Paper Cuts (3 page)

‘What a nice surprise,’ she says when I walk in. ‘Grace usually does Tuesdays.’

Shirley and Grace aren’t fond of each other. Both are brassy and opinionated, and naturally, none oftheir opinions overlap. When the baby was born, Shirley said the name
‘Keira’ was too trendy for her liking. Grace retaliated by saying Shirley’s makeup was too tacky for
her
liking, and they’ve never really patched things up.

I explain that Grace will cover a shift for me later in the week, which had better be true. With my new column to think about, I can’t afford to work many extra hours.

The diner has a capacity of fifty people, and on weekends we often reach it. Tonight it will be busy for a couple of hours over dinner, but manageable with two servers. The three oversize booths along the front window are already full, as are a few of the stools at the counter.

I head to the restroom to change into my uniform. Mom used to make me wear it on the bus, but I dug my heels in last year after hearing one too many yee-haws.

Dan Kennedy only spent the first ten years of his life in Texas, but the way he works a theme, you’d think he was fresh off the horse. He walks with a permanent, bowlegged swagger, talks with a Texan drawl, and wears a uniform of Wrangler jeans, denim shirts, and cowboy boots. There are chili pepper twinkle lights hanging from faux wood beams and lariats nailed to the walls.

After hanging my stuff on a fake horn hook in the tiny staff office and grabbing a cup of coffee, I join Dan on the stoop outside the back door, where he’s enjoying a cigar and reviewing his grocery list.

‘That’ll stunt your growth,’ he says, eyeing my mug.

‘The damage is already done,’ I say. ‘But I’ll give it up if you quit smoking.’

He grins at me, and our ritual is complete. He will continue to enjoy his nicotine, and I my caffeine.

‘Coming, Lu?’ Shirley calls from the kitchen. ‘We’ve got six minutes.’

The first dinner break at Donner’s starts at 5 p.m. and at precisely 5:06, workers arrive at the door.

I gulp my coffee. ‘On my way.’

Dan follows me inside and cuts me a piece of coconut cream pie. It’s my favorite, but it’s also popular with the factory crowd, so he never lets me at it until the end of the night.

‘What’s the occasion?’ I ask, digging in before he changes his mind.

‘First day of school,’ he replies. ‘How did it go?’

I hit the day’s high points, and he listens with an enthusiasm Mom couldn’t muster. He’s delighted at the idea of my writing an anonymous column and insists I bring him copies of each one.

Dan is like a fond overprotective uncle. I was only ten when Grace started busing tables here, and I had to come with her most of the time. When she dropped out of school, Dan promoted her to serving and gave me her old job. Along with the paycheck, I get plenty of advice, because Dan’s afraid I’ll follow in my sister’s footsteps. He doesn’t need to be. First, it would be hard for me to get pregnant, given the scarcity of B in my life. Second, while I dislike school in general and Dumpfield in particular, I intend to stick it out until I graduate. I admire my mother for raising us alone on
so little, but I want an easier path if I can find it.

Cowbells ring, signaling the start of the rush, and I head out front at a run. You need to be on your game with shift workers. They know exactly what they want, and they want it fast. If you get them fed and back to work on time, they tip you well.

The first group in the door includes Paz Medina. I chant a silent prayer that he’ll sit in Shirley’s section, but naturally he chooses mine.

‘Swap sections?’ I ask Shirley. ‘I’ll give you half my tips.’

She shakes her head. ‘Not a chance. It’s your turn, kid.’

Paz and five other guys in brown Donner coveralls slide into one of the front booths. As shift lead on the truffle line, Paz is well respected by his crew. Despite his supreme stupidity in getting my sister pregnant, he’s actually a smart guy, and if he’d stuck it out at Dunfield one more year, he’d have graduated. After Grace dropped out, he got a chance to go full-time at Donner’s and took it, saying he’d finish school part-time. That hasn’t happened, and it probably won’t now that he’s making good money.

His Donner posse varies, but aside from different coloring and size, they’re all pretty much the same. Each is a smart-ass dropout just like Paz. They surf in here on a wave of testosterone and laugh so loud at their stupid jokes that non-Donner customers complain. I try hard to ignore them, because if they have an audience they get worse.

Be nice,
I tell myself as I walk over to their table.
Do not let them get to you
.

‘Hey, Shorty,’ Paz says, as the rest of the guys debate the
relative merits of the new burger choices on the menu.

He calls me that because he’s height-challenged himself. I have a few nicknames for him too, but in the interest of keeping the peace, I don’t use any of them. ‘Hey, Paz. You guys ready to order?’

‘Where’s Grace?’ he asks, his usually brilliant smile at half-mast.

‘Not here. Ready to order?’

‘Where is she? It’s her night.’

The rest of the crew stops talking.

‘I took her shift. And I’d love to serve you guys some dinner. How about you, Gordo? The Rodeo Burger, as usual?’

Gordo shuffles his cutlery, unwilling to order without his boss’s blessing. Meanwhile, Paz just stares, waiting for me to crack. I won’t, because I’ve already taken enough abuse from Grace tonight. ‘Look, Paz, what goes on between you and Grace isn’t my business, but serving you is my business. If you don’t want me to do my job, I can get Dan out here to take your order.’

He backs off immediately. I guess he’s so used to Grace’s attitude that it’s all he responds to now. ‘Rodeo Burger,’ he says.

‘Same for me,’ Gordo says.

And so it goes for the rest of the crew. ‘Six Rodeo Burgers, hold the fries,’ I say.

There’s an instant clamor: ‘
I want fries. Fries for me. We need fries
.’

Grinning, I drop their order with Dan and move on to the
next table. A few minutes later, Paz corners me behind the counter and mumbles an apology.

‘It’s okay,’ I say. He’s not such a bad guy, and he is Keira’s father. ‘Call Grace.’

He leans in, in case anyone is eavesdropping. ‘She
left
. She took Keira and left.’

‘Like last time and the time before. Just call her.’

‘This time is different,’ he says.

His tone changes quickly when Gordo joins us. ‘She’ll be back,’ he says, puffing out his chest. ‘I give her a week tops. Grace can’t live without me.’

Twenty minutes later, the guys are teasing Paz when I deliver the bill to their table.

‘So is Grace really crying her eyes out like he says?’ Gordo asks.

‘Actually, she was heading out with some friends when I left,’ I say. ‘She looked pretty happy.’  

‘Whoo-hoo!’ the guys taunt Paz. ‘Better watch your back, man!’

‘Who’s with Keira?’ Paz asks.

I shrug. ‘Not my business, remember?’

One of the guys tries to change the subject. ‘Hey, check out the shirts Paz gave us.’

The name ‘Joey’ is stitched on his overalls, but he must be new, because I don’t recognize him. Unzipping to his waist, he reveals a T-shirt in the brown-and-yellow Donner colors. It features a chocolate truffle decorated with the words ‘Paz’s Crew.’

‘Nice,’ I say. ‘I suppose tattoos are next?’

‘Hope not,’ Joey says, grinning. ‘Ink is forever. Shift leads, not so much.’

‘You’re smart not to count on anything permanent where Paz is concerned,’ I say.

Paz flips me off, but as he’s already paid – and tipped – I feel free to flip back before walking away.

‘You look fat in that uniform, Shorty,’ he calls after me.

‘And you look short in that body, Paz,’ I call back.

Mr Sparling releases the class five minutes early so we can attend the first girls’ literacy fundraiser – a bake sale.

‘Save me a cupcake,’ he says, winking at me as I pass.

I wait until we’re out of earshot to ask Izzy and Rachel, ‘Do you really think I can do this?’

‘Write the column? Definitely,’ Rachel says, craning to see if Jason Baca is still ahead of us. ‘Getting cold feet?’

‘I guess so. My mother and Grace weren’t very enthusiastic about it.’

Rachel frowns. ‘When was the last time Grace was enthusiastic about anything?’

‘She’s enthusiastic about Keira,’ Izzy says.

Dissing my sister was more satisfying before Izzy started babysitting for her and misplaced her loyalties.

Rachel revises her previous comment. ‘Okay, when was the last time Grace was enthusiastic about anything related to
Dumpfield?
’

‘You mean, besides the guys?’

Izzy and Rachel laugh. Unlike us, my sister always had boyfriends. None were destined to become nuclear physicists, but they were all cute and treated her well. There are two elaborate dragon tattoos on her shoulders that conceal the names of Paz’s immediate predecessors. If he doesn’t get his act together soon, something colorful will happen to the ‘Paz’ and ‘Forever’ tattoos on her wrists.

‘Grace’s grades weren’t great, and it might be hard for her to see you starting to distinguish yourself,’ Rachel says.

‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But I’m worried that Mr Sparling gave me the job because he feels bad about what happened with Grace. Or maybe he thinks he can save me from following in her footsteps.’

‘Or maybe you’re a good writer,’ Izzy says, redeeming herself. ‘Unlike some people.’

We follow her gaze to the hand-painted sign over the gymnasium door that reads:
PIG OUT FOR LITIRACY.

‘Remind me again why Mariah is in charge of this campaign,’ I say.

‘Because everyone wants a nice long winter break,’ Rachel replies. ‘And with Mariah leading it, people will actually participate.’

I liked it better when we could just hate Mariah without reservation. Now I have to feel invested in her success because I’ll get something out of it too.

‘You don’t have to be able to spell to be popular,’ Rachel adds, leading us into the crowded gym. She has to shout to
be heard above the blaring hip-hop music and the voices of hundreds of students. ‘Look at the turnout.’

‘But Mariah and Mac shouldn’t be able to just take over,’ I say. ‘Principal Buzzkill said we should elect our leaders.’

‘It’s the natural order,’ Rachel says. ‘Some things aren’t worth fighting.’

‘Why do you care, anyway?’ Izzy asks. ‘It’s not like you want to lead. This is the first time you’ve ever attended a school event.’

‘Hello? Eighth-grade dance?’

‘That doesn’t count. It was pretty much mandatory.’

Mandatory torture. I got sucked into going with Porter Bell because he asked me six months in advance and I couldn’t come up with an excuse. Naturally I assumed he’d hit puberty in the meantime. He didn’t. To make matters worse, I had to wear Grace’s castoff dress, which looked horrible on me. Mariah, on the other hand, wore a tight, gold dress sliced nearly to her navel that was
so
inappropriate for a junior high dance. And I was so jealous that she could pull it off.

Today her assets are on display once again in a black satin corset paired with yoga pants. She is in the bleachers, leading her Understudies through a series of Pilates moves.

‘What’s with the workout?’ Rachel asks. ‘It’s a bake sale.’

I point to the long line of guys at the table closest to the bleachers. ‘Mariah is doing more than pushing brownies today. She’s selling these poor suckers a dream.’

Izzy finds our assigned table and moves plates around to make room for our contributions. She and Rachel actually
baked something, but I brought a pie Dan kindly donated. I have enough on my mind without learning how to follow a recipe.

I continue to watch Mariah as one of the Understudies presses a Starbucks cup into her hand. Mariah is said to live on black coffee alone; no one has seen solid food pass her lips for three years.

‘I’ve got an angle for my first column,’ I say, lowering my voice. ‘I’ll write about the irony of a girl who never eats launching a campaign with a bake sale.’

‘You’d better keep a lid on how you really feel about Mariah,’ Rachel cautions. ‘In case you don’t stay anonymous.’

I’d planned to exploit my cover to diss Mariah, but I see Rachel’s point. ‘Then I’d better go sniff out another story. Plus, I want to see if I can spot the guy who’s writing the competing column.’

My column will appear in the first edition of the
Bulletin
under the pen name ‘Newshound.’ His will run the following week under ‘Scoop.’ Mr Sparling suggested the names because they remind him of his favorite movies from the 1940s. I doubt he was even alive then, but whatever.

‘Did Sparling give you a hint?’ Izzy asks.

I shake my head. ‘He said it’s a “state secret”. Someone’s been watching too many crime shows.’

One of the Understudies stops at our table and points to the cookies Rachel is holding. ‘What’s that? Looks like dog turds.’

‘It’s rugelach,’ a male voice replies.

We turn to find Jason, the guy of Rachel’s dreams, standing behind us. He drops a five-dollar bill on the table and pops a cookie into his mouth. ‘Almost as good as my bubbe’s,’ he pronounces.

‘Your grandmother is Jewish?’ Rachel asks, her voice spiking a few notches.

They gravitate toward each other, and the Understudy rolls her eyes and walks away. Izzy and I decide to give Rachel some space too and stroll through the crowd in search of something newsworthy. Before long we come upon a group of jocks who are tossing a football around, mainly to hear the girls squeal.

‘How about you hang around here and get crowd reactions while I keep mingling,’ I ask.

‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ Izzy says.

‘You said you’d help, and I already lost Rachel. You don’t have to talk to them, just observe. And keep an eye out for a guy taking notes. If I can figure out what the competition’s writing about, I may get a few ideas of my own.’

A football whizzes by Izzy’s left ear, and she flinches. ‘This is going to cost you more than free fries, Luisa.’

The problem with being a columnist as opposed to a regular reporter is that no one assigns you a story idea. You’re just supposed to walk around and produce one out of thin air and write four hundred pithy words about it. And the problem
with being an
anonymous
columnist is that you can’t let on to people that that’s what you’re doing and interview them properly.

I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to this. There’s a reason I don’t attend school events: I don’t actually like people. At least, not Dunfield people. I haven’t fit in since day one. I’m not like the Mariah acolytes, or the jocks, or the tech geeks, or the brainiacs, or the artists, or the goths, or the rappers, or the small but very vocal group of wannabe debutantes that occasionally has to be squashed by Mariah. I’m not even one of the fierce independent kids who cruises the periphery and seems comfortable there. In a school this size you’d think there’d be a place for average kids like Rachel, Izzy and me, but if there is, we haven’t found it.

Standing at the edge of one of the busiest tables, I try to work up the nerve to chat to some girls about what they made for the sale. There has to be a heart-warming story of how a secret family recipe has been handed down from generation to generation from Brazil, or Mexico, or Malaysia. Great-grandma probably couldn’t make this special dish when she arrived because the ingredients weren’t available. But now a school bake sale gives us an opportunity to share our family favorites. It’s multiculturalism at its finest.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ the girl with the cash box asks. ‘You’re staring.’

I back away from the table. Most of the food looks like it comes ready-to-serve from Safeway anyway.

‘Whoa,’ a deep voice says. I spin to find I’ve almost backed
into Mac Landis. He’s carrying a full plate in one hand and a burrito in the other. ‘That could have been messy.’

‘Sorry,’ I say.

‘No worries.’ He takes an enormous bite of the burrito, leaving the last couple of inches, which he jabs in my direction. ‘Open.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Try it,’ he mumbles around the mouthful. ‘Best burrito I’ve ever had.’

Mac Landis is offering me the last bite of his burrito. Have I stepped into an alternate universe? There’s no time to ponder because the burrito is already speeding toward my face. I open.

My eyes start to water immediately. Despite my heritage, I don’t do spicy. Even Rachel, a descendent of Russian immigrants, has a higher tolerance for heat. My tongue has caught fire.

‘Oops,’ Mac says as I bolt for the restroom. ‘Habanera sauce.’

I can do it. I can just walk up to someone in this gym and talk to her. Or him, even. I can walk up to a guy. I do it all the time at Dan’s Diner. All I’m paid to do there is be polite and take orders, but often there’s small talk about the food or the weather, and sometimes it even evolves into real conversation.

I can do this because I’ve done it before. I just haven’t
done it within Dunfield’s peeling walls or within view of Mariah. But I already have the skills. All I have to do is apply them in this new, albeit hostile, environment.

The key is to approach someone who’s alone and might be grateful for company. There’s a guy sitting on the bleachers who fits the description. He looks like a regular guy, not supercute or athletic. To be honest, he looks sort of miserable. I could imagine him walking into Dan’s wearing Donner overalls and ordering a Rodeo Burger and fries. I’ll pretend he’s just another guy from Paz’s crew.

Crossing the gym I deliver my opening line. ‘Is anyone sitting here?’

‘Uh, no,’ he says, making a show of looking around. ‘Not unless it’s the Invisible Woman.’

With that kind of attitude, I don’t even have to imagine the Donner overalls. ‘Sue Storm?’ I ask. ‘I guess that makes you Mr Fantastic.’

He smiles reluctantly. ‘You saw
The Fantastic Four?
’

‘No, but I’ve read the original Marvel comic books.’

It’s true. Mr O’Brien, one of my regular customers, has a collection of originals, and he actually allowed me to flip through them. He normally keeps them covered in plastic because they’re worth about ten grand.

The guy moves over to give me more space to sit down. ‘I’m Tyler Milano.’

I introduce myself and answer all his questions about Mr O’Brien’s collection. Who knew the small talk I’ve made over cheese omelets would pay off so well?

Tyler takes his glasses out of his pocket and puts them on. The frames are rectangular and dark and give him a bookish appeal.

‘Let me guess, Sue Storm doesn’t like a guy in glasses?’ I say.

He gives me a self-conscious smile. ‘Superheroes wear contacts.’

I look at the empty paper plate beside him and remember why I’m here. ‘So what did you buy?’

He lists off several items and provides mini-reviews of each. ‘Avoid the maple fudge,’ he concludes. ‘It had maple flavoring instead of real syrup.’