Page 15 of Getting Over You

Chapter seven

I’m woken up to Belinda calling my name and charging with determination up the stairs. I jump, startled, and don’t bother throwing anything over my old T-shirt and shorts before stumbling through the dark, meeting her outside of the bedroom door.

“Hey, honeybee!” she says. “Good morning. You think you can do me a favor?”

I wince. The cheer in her voice—fake, rehearsed—is so shrill. “Huh?”

“The diner,” she continues, leaning up against the door frame. “One of my morning girls called in. I need a waitress.” She’s looking at me with sparkling eyes, expectant.

I glance back into my pitch-black room, squinting harshly at the clock on my nightstand. “What time is it?”

“A little after five. I open at six. What do you say?”

“I’ve never served before,” I tell her, rubbing at my eyes in a useless attempt to wake myself. “Don’t I need training or something before I can jump into that?”

She waves me off. “It’s easy. Get dressed.”

I stiffen, sweat collecting at the base of my neck. “I don’t know. I just—”

“When I started serving,” Belinda says, turning on her heel and starting back down the stairs, “I picked it up in five, maybe ten minutes, tops. It won’t take long, sugar.”

Of course she did.

I put on some makeup to make myself feel better, but it’s for naught. When I look at my reflection in the mirror of Belinda’s car on the way to the diner, I look just as dead as I imagined I would.

“I’ve got a shirt for you,” Belinda promises as we walk through the dark of the parking lot. “I can’t have you wear that.”

I look down at my oversized UConn tee. She’s not wrong, but that doesn’t negate that I’m offended. “What’s wrong with this?” I chide as Belinda flips on lights.

The diner I remember from last night comes alive, sans sizzling from the kitchen. It’s almost peaceful this way, serene, as I walk into the dining room. Tables are empty, and the room is quiet.

“It’s not a uniform, is what’s wrong with it,” my mother says as she reappears from the hallway, thrusting material in my direction. “Here, slip into the bathroom and try that on.”

In minutes, I’m in a matching tank top to Belinda from last night. The fact that I have a place setting on my body right now is degrading, even if it is accompanied by a pretty script. I might as well be outside waving a cardboard sign around advertising breakfast specials.

“You look great!” Belinda says brightly. She places her hands on my shoulders, looking me over. “I came up with this design. It really encompasses the place, huh?”

A place setting encompassing a restaurant’s vibe? Such an original idea. “It’s great,” I tell her. “So, where do we start?”

Belinda walks me through everything, explaining what it is, how it’s handled, and who handles it—everything except for serving. In the middle, Rory shows up. When she sees me, she doesn’t look pleased.

“But,” I ask Belinda as my training, or lack thereof, comes to an end, “what doIdo?”

“Serving can’t be trained,” Belinda says, waving a hand at me. “You just pick it up.”

I furrow my brow. “What? No, that’s—”

“Trust me, sugar,” Belinda says, clasping my hand in hers and giving it a squeeze. “Just be yourself.”

I open my mouth to protest, demand more, but she wanders away before I can, shutting her office door with a bang.

“Hey,” Rory says quietly. “You want to start by telling me how you ended up here?”

“Someone called in, I guess,” I reply, shrugging. “I don’t know. But now I’m here, exhausted, cranky, and questioning my choices.”

“Which ones?” Rory jokes. “Visiting your mom? Or volunteering to help?”

I laugh weakly. “I didn’t really volunteer so much as get told what I was doing today.”

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