The Better Liar(10)

He put his arms around me. “You want me to stop?” he said. “Gimme an apology.” He stuck his hand in my apron and pulled out a handful of cash. “You did good today, baby,” he said, stepping back a little so that he could see the bills under the streetlight. “You got two hundred dollars in here.”

I felt Leslie’s eyes on me as I watched him tuck my money into his wallet. “I have to get back to work,” I said.

“You have time,” he said. “No one’s gonna fire you. Dance with me.” He held out his arms.

I didn’t move for a second. Then I walked stiffly over to him and put my arms around his warm, fleshy neck.

We swayed for a minute, my face pressed against the rough fabric of his shirt. He hummed and I felt it rumble through his chest. The song wormed its way into my ear, vaguely familiar. The words crept in after a minute: Going to the chapel and we’re…gonna get married…He was making fun of me. I started to draw away.

He coughed and squeezed my waist, coming to a halt. “Okay, say you’re sorry. I want to hear it.”

I glanced at Leslie, still sitting on the bench, clutching her purse. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, turning back to Sam.

“And you won’t go back there again.”

I shook my head.

    “This is a good little gig you have here,” Sam said. “You look nice in that dress. I’m gonna come visit you. You work most Saturdays?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“All right. Have a good night, baby.” He smiled at me. I was still smiling back, like I’d been frozen that way. I knew what it looked like from the outside.

He squeezed me one last time and turned away, heading back toward his car. I sat down heavily on the bench, listening to his footsteps, and then to the throat-clearing noise of the start of his engine.

“Are you okay?” Leslie asked, leaning toward me. Headlights swept over us again as Sam pulled out of the parking lot. “Who was that?”

The door to the restaurant thumped open and Berna put her head through the doorway. “Have you been out there this whole time?” she called.

“What?” I said.

“Breaks are ten minutes,” she said. “I know you have a clock on your phone. Who’s this? Is this a customer?”

“I’m about to head to my car,” Leslie said.

Berna turned her gaze back on me. “You need to learn to budget your time,” she said, her short nose twitching. “I have to write you up, unfortunately. Last chance train.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Follow me in here. I’m going to get the form. You need to sign it to show you understand this is your third strike.” She retreated into the hallway and I got up to follow her.

“I shouldn’t have come out here,” Leslie said quietly as I slipped back into the building.

Inside, Berna clacked toward her office. I paused at the bank of lockers. Under the fluorescent lights everything seemed hyperreal. I could almost believe that I’d imagined what had happened outside.

I dialed my locker combination and took out my duffel bag as quietly as I could, slipping my hand into it and feeling around for the lucky veladora where I kept my saved-up cash.

    Sam hadn’t gotten everything.

I slung the duffel bag over my shoulder and hurried back down the hallway, pushing open the door as quietly as I could.

Leslie was still there, leaning against the wall by the jamb. We were barely a foot away from each other. She turned her head in surprise.

“Mary,” she said, straightening, her dirty-blond hair slipping behind her shoulders. “Is everything okay?”

“I quit,” I said, stepping on her last word.

“Don’t you have—”

“That guy who showed up—Sam—that’s my ex. He knows where I work now. I tried to make sure…Those were my tips that he stole just now. He—Leslie—”

Leslie took my hand and pulled me along the building wall, toward the corner.

“Thank you,” I breathed. I rattled along beside her in my heels as well as I could on the asphalt.

We reached the front parking lot. She clicked the button on her keys and I fell into her Honda. It smelled good inside, like Pine-Sol or something. I pulled off my shoes and held them awkwardly on my lap. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Behind me, in the rearview mirror, I could see Berna pushing open the front door, the neon heart swinging wildly.

“You can stay with me tonight,” Leslie said, reversing out of her space. “I have two beds. It’s no trouble.” She pulled onto Harmon. Taillights from the car in front of us turned her pale skin a deep red. “I’m sorry about your ex,” she said into the quiet car.

“Sorry about Robin,” I said. Then we didn’t say anything for a while.





6


    Leslie


“Sheboygan, Wisconsin, is the self-proclaimed capital of this German sausage,” Alex Trebek said.

“Frankfurter,” Mary called. “Frankwurst.”

“Frankwurst is not a sausage,” I told her, just as one of the contestants said, “Uh, what is bratwurst?”

“See, I knew it.” Mary raised an eyebrow at me. “I knew the end part. I forgot about the front part.”