curly-topped woman stands at the stovetop flipping a pancake. According to the board out front, pancakes are the breakfast special of the day. It’s written in the penmanship of a third grader with a thick, black marker.

“Well, here you go,” she says through an uncertain smile. She hesitantly hands me a pad and a small white apron.

“Thanks,” I say, hoping some training is to come.

But training seems to be a scarce commodity here. She introduces me to the cook, who’s named Iris, and tells me about the abbreviations to use when taking orders like OE for eggs over easy. She shows me where to leave the tickets, and after that, I’m on my own.

I march over to my first table, where a couple sits peering into each other’s eyes. I figure they’re in love and that this is a great first table to have because they’re on cloud nine. The man, dressed way too formally for this place in a suit and tie, is obviously out to impress the woman. She has her hair in a huge purple barrette that matches her eye shadow.

“Hi,” I say, standing before them. “Can I take your order?”

“We’ll have the pancake special, and ah . . . how is the sausage?” the man says, closing his menu and handing it to me.

“Great,” I say. What does he expect me to say?

“Okay,” he continues. “We’ll have that and a side of fruit.”

“Oh, and do you have any herbal tea?” the woman asks. Where does she think she is?

“No,” I say, “I’m sorry. We have decaf.”

“I’ll just stick with the water,” she says.

“Sure thing.” I feel a glimmer of confidence creeping through as I rush to put the ticket on the line.

I spot my boss looking at me with half-hopeful eyes. Right next to where she stands, a guy sits down without opening his menu. He leans over the table like he might collapse at any second. His face is poured into his hands.

“Just give me the special, whatever it is,” he says without looking up. “And some ice water. A big glass of ice water. It’s getting warm out there.”

Calling a Phoenix summer warm is a stretch as far as the Great Wall of China. I smile and put his order on the line. I turn around to see a couple of men, dressed in hard hats and work boots, come in. Panic runs through me. The guy from the first table is trying to get my attention, but I ignore him so I can hurry and get the order from the third table.

“I’ll have the special with a side of eggs and bacon,” one of them says, taking his hard hat off.

“Same here,” the other says a second later.

I’m walking away when I realize I forgot to ask how they want their eggs. I see my boss giving me the eye.

She walks toward me and says, “That couple’s been trying to get your attention for almost five minutes now.”

Was she timing me? And why couldn’t she lend a hand anyway? Hysteria sets in like a fire alarm. Despite being a jumbled-up wreck, I somehow manage to make it over to the love birds’ table with water. As I’m going to their table, a bell rings with what must be their order.  I realize that I never put the order in for the construction workers, and now, a big group comes in and sits near the front. I put the order for the construction workers in and pick up the lovebirds’ order. When their order gets to the table, the food doesn’t look hot. The steam must have vanished in the air-conditioned box.

“Oh, it’s canned fruit,” the woman says, looking like she’s ready to cry. They really must think they’re somewhere other than a very ordinary greasy spoon.

A single lady comes in and sits at a table in the back corner. I approach her with a menu, and she looks at me glaringly and says, “Oh, you’re new.” She’s short and thin but seems to take up all the space in here just by being.

“I am,” I say. “Just started.”

“Well, then you don’t know about me.”

“No, I guess not.” I fear the story that’s coming my way.

“I can’t have anything with tomatoes!” She speaks as if I’m standing on the other side of the room. I’m ready to interject and tell her that it’ll be easy to get her something without tomatoes when she continues with what seems to be a well-rehearsed tirade. “I mean anything. Do you know what happens when I have tomatoes?!” I shake my head no. “My throat swells up until I can’t breathe, that’s what!” I’m starting to feel responsible for her weird food allergy. “And if there’s even a trace of a tomato in my food, it could be enough to send me over the edge.”

I reassure her that there will be no tomatoes anywhere near her food with the little bit of energy I have left.

   ***

The rest of the day is a big mess. I’m rushing in all directions, but feel like I’m getting nowhere fast, or worse, like I’m trapped in the chaotic web of a black widow.

At the end of the day, I’m relieved to get on my bike, despite the blasting heat. I take my keys out to unlock the u-lock and yelp when I touch the black metal that’s been baking in the sun. A few feet away from the bike racks, a red-faced man in trash can clothes sits on the ground while getting hassled by a couple of cops. Why can’t they leave the poor guy alone? Isn’t it enough that he has to live outside in this oven of a town?

I sneer at the cops as I ride past them on my bike. Soon after I get out of the parking lot, I pass the Middle Eastern place I worked at just about a month ago. I was hired on the spot. My then-boss, Usef, had a bunch of his friends over for lunch. I ran around taking orders from bearded men whose eyes glowed at me with hostility.

“Why are they all looking at me like they’re angry?” I asked Usef.

“Because your arms are showing.” He opened the oven to check on the lamb.

“But it’s 109 degrees outside,” I said. It didn’t feel much cooler inside. But they all seemed impervious to the heat, with thick facial hair and layers of heavy clothing, drinking Turkish coffee and eating hot, steamy food.

“That doesn’t matter. You think the Sahara Desert is cool? Our women don’t have anything showing but their eyes.”

I was about to say something back, but I stopped myself. Anything I could say in my defense would just boomerang off him. Besides, I really wanted to make it there. It was a super close bike ride from my place, and they had great hummus and baba ghanoush.

There was no way, though, and it seemed like the harder I tried, the bigger I failed. In my defense, it was a pretty large place, much more spread out than Jams, with bigger tables. Also, they used real China plates, not plastic ones. I dropped a whole tray of them one day.

“Oh shit!” I screamed, watching the plates filled with food drop to the floor.

It was one of those things that I knew was unstoppable, and yet I watched it unfold with the curiosity of not knowing how it would all go down. I heard my boss sigh from across the room and say something in his native language, which he did every time I fucked up. I spent the rest of my time there trying to make up for my terrible mistake. I even started wearing long sleeves.

“I’m afraid we have to let you go,” he said to me shortly after that incident.

I can’t stand that ‘let you go’ expression. Why make something bad sound good? Like he was setting a caged animal free. People should say ‘canned,’ or at the very least, ‘fired.’

Lost in my thoughts of the past, I don’t notice the dirt kicking up threatening a dust storm. I’m riding through a short stretch of land with no buildings, only an empty lot and a four-point intersection. I envy the drivers in their cars, safe from the dirt blowing all around me. I’m only a couple of blocks from my home. If only I did my closing duties a little bit faster, I could have avoided this.

I get through the door of my home and flop down on my bed—a futon on the floor. I live in a small in-law apartment, which is attached to a main house. “Small” is the operative word here. Nobody wants their in-laws staying too long. Just as I doze off, Nirvana’s Nevermind starts playing. The teenage girl who lives in the house next door plays it every day after school, which happens to be the same time I nap, or at least try to nap. There’s no sleep happening and maybe it’s just as well. I’d probably have a nightmare that a giant pancake is chasing me.

I get up to make something to eat. I look out the window to see that the constantly-fucking basset hounds on the other side of my apartment are at it again. I fry a frozen tofu burger and put some bread in the toaster. My kitchen is a space off to the side that only I can fit inside. It has a mini fridge, a sink big enough to fit three cups in it, and the smallest oven in the world. My whole place is one small room with low ceilings and a tiny bathroom off to the side. It’s cooled with a swamp cooler that works alright until July, which is a week away.

Outside, there’s a decent sized yard surrounded by a gray wire fence and filled with grass as dry as hay. There’s a huge, old tree in the center that’s cool, but that creeps me out at night because I think it would make a great hiding place for some lurking, serial killer. The one good thing is a bush that makes beautiful, bright, yellow flowers in the spring. Scorpions hang out on the porch, and this summer, the cicadas are rising up from their long sleep and flying into my window that faces the backyard. In the mornings, I sweep their dried-up carcasses off my porch.

I sit down to eat at my desk, which is the only place to sit, and look outside at the early evening blaze. I try hard not to think about what work will be like tomorrow. Not another fuck-up day, I pray.

***

The next morning, the temperature is 115 degrees, and the sun pierces my brain like a well-sharpened stick. Looking alive and well isn’t easy, but I manage to have a smile on my face when I walk over to the table where my boss sits. Determined to win her over, I arrive five minutes early. She doesn’t look impressed. She wears the same glum expression, left over from yesterday. The three people sitting with her look like they’re made from the same mold, their tired faces tilted down, all of them leaned over the table while sharing an overflowing ashtray.

“Hi,” I say, hoping for something—anything—in return.

A couple of them slowly lift their heads to look at me and nod.

I gather an apron and pad and go over to a table of four seated by the entrance. As I’m taking their order, I see some guy attempting to repair the cash register that has problems staying shut. I’ve been here only one day, and I’m already aware of one of the flies in the ointment, and a big fly at that. The single most important thing in the place is in bad shape.

The guy fixing the cash register stands out in the same way that I stand out. When I realize he’s an outsider in this strange world, like me, I’m automatically attracted to him. I don’t care that he stands all slumped over like a lazy person who has grown to accept his laziness. All I can see are his black, mysterious eyes and his cool indifference to the way his wavy brown hair keeps falling in his face. His long fingers and veiny hands have me convinced that he’s an artist of some kind. Maybe a sculptor. His attention is fixed on the cash register, so it’s up to me to say something.

“Hi there,” I say loudly in the hopes of him looking up.

He tilts his head slightly away from the register. At first, he looks annoyed, but after our eyes meet, he smiles and says hi back. I want to make conversation, but a new table comes in, the order for my first table is up, and I have to put my second order up on the line. By the time I have a chance to catch my breath, he’s gone. All I can do is hope that I’ll see him again, which is likely, as my boss seems too cheap and stupid to just get a new register.

At the end of the day, I check in with my boss to see if she needs anything before I leave. She gets up from her seat with one hand planted on her lower back and reads off a laundry list of all my mistakes for the day in her sandpaper voice.

“You took too long to get the orders out to the table in the back, and they complained to me that their food was cold. A table by the window walked out because you took so long to get to them. Another table complained that you got their order wrong. You forgot to fill the ketchup and mustard. You need to soak the cups longer to get the stains out.”

She must have written all this down and memorized it before reciting it to me.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ll try harder.”

The voice of failure is rising up inside of me now like a Godzilla monster coming in for the kill.

***

I’ve only been here for about a week, and I already know all the regulars. My favorite is this guy who comes in every day and sits at the same table in the same chair and orders the same thing: a cheese omelet with an English muffin. He stares out at the parking lot like he’s seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary. One day, after he leaves, I sit down exactly where he sits every day, and look out to see if some miracle is happening there. Nothing but cars and smog!

While I’m staring out, I see my friends Katie and Dean about to enter the place. Part of me is glad to have people come into Jams who actually like me, and another part of me wants to run through the door and tell them not to come in. A visit from friends is sure to put me down even further on my boss’s shitlist. But it’s too late to stop them. They walk in, Katie with her hair in braids, carrying a giant bag with orange flowers painted on it, and Dean holding a video camera someone gave him last week.

The second they come in, the bell rings, and I run to get the order. I grab each plate with extra care because having my friends here makes me feel more nervous and klutzy than usual. As I turn to bring the plates to my table, I see Dean videotaping me.

“Here you go,” I say to the two ladies at the table. They look down at their food and switch plates with each other.

I walk over to Dean and Katie and tell them to sit down and to stop recording me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my boss staring at them like they don’t belong. They don’t. Everybody who comes into this place looks like they’ve been beaten down by life. My friends look too alive and well for Jams. I seat them, bring them menus, and try to treat them like normal customers.

“Having coffee today?” I say, turning over the two white mugs on the table.

“Oh, but of course,” Dean says in a fake, formal voice.

I go back to get the coffee pot, and when I return to the table, Katie’s staring at the fake creamer—a concoction made from dried powder and water—with the examining eyes of a scientist. Dean takes a sip of the coffee and shakes his head with disgust like he just drank shaving cream.

“That’ll wake you up!” he says.

Katie takes a container of soy milk out of her bag and pours it in her cup. Then she gives the container of soy milk to Dean.

“Jams,” Dean says, looking down at his menu. “‘Just Good Food.’ I guess we’ll see about that.”

“So far, I’m not convinced,” Katie says.

The bell rings, and I leave them to pick up the next order. I bring three plates of ham and eggs to a table and go back for the fourth. I still can’t carry more than two plates in one arm. The other waitress who works here can carry up to five in one arm. I see a guy from another table waving at me and making that sign like he wants his bill. After I give him his bill, I run over to Katie and Dean to find them cutting up a peach she brought on a napkin in the center of the table. My boss is sure to love this. I run over and beg them to order something off the menu.

“I’ll have some plain whole wheat toast,” Katie says. “You can’t go wrong with that.”

I look at Dean pleadingly, and he orders scrambled eggs and pancakes. I run back to put my ticket in and turn around to see Katie taking a jar of peanut butter out of her bag. My boss has her eyes glued on their table, and I can’t wait until they leave. When their order is up, I run to bring it to them, and Dean asks me if I have any ketchup that’s not watered down.

“Don’t worry,” Katie says. “I have some ketchup packets.” She takes a couple of packets out of her black hole of a bag.

“Hey,” Dean says as he opens a ketchup packet. “They should change their motto from ‘Just Good Food’ to ‘Just Bring Your Own Food!’”

They both laugh, and as hard as I try to stay serious, I can’t help but laugh. I’m afraid to look at my boss, but I’m sure she’s giving us all a killer stink eye.

“Hey, can you guys cool it with the outside food?” I say, leaning over their table. “You trying to get me canned or what?”

“Oh, we’re sorry,” Katie says like she’s unaware of how obnoxious they’re being. They attempt to make it up to me by leaving a five-dollar tip.

***

A week later, I get a ticket on my way to work. A ticket while riding my bike! I didn’t even know there was such a thing. The cop says I didn’t come to a stop at the three-way intersection where there’s no traffic at six in the morning.

“I paused, Officer,” I say with as much respect as I can, in hopes of getting out of it.

“You didn’t come to a complete stop though,” he says.

There’s no point. He’s truly soulless. I can see it in his eyes. My ticket is sixty dollars. I hate him, not just for the ticket or his sad attempt to make his quota, but because he makes me late for work, which I’m sure will be the last straw. I think back to the job I had at McDonald’s when I was in high school.

I was always running late and would end up having to rush to work at road runner speed. Dressed in my bright green, almost fluorescent uniform, I felt like a running highlighter.

In the beginning, I had to watch a bunch of training videos. There was some fake detective who was always uncovering these big mysteries, like the case of the employee who put too much salt in the fries. Employees would come in and watch along.

“Oh, this is a good one,” some guy said as he bit into a cheeseburger with smiling eyes. You’d think he was watching some great Twilight Zone episode.

“You’re late again,” my boss would say to me when I arrived. He’d tell me to clean the fryer for punishment.

“You’re late,” my boss greets me.

“I’m so sorry.” I don’t bother telling her about the ticket I got. I’m already behind with too much to do, and I don’t have time for explanations.

I put my apron on and dash to the first table I see, where a woman with yellow hair and pink lips sits. She asks me for a suggestion. This is a first. People here don’t seem to care what they order. She must be from the outside, like me. I feel an instant comradery and almost think of being honest and telling her to go someplace else but lie instead.

“The French toast is fluffy and delicious.” It tastes like a sponge covered in cough syrup.

“I’ll have that,” she says, smiling through her lipstick-stained teeth.

When I go back to the kitchen, I see my boss talking to the dishwasher in a gossipy-whisper voice, and I know she’s talking about me.

Lost in a whirlwind of angst, I don’t hear the bell ring for my order, and my boss sneers at me for picking it up late. As I’m picking it up, the French toast lady screams, “That man! He just robbed you!”

I turn around, quick as lightning, to see a scrawny man in a black T-shirt slam through the door and almost knock some poor old lady over outside in his dash to get away. I get the urge to go chase him and can’t figure out where it comes from. I never thought of myself as a vigilante, and I don’t give two shits about Jams. Yet, there I am racing through the door after this guy. There’s one thing I’m good at and it’s running. I was the fastest runner in my whole high school.

I feel invincible as I run, like a superhero with no regard for the heat. I run six blocks before I catch up to him. He slows down, but it doesn’t seem like he’s ran out of speed. Maybe he just wants to get a better look at the girl who’s stupid enough to chase him. When he turns to look at me, I see it’s the same homeless guy who was outside Jams getting hassled by the cops. We just stand there in the blow-dryer winds staring at each other.

He blurts out, “You crazy or something?! What is a pretty thing like you chasing a criminal for anyway? Aren’t you scared for your safety? What’d your mama teach you?”

“Why don’t you just give me the money back, Mister?” I feel bad asking him for the money because I’m sure he needs it much more than Jams. He’s skinny and worn and has about two teeth in his mouth.

“What money?” He holds the wad of cash under his shirt.

“You just said you stole the money yourself!”

“What?”

“You called yourself a criminal. And what were you running from anyway?”

“I never said any such thing.” He smirks, and I know he’s just having fun with me.

“Oh, c’mon mister.” I look him right in the eye. “I know you’re having a rough life, but so am I. Well, maybe not as rough as yours, but everybody at that place hates me, my boss most of all, and if I could bring this money back, I might just save my job.”

“Why don’t you just tell them you never caught up to me?” He raises one eyebrow. “They’ll still think you some kind of hero.”

He’s right. There’re no witnesses to see how it really went down. I’d still be a hero for trying, and I wouldn’t have the guilt of taking the money back from him. So, I turn around and start to walk back to work. I only get a few steps when he yells to me, “Oh, you can have it back!”

At first, I think I’m hearing things, but then I turn around to see him holding out the wad of cash. I must be one sorry sack to have some poor, homeless guy take pity on me. Maybe he knows we’re the same. A couple of misfits. No good at doing our jobs, whether it’s waitressing or robbery. But we’re both good and decent people at our cores. I’m pretty sure I like him better than my boss and all those $1.99 breakfast jerks at Jams.

“Just keep it, Mister,” I say, turning back around.

“No, here, you keep it. It could help you out there.”

“Okay,” I say, with great reluctance before taking it.

I start walking away when a great idea comes to me.

“Hey, Mister,” I say, turning around. “Why don’t we split it?”

He stares up at the sky in contemplation. “Now, that’s not a bad idea because they don’t have to know that I gave you the whole thing back. Why, I could have been hiding part of the stash in my pockets.”

“That’s right.” I walk towards him while counting the money. I give him what looks like more than half. He shakes my hand and tells me his name’s Sam.

“Nice to meet you, Sam. I’m Stacy.”

As I walk back to work, I think of what I’ll say when I get there. I’ll tell my boss that I caught up to him and demanded he give me the money back. He was intimidated because I was so strong and fierce, and he agreed.

She’ll say, “Stacy, I don’t know what to say!” She’ll have all this newfound respect for me. Maybe she’ll even ask me for suggestions to improve the restaurant. I could tell her about my great idea of putting sour cream in the pancake batter, and she’ll light up like a carnival ride. My confidence will grow and grow, and I’ll be good at my job. It’ll be different. I just know it.

The hot dry wind whipped around me. Jams rippled in the heat like a mirage.

 

Grace Mattioli is the author of Olive Branches Don’t Grow on Trees, Discovery of an Eagle, and The Bird that Sang in Color. These books are available from all major online book sellers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple Books. She’s been a librarian for over twenty-five years and lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and her cats.