Page 226 of Bend
“What’s your freaking problem?” said one dude as he threw a dollar bill and three dimes on my tray. “You need a blast of coke or something?” He’d looked like every other spikey-haired, fake-blonde, Hugo Boss-wearing douchenozzle who namedropped from zero to sixty in three beers. But Debbie had put his name on the ticket, probably as a favor to me. His name was Eugene Testarossa, the one guy at WDE I’d wanted to meet for months. In my depression over stupid Vinny, I hadn’t recognized him.
I stalked toward the bathroom on my break and bumped into a hard chest that smelled of sage green and fog.
“Monica,” Jonathan said. “Hey. Sam told me he hired you.” His green eyes looked down at me and I wanted to break apart under the weight of them. As he looked at me, his face went from amused to concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Fine, just a bad day. Whatever.” I stepped toward the bathroom, but he seemed disinclined to let me go so easily.
“I got your report. Thanks. It was very professional.”
“You assumed a waitress couldn’t put together a sentence?” His glance down told me I’d been a bitch. He didn’t deserve my worst side. I tried to think fast; I didn’t want a barrage of questions about my life right then. “The Dodgers lost and I’m from Echo Park and all, so I got a little down.”
“The Dodgers won tonight.” His pressed lips and bemused
eyes told me he understood I was half joking.
I shuffled my feet, feeling like a kid caught lying about kissing behind the gym. “Yeah. Fucking Jesus Renaldo pulling it out in the ninth like that.”
“He’s got five good pitches in him per game.”
“He tends to throw them in the bullpen.”
“Or trying to pick a guy off.” He shook his head. He looked normal just then, not like the guy behind the desk undressing me with his eyes.
“I’m sorry I was such a bitch just now.”
“I’m used to it.”
“No, you’re not. Come on. People are nice to you all day.”
He shrugged. “You lied about why you were upset. I get to lie about how people treat me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “I have season tickets on the first base line.”
I felt my eyes light up a little, and getting so excited over something someone else had embarrassed me.
“I could bring you sometime,” he said.
“You haven’t seen a Dodger game until you’ve seen it from the bleachers. Six dolla seats, yo.”
He laughed, and I laughed too. Then Debbie showed up at the end of the hall.
“Monica!” she called out, tapping her wrist.
“Shit!” I cried out and ran back to my station, turning to give Jonathan a wave before rounding the corner.
I put on a smile and made myself as intensely personable as I could. I saw Jonathan at the head of the bar, talking to Sam and Debbie, laughing at some joke I couldn’t hear. When I went to the station to pick up my tray, he looked at me and I felt his sight. He was gorgeous, no doubt. I could write songs about that face, those cheekbones, those eyes, that dry scent.
I wished he’d go away. I tried not to look at him, but he and Sam were still talking at one in the morning. Debbie stood at the end of the service bar, counting receipts, when I came by with a ticket, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m sorry I was talking to Mister Drazen in the hall,” I said. “I used to work for him.”
“I know.”
“How often does he come around here?”
“He and Sam have been close since they went to Stanford together, so… once a week? Should I arrange for him to be here more often?”
