I took his hand and shook it. “Nice to meet you, Jim-Billy.”
I repeated his name because I learned a long time ago at a training seminar to do that when you met someone. It solidified their name in your mind so you wouldn’t forget it. I was terrible with names and I found this worked and I figured a waitress in a small town needed to remember the names of the regulars at the bar. And Jim-Billy definitely looked like a regular.
It also worked that I chanted, Jim-Billy, Jim-Billy, Jim-Billy in my head.
Then again, who’d forget the name “Jim-Billy”?
He gave me a squeeze, released my hand and his gaze swung to the blonde.
“Tate’ll like her. Big time,” he declared. “Bubba’ll like her even better.”
“Shut up, Jim-Billy,” the blonde muttered.
“About the job…” I stated, bringing the matter back to hand and the blonde looked at me.
Then she leaned into me. “Girl, take this as me doin’ you a favor. Boys around here…” she threw out a hand, “they’d eat you alive. Go to Chantelle. Gnaw Bone. Woman like you has got no business in Carnal.”
Carnal.
That was one of the reasons I picked that town. Its name was “Carnal”. I thought that was funny and interesting but that was as interesting as I wanted to get.
I wanted to live in a Nowheresville town called Carnal. I wanted to work in an anywhere bar called Bubba’s. There was nothing to either, except the names. Nothing memorable. Nothing special. Nothing.
“You don’t understand,” I told her, “I –”
She leaned back and stated, “Oh girl, I understand.” Her eyes moved from the top of my head to my midriff (which was all she could see with the bar in her way) then they came back to mine. “You’re lookin’ for a thrill. You’re lookin’ for adventure.”
“I’m not. I’m –”
She threw her hands up. “You think I don’t know it when I see it? Do I look like a woman who ain’t been around? Do I look like a woman who feels like hirin’ and trainin’ and learnin’ to put up with the new shit a new waitress is gonna feed me and then when she realizes that she wants her old life back she ups and leaves and then I have to hire and train and learn to put up with new shit again?”
“I wouldn’t give you… um…”
“Everyone shovels shit and I don’t like the taste of it from my kind. I already know I really don’t like the taste of it from yours.”
I again didn’t know what to say because it was dawning that she was discriminating against me.
“Not to be rude or anything,” I said softly, “but you don’t really know me. You don’t know what kind I am.”
“Right,” she replied and there was derision heavy in her word.
“You don’t,” I asserted.
“Girl –” she started but I leaned forward and I did it for a reason.
I leaned forward because I needed her to hear me. I leaned forward because I’d been searching for Carnal a long time. I’d been searching for Bubba’s a long time. I needed to be there and to be there I needed that job.
“Right,” I repeated. “You think I’m some kind of lost woman like out of a book, travelling the globe on some idiot journey to find myself?” I asked and before she could answer, I continued, “Thinking I can go out there and find good food and experience interesting places while soul searching, wearing fabulous clothes and being gorgeous and making everyone I run into love me and, in the end, find a fantastic man who’s really good at sex and adores me beyond reason?” I shook my head. “Well, I’m not. I know who I am and I know what I want and I know that isn’t it because that doesn’t exist. I also know what I’m looking for and I know I found it right here.”
“Listen –” she began.
“No, you listen to me,” I interrupted her. “All my life, or as long as I can remember, I thought something special was going to happen to me. I just had this feeling, deep in my bones. I didn’t know what it was but it was going to be beautiful, spectacular, huge.” I leaned in further. “All… my… life.” I shook my head again and put my hand on the bar. “It didn’t. I waited and it didn’t happen. I waited more and it didn’t happen. I waited more and it still didn’t happen. I tried to make it happen and it still didn’t happen. Now I know it isn’t going to. It’s never going to happen because there isn’t anything special out there to happen.”
I sucked in breath, she opened her mouth but I kept talking.
“I had a husband. I had a home. I had a job. I had friends. Then I found out my husband was sleeping with my best friend. Not an affair, they’d been doing it for five years. When the cat was out of the bag, they decided to be together for real. He divorced me and I couldn’t afford the house on my own so we sold it. Then, all of a sudden, after ten years of being with someone, I was alone. They got the friends who always thought behind my back they were perfect together. They all knew. For five years. And no one told me.”