Chapter 6: Waitress

By Tuesday I had a job.

The waitress who had written down Poppy's rabbit turned out to be the owner's daughter.

She looked at my hands, my shoes and the custody papers sticking out of my purse.

"Can you carry three plates?"

"I carried eleven Gaffneys through Thanksgiving," I said.

"You start at ten."

I took Poppy to preschool at eight and signed her in with a new pen.

At ten past ten I walked into the diner with an apron over my cardigan.

For two hours it was only coffee.

I filled mugs and wrote orders on a small green pad.

A trucker tipped me four dollars and called me ma'am.

A woman with a cane told me my eyes were kind, and then asked why they were so tired.

It was the first time in six years I had earned anything with my own hands.

At half past twelve the bell rang, and I knew the laugh before I turned.

Dean's cousin came in with two friends in matching golf shirts.

He was the one who had said, "Oh, Dean, don't be cruel," over my eighteen dollars.

"Well, look at this," he said, loudly. "Katie's gone to work. Isn't that sweet."

He took the booth by the window, and his friends took out their phones.

I went over with the coffee pot.

"Three coffees?"

"And three slices of pie. Keep the change, sweetheart. We're family."

I wrote the order, and the two friends pointed their phones at my apron.

"Say something about money, Katie," one of them said. "Dean says you love to talk about it."

The diner went quiet.

The trucker stopped chewing.

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