Keeping the Moon(18)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“This is yours,” Isabel said, pulling the rest of my order and dropping it on my tray. “You need to get this stuff out, not leave it sitting there getting cold and taking up space.”

“I was getting it. But then you—”

“I don’t give a crap.” She didn’t even turn around. “Just do your job, okay? That’s all I’m asking.”

“I am,” I said, with that hot frustrated feeling I always got around her.

“Look, Morgan’s not here to coddle you today,” she snapped, grabbing the burger Norman handed her. “And I don’t have time to explain how life is like coffee or whatever. Just stay out of my way and do your own shit.” And with that she picked up her tray, bumped me aside again with her hip, and was gone.

I just stood there. Every time this happened I thought up a great response—about three hours later, which didn’t help much. Waitressing may have forced me to be braver with strangers, but Isabel was different.

“Colie, she’s just like that,” Norman said, like he always did. No matter how busy he was, Norman somehow noticed everything. I’d look up in the middle of a rush to see his eyes on me, just keeping track of where I was. It was strangely reassuring. “She doesn’t—”

“I know,” I said, taking a deep breath and turning back to my tables. I ran my food out and kept working, my fake smile plastered across my face. I lost myself in the buzz and busyness, avoiding Isabel until two-thirty, when things had slowed down. Then, as my last table left, I took off my apron and went out the back door.

I sat on the steps facing the Dumpsters and let my feet dangle down. In the afternoons it was sunny and bright enough to make you squint, and if the wind was blowing the right way you couldn’t even smell the garbage.

A car pulled up out front and I heard the bell ring as someone came in. I looked at my watch: one minute to close. Through the back screen I could just see two girls leaning against the counter.

I started to get up but Isabel was there first, pulling a pen out of her hair. She had that snippy look on her face, like she was just waiting for these two to make her mad. “Can I help you?”

“We need takeout,” one of the girls said. “Um, two cheeseburgers and an order of onion rings. And two Diet Pepsis.”

“Two cheeseburgers,” Isabel called out to Norman, stabbing the ticket on the spindle. “Be a few minutes,” she told the girls. Then she walked towards the back door, glanced at me, and went in to the bathroom. From the kitchen I could still hear Stevie Wonder, jaunty and cheerful.

I closed my eyes, letting the sun warm my face. I could smell those cheeseburgers, and my stomach grumbled. I’d stuck to my Kiki Food Plan for the most part, with just a few french fries and onion rings here and there. Still, I was always tempted. “One day down, one victory won,” my mother would say. It was the name of her best-selling inspirational tape.

I heard someone coming down the hallway and I turned, thinking it was Isabel. But it wasn’t. It was one of the girls from the counter, and even squinting through the screen between us I could recognize Caroline Dawes.

She saw me, too, and looked just as surprised. For some crazy reason I thought that maybe, just maybe, things would be all right. We weren’t at school. We weren’t even at home. We were miles away. So I smiled at her.

“Oh, my God,” she said, her nose wrinkling as if she’d seen something disgusting. “What are you doing here?”

Sucker.

There it was, that dry spot at the back of my throat, and instantly I was fat again, my face broken out, pulling my black trenchcoat tighter to hide myself. Except I didn’t have my coat, or those forty-five-and-a-half pounds. I was a wide-open target.

Then she laughed. Laughed and shook her head, stepping back from the door with one hand covering her mouth. And she ran back to the counter, her sandals making light, cheerful slap-slap-slap noises.

I turned back to the Dumpsters and closed my eyes. I could hear myself breathing.

“Who was that?” her friend asked as she got closer.

“Colie Sparks,” Caroline said. She was still laughing.

“Who?”

“She’s this girl, from my school. She is like, the biggest loser.” Caroline was talking loudly, loud enough for me to hear all the way across the restaurant. I knew Norman could hear her, too, could imagine what he was thinking, but I wouldn’t let myself turn around. “She will sleep with anyone, I swear to God. They call her Hole in One.” She laughed again.

“That’s awful,” her friend said, but I could tell she was smiling by her voice.

“She totally deserves it,” Caroline said. “She’s the biggest slut in our school. Plus she thinks she’s so cool because her mom is Kiki Sparks. Like that impresses anyone.”

I pulled my legs up against my chest, balancing my chin on my knees. I could have been back at school, in the locker room, the day Caroline and her friends opened up my gym bag and took out my big panties for everyone to see.

Every time I’d thought it couldn’t get worse, I was wrong.

If I’d been Mira, I would have pretended to ignore it altogether. If I’d been Morgan, I would have stood up and walked in there to give Caroline a piece of my mind. If I’d been Isabel, I probably would have thrown a punch. But I was just me. So I pulled myself tighter and tighter, closed my eyes, and waited for it to be over.

“I just can’t believe she’s here,” Caroline said. “If I have to see her ugly face again it’ll, like, ruin my vacation.”

Then I heard something behind me, in the hallway. Something close.

I turned around, my eyes blurring as they adjusted to the shade. It was Isabel. She was standing on the other side of the door, arms crossed over her chest. And she was watching and listening to Caroline Dawes.

Oh, great, I thought. Now she can hate me for a reason.

I waited for her to say something, one of those snarky, half-grumbled Isabel remarks. But she didn’t. After a few seconds, Norman yelled that the order was up, and she walked back down the hallway.

I heard her ringing up their food, the drawer popping out with its cheerful bing. She made change and the front door creaked as Caroline or her friend pushed it open.

“There you go,” I heard Isabel say. “Y’all have a good day.”

“You too,” Caroline’s friend said, and the bell rang again as they left. Isabel came out from behind the counter and flipped the sign to CLOSED.