After Her (2 page)

“Why is that?” she asks in a serious tone. I catch her reflection in the mirror staring at me as if she expects a specific answer. I don’t know what to say. I'm starting to think I may have offended her in some way.

“Frank is way too old for me,” I say. “It’d be weird. I’d feel like I'm dating my dad or something.”

She puckers her lips repeatedly to inspect her lipstick. After rubbing them together to blend the color, she snaps the cap back onto the applicator and drops it into her sequined pouch purse.

“You’re bias against dating older men?” she asks and now I'm fidgety, tugging at the loose strings jutting out of my apron. A little part of me, despite how ridiculous it is, suspects Sasha of hiring this woman to harass me on her behalf.

“I gotta get back to work,” I say while moving toward the door. She doesn’t stop leering at me as if I'm a portrait for her own personal viewing. The attention is unsettling, if not a bit eerie. When I turn away, I feel her eyes bore into my back, making me feel as though she could melt the skin off my nape.

“Wait,” she calls as my hand grasps the doorknob. For some reason, I turn back without thinking, as if my body is suddenly required to obey her commands. “You never told me your name,” she says.

“Cassandra,” I reply. “Cassandra Tate.”

She smiles, but it’s a phony something that makes me question her sincerity.

“I'm Vivian,” she says. “It’s been pleasant talking to you, Cassandra. I didn’t initially come here to eat. I only stepped in to freshen my makeup, but if everyone on staff is as receptive as you, I may try the food. Is there anything on the menu you’d recommend?”

I shrug, somewhat unenthused by the conversation, no longer in the mood to entertain this woman’s awkward small talk.

“Um, we serve sandwiches and soup,” I say. “I guess it depends on what you crave the most.”

“Well, what’s
your
favorite thing to eat here?”

“I’m a salad kind of girl,” I say in a hoarse voice after clearing my throat to sound assertive.

“Hmm, salad,” she says and with a resentful glare she abruptly adds, “My husband would love you.”

“Excuse me?” I reply, but she leaves without answering. I remain frozen where I stand, caught in an instant stupor. After recovering from that initial confusion, I head back into the dining room to finish my shift. When the last customer leaves, I'm the only waitress left to help Frank close up for the night.

I sweep up and wipe down the remaining tables as Frank counts the wages for the day. He and I have performed this routine every night since I began working here. Something about tonight is different.

I must appear dazed because Frank eventually asks, “Cassandra? Are you okay?”

I clean the final table with Lysol and acknowledge him with a forced smile I usually reserve for the customers who leave me a crappy tip.

“Yeah, I'm good. I just…I'm a little tired, I guess.”

“It’s no wonder why. All you ever do is study and work,” he says. “Maybe I should give you some time off.”

“I know you mean well Frank, but time off is the last thing I need. What I need is a pay raise, but we both know that you’re not willing to compromise on
that
front…” I reply casually, hoping that the words will linger in his consciousness and play subliminally in the background of his thoughts.

Frank sighs, clearly no longer in the mood to negotiate. I recognize this look of sheepish futility on his face, but Frank isn’t the villain. He’s not even a half-bad guy. He’s simply a runt in the litter of life. Give him a mile to run and he’ll get two feet away before falling on his ass.

Two contemptuous divorces within a span of fifteen years has made him money-shy, paranoid of the government hands poking their bony fingers into his wallet, plucking dollars and cents for the mounds of alimony he owes to the wives he’d like to forget.

I believe he has good intentions, but it’s a far cry from actually acting on them. Arguing with Frank Grant about money is as advantageous as discussing politics with a brick wall—it’s a waste of time and breath.

“Cass, if it were in the budget, I’d pay you as much as you need, but things are tight. This is a university funded facility,” he says. “They have been dragging their goddamn feet sending a plumber to fix those rusted pipes in the men’s room for almost a year. I can’t ask them for more money to pay the employees.”

I nod because it’s all I can do. I knew what I was getting myself into before I ever opened my mouth.

“Yeah Frank, I get it,” I say. “Forget I ever asked.”

Frank gathers a handful of twenties into neat stacks atop the bar counter then gives me a pressing look.

“You look pale,” he says. “Did any of those varsity idiots give you trouble again because I thought I told those jackasses to keep their hands to themselves. I'm not afraid of banning them from the restaurant. Just say the word.”

“No, it’s not them,” I say. “It’s actually…nothing, I think. Did you serve an older woman that came in here around six this evening? She was dressed in a cocktail dress and had brown hair. She looked and smelled like someone’s trophy wife and gave me the feeling that she was filthy rich.”

“Oh, you mean that gorgeous Stepford wife,” he says with lecherous smirk. “Yeah, she ordered a Cobb salad and some chamomile tea. Then she handed me something that she wanted you to have.”

“Me?”

He nods and sets a manila envelope atop the counter. “Here it is.”

I saunter to the bar and stuff my cleaning rag into my apron pocket before grabbing the envelope that has my name written across the front in cursive handwriting. After scrutinizing every inch of the envelope and giving Frank a reaffirming glance, he nods.

“I thought it was strange that she wrote your name on it too,” he says. “She was very adamant about you getting this thing.”

Staring at the envelope, I imagine it burning through my fingers. I don’t know why this rubs me the wrong way, but it does.

“Cassandra?” Frank says. “You okay?”

I shake my head and stagger away from the counter in a daze.

“Yeah. Um…can I go home now?”

“Sure,” he replies. “You don’t have to work the morning shift tomorrow. Amos volunteered since he called in sick today.”

“Then I’ll see you on Tuesday.” I grab my jacket from behind the counter along with my backpack and purse. After stuffing the envelope into my purse, I scurry out of the restaurant even as Frank is midsentence. 

I don’t relax until I'm in my car with the key in the ignition and the radio on full blast. Something rock n’ roll. Something Aerosmith. I don’t know. It sounds like a mesh of crooning gibberish right now. After a moment, I grip the steering wheel with unsteady hands, exhaling a mouthful of wheezed breath.

For many seconds, I don’t shift the car into
drive
. I glance at my purse and wonder about the contents of that envelope. I manage to put it out of my mind for a little. As I roll to a gradual stop at the first intersection with a red light, I can't resist my curiosity any longer.

I unzip my purse to retrieve the envelope after flicking on the car light for a better look.

I tear it open and peer cautiously inside, fearing someone laced with anthrax or some other lethal substance.

After dumping the envelope out onto my lap, I notice that it’s crammed with money.

Lots
of money. Four thousand dollars lay scatted between my legs accompanied by a note that repeats exactly what that woman said to me earlier:
My husband would love you.

2

At dawn, Sasha barges into my bedroom and yanks the curtains open.

Times like this, reminds me of everything I knew I’d hate about having a roommate. Sasha should be an exception to that rule. We have been friends since sixth grade and we’re already aware of everything that annoys us both about each other. If not for Sasha paying most of the rent, I’d have opted for a dorm. It was her insistence that we move in together in some vain attempt to “be adults.”

No parents and no curfew
, she’d said.
This is going to be fabulous!
Parents and curfews have never stopped her from climbing into the back of some random boy’s pickup after school. Usually, I
had to pry the girl from beneath some horndog boy with curious hands. Or talk her out of piercing some abnormal part of her body.

At sixteen, she legally had her middle name changed to Angelique and got a tattoo of a Hindu proverb under her left armpit that is
supposed
to say “Namaste.” Instead, it says “Nasty Mess” in English because the tattoo artist was high and misunderstood her. The only reason she didn’t sue the guy was because she was also high. Three years later and nothing has changed with her. Adulthood isn’t ready for Sasha Hawthorne.

I open my eyes and glimpse that infamous tattoo as her arm hovers over me, jabbing me. The jingle bell noises of her charm bracelet prickle in my ear and I wrestle myself awake from a lethargic hell. Mornings suck. Sasha knows they hate me. Yet, she insists on barging into my room at dawn. Every. Single. Day.

“Cass, come on,” she orders. “Get up!”

“
Ugh!
Go away,” I say while burying my face beneath the underside of a lumpy pillow. As sunlight peers in, I roll over in bed and pile quilts atop my head to obstruct the light. Hair lays matted to my left cheek, sodden with cold sweat.

Blood is the rancid taste beneath my tongue as if I’d bit it in the middle of the night and never noticed.
And how could I not?
Last night’s sleep was shit. For the first time since I was nine, I had an actual nightmare.

I don’t remember all of the details, only fragments of images that haunt my brainwaves. Visual tumors that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. That woman. Those eyes. Her face.
Vivian
. Her name lingers on my subconscious like some forbidden incantation that I won’t say aloud.

Eyes wide open; I remain immobile in bed, cocooned in blankets. Sasha doesn’t take a hint. She proceeds to tear the blankets from my mattress and tosses them onto the floor.

“Time to get up,” she repeats when I refuse to move. “You didn’t set your alarm and you’re going to be late for class.”

Groggy-eyed, I squint at the clock on my cell phone. Four more missed calls. From the same number. I kill the phone, pressing the
off
button.
Not now.

Sasha continues to rouse me. I stuff my ears with earphones to ignore her. Too bad the damn things aren’t plugged to any music. I hear her roaming around my bedroom, rummaging through my closet and making rude comments around my clothes.

“Christ, how many fucking camisoles do you own, Cass?” she asks. “Tennis shoes, jeans, wife beaters…there’s no variety. No wonder you can't find yourself a decent boyfriend. You’re too busy dressing like one.”

I feign sleep, shoving the plugs deeper into my ears until my eardrums burn from the friction. Sasha rummages through drawers then suddenly, I hear her exclaim, “Holy shit! How much money is in here?”

Right on cue, I jolt up in bed, tossing the pillow aside and yanking the plugs from my ears. In a frantic stupor, I stagger across the room and swipe the envelope from her hands as she gapes incredulously at me.

“Did you make all of
that
in tips?” she asks. “Is Frank finally paying you what you deserve? Seriously, I don’t see how you tolerate that job.”

Sasha Hawthorne has never had a real job. It’d make no sense to waste that kind of time when her father’s a human ATM. Carlson Hawthorne is the co-founder of Hawthorne & Tike Associates—the biggest law firm in our hometown.

I won’t call the Hawthornes wealthy, but it’d certainly be an insult to call them middle-class. The Hawthornes were always with money. I never saw a day they’d ever had to go without. Some major business merger with a tycoon, Martin Tike elevated the Hawthornes to dirty rich status.

Sasha—ever the ultimate “daddy’s little girl” cliché—only attends university to busy herself, to keep from having to lounge around the apartment like some dirty rag. When she needs money, Daddy’s only a phone call away. As for the rest of us? Well, I’d be lying if said that Sasha’s carefree, worry-less life doesn’t bug the shit out of me.

Whenever she complains about Frank or money, she does it because she thinks it’s what
normal
working-class people do. I usually grit my teeth and nod affably to make her feel like she knows what she talking about. Before moving to Montana (where we met), she predominantly grew up in Connecticut, descending from a family of “old money.”

We met the summer before sixth grade. She was twelve. I was eleven. The first thing she said to me was how much my clothes stunk. I remember thinking:
bitch
.

So I never have a clever comeback to counter her jokes about my lackluster wardrobe. Most of every article of clothing I own is secondhand and purchased from some clearance rack at a bargain bin, hole-in-the-wall department store. Mom mailed some of it in a giant cardboard box one Christmas.

Seventy percent of it arrived moth-eaten and reeked of mildew as if someone kept them submerged in muddy water for months before handing it over to the local
Goodwill
station she bought them from. I discarded the holey sweaters, but salvaged the jeans. The mildew stench lingers. Sometimes I can disguise the scent with a spritz of cheap perfume. To this day, nothing has succeeded in completely masking that stench.

Sasha has never known actual hardship. This isn’t something that I envy her for, not even something I can bring myself to hate her for. It’s not her fault that she stands to inherit more money than I’ll ever make even during a forty-year stretch working at
Frank’s
.

“Forget you ever saw this,” I say while stuffing the envelope into my desk drawer. Sasha plops atop my bed and gawks at me with her arms folded, legs crossed, adopting her usual no-bullshit expression.

I stare at her without speaking. At the long jagged tuft of dirty blonde hair that hangs in front of her eyes. She dyed her hair sixty times throughout high school so many different colors that she’s lost track of her natural shade. The only baby pictures I’ve seen of her
seem
to reveal that she’s a natural blonde.

These days, she sports brunette tips with blonde roots because her hair is so fucked up from that last Brazilian blowout that it no longer grows in one uniform length. It’s a mound of seaweed-colored strands.

“What’s going on?” she asks, one brow cocked inquisitively upward. I realize what she’s thinking, but I don’t feel like explaining that money, so I don’t.

I coolly step aside and pretend she isn’t here. Her arctic blue eyes refuse to blink. She is the only person in the world who can harass me without saying a word. This time, I refuse to acknowledge her.

“Cut the shit,” she says. “And tell me what’s with you.”

“What should I wear?” I ask, hoping to guide the conversation elsewhere. “I’m thinking of khakis.”

“Cassandra Marie Tate,” Sasha scolds, emphasizing my middle name. “Where in hell did you get that kind of money?”

Sasha is now a rabid dog. She sinks her teeth into something and doesn’t let go. I either tell her now or let her imagination run wild with allegations. Her one-track mind is something scary whenever left to her own devices. I consider this another neurosis.

“Fine,” I say, accepting defeat. “A customer gave it to me.”

Her eyes widen, her mouth falling open.

“A customer? Like a dirty old man or something? Because that’s the perverse image in my head right now.”

Of course it is.
Like I said: one-track mind. Sometimes, this girl thinks like a defunct washing machine with only one setting. Put her on rinse and she’ll stay on spin cycle until you cut off her power source.

“Sasha, it wasn’t a man,” I say.

Her eyes widen once more. At least her mouth finally closes.

“A woman? Hmm, then that explains everything. It’s why you have no interest in any of the guys on campus. Cass, if you’re a lesbian, you can tell me. It’s not like I’ll judge you.”

I clench my fist, resisting the urge to slug her.

“This has nothing to do with whether or not I'm a lesbian,” I say. “And no, by the way, I'm
not
a lesbian. I don’t even know the woman. She gave it to Frank to give it to me.”

“You’re leaving something out,” she says in a huff of unresolved frustration. “No one randomly gives strangers four thousand dollars for no reason. Who is this woman?”

“I don’t know. I met her in the restroom at the restaurant. We had one conversation. The next thing I know she’s giving me money I didn’t ask for, but it doesn’t matter because I'm not keeping it.”

Sasha bounds to her feet, grasping my shoulders.

“Are you crazy? There is no way I'm letting you give it back!”

“I don’t want it,” I say. “Who knows what that woman has on her mind? She completely creeped me out. I don’t want anything to do with it or her. In fact…” I snatch the envelope from the dresser drawer and hand it to her. “If you want to spend it, be my guest. I want to forget I ever met her.”

I turn toward my closet. Sasha appears awestricken. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her so quiet. It’s a welcoming change to see her rendered speechless. After getting dressed, I sit at the dresser to do something with my hair.

It is a mess of frizz today—bedhead strands bent in different angles like straws of matted hay. Cowlick bangs that haven’t yet grown out. For once, I’d like is to wake up one morning without resembling a wet bird. 

I stuff my backpack with books for today’s scheduled courses—Political Science, Ethics then Calculus. All of which I expect to be tedious sessions with the professors cramming us for midterms before Spring Break.

I expect nothing glamorous for that week. I won’t be sipping mojitos on a nude beach in Cancun. I won’t be skinny-dipping with foreign boys or mooning the other tourists as part of some grand night of rambunctious college behavior. I, as Sasha once teased, am a forty-year woman in a nineteen-year old body. I’d be miserable on a beach in Cancun.

* * *

After class, Sasha and I head toward the university’s front lawn courtyard to kill some time between classes. A clutter of brick buildings exist in the vantage point behind us. The rest of Northham University expands around the courtyard as a vast campus of manicured lawns and classrooms reeking of that fresh “human” smell.

We walk the sidewalk that splits the courtyard down the middle. From this focal footpath, the entire yard is visible. From here, I see its rounded edges made to give the courtyard some odd oval shape.

Students converge like insects along the paved paths intersecting from random ends of the yard. An occasional tree provides some moderate shade for those lucky enough to claim the benches beneath them.

A massive clock tower sits in the center of it all, tolling bells at the start of every hour. When they ring, doors of every surrounding campus building burst open at once, making way for the exiting collegians that file out in hordes.

Sasha and I wade through this mass of migrating bodies and yell across to one another above the voices of others. A juxtaposition of too many conversations carry in the air, forcing me to overhear the gossip of others. But it’s not like I’ve heard a single word of Sasha’s one-woman soliloquy anyway.

Sasha talks. Some part of me listens, and I nod at appropriate intervals. My mind resides on
other
things, like why my phone won’t stop ringing. Or why I don’t have the nerve to answer it. I follow Sasha across the congested courtyard. We pass a garden of trimmed bushes, shaped meticulously to resemble the university mascot, a dolphin.

Sasha sits atop the concrete bench next to a sculptured dolphin wearing a basketball jersey. A small Ko
i
pond encircles this work of art where we often visit to relax before and after every exam. This is our tradition.

“Granola?” she asks after pulling two candy bars from inside her purse to offer me one.

“Ew, no thanks. I like
real
food,” I tease.

“I have been staving off the calories…at least until after midterms,” she replies.

“You’re dieting because of the midterms? Since when?”

“Since I realized that I become a total pig under pressure,” she says. “You remember how I was last year, eating any and everything after each exam then hating myself afterwards?

I gained twenty pounds in three weeks. This year will be different. Now that I know that I'm a binge eater under stress, I decided to trade the usual junk food for healthier options. That way, if I feel the need to overeat, then at least it’ll be something healthy.”