Page 6 of Release Me

Normally, I’d never take a meal from the people who just refused to offer me a job, but there’s nothing normal about my life these days. So here I am, sitting at the bar inside the Cerros hotel, scarfing down the very food I was just told I wasn’t good enough to serve.

Okay, maybe those weren’t their exact words, but that’s all I heard when Regina, the interview coordinator, looked between me and my torn resume and said, “We’re looking for someone with a bit more serving experience.”

I wanted to slap her.

I wanted to slap me.

I wanted to slap the asshole from the lobby who told me I shouldn’t waste my time with the interview because I didn’t meet the basic job requirements.

“Clearly he didn’t know about the free food,” I mutter, taking another sip from the glass of Chianti I ordered to go with my Margherita pizza. The smooth red liquid hits my tongue in a rush of black cherry and plum mixed with subtle notes of cedar, sage, sweet tobacco and vanilla, and I close my eyes to hold back the hum of appreciation rising in my chest with nostalgia hot on its heels. The first wine I ever tasted was a Chianti. I was fourteen years old with a wine obsession sparked from a being raised on a vineyard and a father who would give me anything I wanted including a sip of a Chianti Classico while we ate pasta in the Italian town where the formula for it was defined. My mother looked on with loving disapproval as I brought the glass to my lips, and she doubled over in a fit of laughter when I coughed and gagged because it was gross.

In the years since their deaths, I’ve thought of that day often. Recalling the way the Tuscan sun loved their brown skin and made the natural streaks of brown in Mom’s hair pop while revealing the star bursts of gold in Dad’s eyes. Those thoughts always lead to other memories that I unpack with an ache in my chest. Sometimes, if I close my eyes tight enough, I can still hear the slight twang of my father’s Texas roots in my brain’s sad recollection of his voice or remember the weight of my mother’s arms wrapped around my body the last time she hugged me. There are so many good memories to choose from, images of a beautiful life frozen inside the warped structure of my mind, it should feel good to remember them, but it doesn’t. Because every time I do, I’m left wondering what my parents would think if they could see their daughter now. If they would love this angry, desperate, anxious version of the little girl they raised who hates them for dying and leaving her with nothing.

Another sip of wine washes the bitter taste of grief out of my mouth, and I force myself to follow it up with a bite of pizza to keep it from going straight to my head. Since the accident, I haven’t had a single drop of alcohol. Mostly because I’ve been too afraid to not be in full control of my faculties in case trouble came knocking at my door, but also because I haven’t been able to afford anything I would actually want to drink. Being on the run is expensive, which is why I needed this job. Thoughts of my dire financial situation make my head heavy and my shoulders tight. I set my near empty wine glass down and pull in a deep sigh, hoping to expel some of the tension building in my muscles.

“Chin up, doll face, it can’t be all bad.” The sleazy voice comes from the man taking a seat on the barstool to my left. I turn to him with eyes narrowed into slits and a lip curled with disgust that has nothing to do with his looks because he’s handsome in that Jesse Williams / Michael Ealey kind of way that made the girls I used to work with swoon immediately. They’d fall all over themselves to spend the night staring at the perplexing contrast of blue or green eyes against melanated skin only to find that the man underneath was never as beautiful on the inside as he was out.

“It can, and now that you’re here, it has.”

He grins, baring all of his straight-white teeth. “Feisty, I like that.”

“Please stop talking to me.”

“I’m Vince.” He holds his hand out, completely ignoring my request to be left alone.

“I don’t care.”

My tone can only be described as nasty and dismissive, but still his smile doesn’t falter. Eyes the color of sea glass do a slow sweep of my features, and he tilts his head to the side. “You look familiar.”

Now I’m looking at him with renewed interest and panic sliding down my spine. I chose to try to build a life in New Haven because its distance from California— and the people in Los Angeles who probably wish me dead—made me feel like the chances of seeing anyone from my old life were small.

Negligible.

Basically non-existent.

That’s what I’d told myself even as I stashed a go bag with a thousand dollars in the bathroom ceiling of the motel I’ve been calling home for a month and some change, and that’s what I have been telling myself every day since. And until now, it felt like the truth, not a delusion I was force feeding myself to make getting up and facing another day easier.

A slight quiver tries to work its way up my throat, but I push it back down, refusing to let it undermine my confidence. “No, I don’t.”

“Yeah, you definitely do.” Vince rubs at his chin, and every second that passes causes my heartbeat to increase two fold. By the time he snaps his fingers, recognition dawning over his face, I’m close to passing out. “I know! You were in the interviews earlier right? For the server job?”

Relief hits me in a wave strong enough to knock me off the barstool I’m sitting on. My entire body relaxes, and the absence of tension in my muscles is so disconcerting I almost smile at Vince.

“Oh, yeah I was. I don’t remember seeing you, though.”

“You sure about that?” His brow lifts, and I can see his confidence building with every additional word I give him. Excitement has caused his pupils to dilate, and he’s leaning towards me now, just slightly invading my space. “I was sitting at the back. As the manager, it’s my job to get a feel for the incoming talent.”

The salacious gleam in his eyes makes my stomach turn. Who let a man like this be in charge of anything, let alone a group of workers usually made up of vulnerable women?

“As the manager, wouldn’t it be your job to be running the interviews, not observing them?” Images of a flustered and overwhelmed Regina flash in my mind, and even though I’m pissed she refused to hire me, I feel bad that she’s working with a man who’s not just a creep, but a lazy one at that.

“I tend to favor a hands off approach to managing.” He inches closer, pitching his voice low. “Unless, of course, you prefer something more hands on.”

“I’d prefer for this conversation to end.”

For the first time since we started talking, he falters. It’s a look I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing on many men in my life because I’ve never been able to say no this many times. Actually, I’ve never been able to say no at all.

“Listen—” He starts, but the rest of his sentence is cut off by the loud tinkling of laughter coming from the group of women who’ve just walked into the room. They crowd around the bar, taking up all the empty seats and rambling off drink orders the bartender takes down with ease. The ring leader—a short and ridiculously curvy bombshell with skin the color of mahogany and full pouty lips that are painted red—sets her sights on Vince and me almost immediately, abandoning her group of friends to saunter over to us on thick legs that don’t so much as quiver despite the mile high heels she’s wearing. The hem of her dress rides up her thighs, and Vince, the creep that he is, licks his lips as she settles herself between us. She smells like lemons and sugar, and her hair is a big, blonde cloud of curls that waves her scent around as she looks between the two of us.

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