It’s 4:30 AM.
She wakes and grabs a quick shower. The hair blower died weeks ago; no matter – it’s a luxury she can’t afford. She lets her hair dry naturally as she prepares a cup of instant coffee.
She rouses the kids by 5:00; they’re sleepy and cranky. We got no choice, she says, reminding them to brush their teeth before getting dressed. They walk eight blocks to her mother’s place. Breakfast is already on the stove – oatmeal, something hearty for their bellies.
She walks to the diner where she works, stopping at the dollar store to by laundry detergent. At the diner, she stashes her things in a locker, checks herself in the mirror and goes out to face the breakfast crowd.
It’s 6:00 AM.
She likes the breakfast people; they’re regular folk on their way to work … truckers, construction crews, nurses, bikers, plumbers, the gang from Home Depot. They stop in every morning and usually order the same things. They never talk about work. They pass around photos of their kids and grandkids, compare notes on last night’s game, talk about that new movie they hope to catch. Who got engaged, who’s graduating, who’s going on vacation … ordinary everyday stuff people talk about. They laugh heartily and it’s contagious. She’s on a first name basis with most of them. They’re creatures of habit and there’s something very comforting to her about that. Breakfast is her busiest shift; she doesn’t mind. It’s fast, seamless and exciting. These people are the salt of the earth. The best tippers.
There are always a few stragglers between breakfast and lunch but it’s never busy and she’s got some downtime. That’s when she writes – stories, poems, even some songs – wishful scribbles on a notepad. Maybe she’ll be famous someday. Possibly. Probably not. Pipe dreams. She remembers hearing someone say ‘you’ll miss every shot you don’t take’. She liked that and scribbled it on her pad..
It’s 11:00 AM.
Time for the lunch crowd. She’s not a fan of many of the people who come for lunch except for the folks in “The Big Apple for the first time all the way from Des Moines and would you mind taking our picture?” The kids all grin displaying goofy toothless smiles and press their noses up against the window to wave at passers-by. The parents ask if she knows how to get to the museum – the one with the dinosaur bones – and “that coffee shop from Seinfeld” and they laugh self-consciously at their naïve questions. She overhears them talking excitedly about going to the wax museum after lunch and next time they’ll have to come at Christmas “to see the tree”.
Lunchtime brings in the slick salesmen too cheap to go to a real restaurant; they talk nonstop, their prospective clients pretending to be interested but they know BS when they hear it. Over at the corner table in the rear section of the diner is the businessman having a luncheon liaison with his secretary. The man is much too suave and the woman much too impressionable. She wants to scream at that hopeful, hapless woman to “open your eyes and run like hell; he’s only going to use you and hurt you!” but keeps her mouth shut. She can’t afford to lose this job.
Then there’s a different breed of men all together, the ones who drink martinis before, during and after lunch, the ones who think it’s perfectly acceptable to call her “Brown Sugar”. She cringes. They are flabby and pasty and unattractive with Brylcreemed hair, fat lips and sweaty hands. They’re the ones who cop a cheap feel, slide their fingers up her skirt, try to stick a tongue in her ear. She manages to tap dance around the slithering slugs but they are determined and will be back again tomorrow. She’s perpetually afraid some day one of them will corner her in the bathroom. That’s when she’ll scream, job or not.
In the center of the dining room are the loud, orange-haired twin sisters from Kmart who chain smoke and order black coffee, wipe their teeth with a napkin and constantly re-apply bright red lipstick, grinning into a beat up old compact found on the bottom of a cheap purse. One always has a grease stain on her blouse and they laugh raucously. They head back to work after leaving cigarette butts in the coffee cups, a pile of greasy, lipstick-stained napkins and a shitty tip.
Slowly the place empties; time to clean up the messes left behind.
It’s 6:00 PM.
She’s been at the diner for 12 hours, a regular day for her. The usuals start arriving for dinner, many of them returnees from breakfast. It’s quitting time for her. Sometimes, if she’s lucky, she can pack up a doggie bag; Bart, the day manager, is good about letting her take home leftovers. Her babies can have real hamburgers with tasty fries for dinner. She retrieves her stuff from the locker and starts the walk back to her mother’s place.
The kids devour the burgers and fries, giggling and chattering like little chipmunks. She hugs her mother, scoops up the kids and walks the eight blocks home. It’s bath night, all three kiddos together in the tub. Can’t waste water or time. She reminds them to brush their teeth before getting into bed. She reads one story, then tucks them in and kisses their foreheads.
She gets the laundry together, grabs some quarters from the jar in the kitchen, locks her apartment door behind her and goes down to the shared laundry room in the basement of her building. She prays the kids don’t wake up; she can’t leave the laundry unsupervised – someone would steal her clothes for sure. She makes a mental note to look for a baby intercom at the dollar store. While the clothes dry she jots down wishful scribbles on her notepad. Ninety minutes later the laundry’s done and she heads back up to her babies.
It’s 11:00 PM.
She folds the clean clothes, piles them neatly in the laundry basket, gets undressed and stares at her body in the mirror. She thinks again about becoming an exotic dancer. She has a friend named Crystal who makes good money stripping. Crystal gets to spend time with her kids; she even bought a nice Christmas tree last year and presents to put under it. Maybe she should give Crystal a call.
She slips a cotton nightgown over her head and climbs into bed, exhausted.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Tomorrow she gets to do it all over again.
It’s 11:45 PM.
NAR © 2023
I hope you’ll join me today
In The Groove, kids.
It’s all brand spanking new!
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