Part Five: Cake
It’d been a tough road. No one ends up waitressing at Cup and Sup because life was easy. Still, Maggie approached each day with a smile on her face. “I’m lucky,” she thought. I have a boyfriend. I have a job. I have a place to sleep at night. I have access to unlimited strawberry cheesecake. “What else could I want?” “A lot” was the response she usually received, but on sunny days like this one, even the negative voice in her head couldn’t stop her from being optimistic. This new town, this new life, she was going to make it work this time. This time, the darkness wouldn’t find her, wouldn’t creep into the edges of her vision, making it impossible to see an easy way out- no! This time, this Maggie would have peace.
“So can I get the cake, or are you all out?”
Maggie was pulled from her thoughts to find two customers staring at her, one with their mouth agape, having just spoken, the other gripping the counter for dear life.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” “I said, can I get the cake, or are you all out?”
“The death by chocolate?” A deep huff preceded the”yes” the customer reluctantly provided. In a moment, Maggie sized him up. Five foot ten inches, 160 pounds, light brown hair, scar through his eyebrow, five o’clock shadow coming in aggressively. Grey and blue plaid flannel shirt, black pants, tan line from a removed wedding band.
“Let me check the back.” Pasting on her biggest smile, Maggie made her way to the dessert fridge and grabbed a slice of chocolate cake. She returned to the customer, still smiling.
“Will that be all?”
“No, I asked for coffee an hour ago and I’m still waiting on it.” She felt her smile fall slightly at his tone, but she quickly gathered herself.
“Of course, I’m so sorry about that.”
(So sorry even though you’ve only been here ten minutes. So sorry even though I get off work in an hour. So so so sorry. So happy to be of service. Thank you for this opportunity to demonstrate patience. Thank you so so so much!)
Maggie’s eyes shifted to the man in the corner. They made eye contact for a moment, glanced at the incredibly rude customer, and looked back at each other. She smiled again.
“Will that be all?”
“Just the check,” he said, spraying her with a mix of coffee and cake that landed on her uniform, the stains reminding her so much of the darkness that creeps into her vision when she’s angry.
“Absolutely. I’ll grab that for you right now.”
(No trouble at all. No trouble at all. No trouble at all.)
Right.