“You remembered my usual.” He smiled, his teeth a post-apocalyptic city—abandoned, jagged, decayed. “You know I can’t resist an Ernie Burger.”
She scrawled his order on the slip and then left the table, feeling the slime of more than one man’s gaze on her body. That was to be expected when the uniform requirements were four-inch heels, shorts that barely covered her ass, and cleavage. Lots of cleavage.
Ernie liked his girls barely decent, said it was the best business decision he’d ever made. He was right. Sweet Buns was packed twenty-four seven, three sixty-five. Most days, the tips were great. Hell, there wasn’t anywhere within forty-five minutes where she could earn as much as she made at Sweet Buns.
Ernie met her at the kitchen window with a pair of tongs in his hand and anger on his face. His sharply slashed brows met over his eyes, a scowl constantly gripped his lips, and the strange vibe of restrained violence intimidated most everyone and kept the patrons from being too grabby-feely. He looked like a homicidal hashslinger, but he didn’t have any bodies stashed in the freezer. At least none she’d found.
Bald head glistening from working over the grill, he scanned the new order, then turned to flip a burger while he spoke. “Shirl’s in back. Today she’s green.”
“Kermit or neon?” Shirl changed her hair color as often as most people changed their socks.
“Kermit.” Ernie flashed one of his rare smiles in her direction and then hid it behind a frown. “You keeping up the maintenance on that little car of yours?”
Her Miata. The only thing that remained from her old life. Keeping it was impractical, stupid even, but she refused to lose everything. It was her beacon of hope that one day she’d have enough cash to drive it right out of Sundew, Ohio, and never look back. “I haven’t been driving much.” Code for paying my bills and trying to save money is my priority.
Ernie smacked two quarter-pound burgers on the grill. Flames hissed and sizzled over the meat. He didn’t look up. “After shift tomorrow I’ll change your oil and check it over for you. And I don’t want nothing for it.”
His offer percolated in a slow drip through her ears and finally into her brain.
He gave her a sideways glance. “You hear me?”
She’d forgotten how to flap her lips and make sound to form words so she rocked her head up and down on her shoulders. His unexpected kindness left her muddle-minded. When was the last time someone had been kind without expecting something in return?
When was the last time she hadn’t felt absolutely alone?
Ernie removed a burger from the grill and slapped it on the bun. He motioned with his head toward the back room. “Get out of here. Soak your feet in Epsom salts and stay off them for the rest of the night.”
His words, spoken at the end of every shift to every one of his girls, knocked her out of her stupor.
“Okay.” She started around back.
“Shirl! Order up!” Ernie yelled, his voice loud enough to be heard throughout the diner.
Shirl dashed down the hall, her heels clattering as loud as a shoed horse. Evanee handed her open checks to the green-haired girl like a member of the Olympic relay team passing a baton, then walked out the back door.
The first thing she noticed was the rumble, roar, and release of pressure from the eighteen-wheelers parked behind the diner. The noise was as constant as a heartbeat.
A brisk autumn breeze raised goose bumps on her skin. Sunshine melted them away. Tilting her face to the sun to soak up some vitamin D, she leaned against the building and pried her pumps from her swollen feet. Each shoe came off with an indecent sucking sound and left a deep red cleft around her foot.
Ahhh. The cold pavement was a delight against her hot soles.
She walked across the parking lot, her legs moving in an awkward flamingo step as they recalibrated to being flat-footed.
The hardest part of the day wasn’t the eight hours in the heels. It was this moment, when she had time to remember her belly flop off the cliff of comfort into the cesspool of white trash. From a safe, easy life to this truck-stop waitress existence. From her trendy apartment to living behind Sweet Buns at Morty’s Motor Lodge. From privacy to sharing a room with Brittany, the town whore. From profound ignorance to the realization that everything good she used to have came from being a whore too.
But she wasn’t going to think about that. Nope. Not going to.
Halfway across the parking lot, she spotted Brittany’s special signal.
The ribbon tied to their doorknob used to be pretty-girl pink, but had long since faded to a shade of old and used.
“Damn it, Brittany.”
The steady stream of truckers kept Brittany bumping around the clock. At least she always made her guys rent another room for the hour. Unless she had a loaded one. Someone with thousands to burn. Being customer service–oriented, Brittany gave those guys a discount by letting them use her room—the one she shared with Evanee. They’d be in there all night, possibly even days.
Now Evanee stood eyeball to eyeball with being homeless for the night.
A weight bore down on her shoulders, threatened to buckle her knees, crush her into the pavement.
She shook her head, flinging the bad thoughts out of her mind like a dog shaking off water. There had to be a bright side. If she looked hard enough, long enough, she could find something good hiding behind every bad thing. Or maybe the search for good was just a distraction from the bad. She’d have to think about that one later.
She wasn’t homeless. Homeless meant no roof over her head, nowhere to go. She had her car and could drive herself anywhere.