Page 12 of Hot and Bothered
Lizzy began to clean up the mess, so I knelt down next to her.
“I can help with that,” I told her, but she shook her head.
“No worries, hon,” she said. “I don’t want you to stick your finger on a sharp piece of glass and end up in the hospital. I’ve got experience taking care of these kinds of messes. You just keep on washing.”
But now I was rattled.
My hands shook as glass after glass slipped from my fingers and clattered into the sink again, the loud noises echoing throughout the room.
Lizzy had just finished cleaning up the shards when it happened again.
Crash.
Every customer in the establishment, all four of them, turned to stare at me. My cheeks flushed burning hot.
This time Evan came over. He looked down at the mess then looked at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. Was he going to fire me now? Was I making too many mistakes? I had promised myself I wouldn’t make him regret hiring me, that I was going to work hard. Dread and worry wash over me. What was I going to do if he decided I was useless?
But Evan simply curled his lips into an empathetic smile.
“Why don’t we keep you away from the breakables for now?” he said. “You can go clean the tables.”
With a dismal nod of my head I slunk off, leaving Lizzy to clean up the second mess I’d made.
“Don’t feel bad,” Lizzy told me with a wink. “I’ve broken more than my fair share of glasses.”
It wasn’t the same, though. I had just started working, and I’d already broken two in the span of five minutes. Was this a harbinger of what was to come? Was I going to keep making mistakes? Was I going to be too much of a screw up for them to keep around?
Dread coursed through me. If I couldn’t figure out a way to make myself useful I’d be forced to go home.
With my shoulders hunched over on themselves, I used a cleaning rag and a bottle of solvent to wipe down the tops of the tables.
The same thoughts kept running in my head over and over.
I didn’t want to go back home.
I didn’t know if my parents would even let me come home if I refused to marry Jacob.
But if I didn’t marry him, everything would fall apart with my family’s business. Didn’t I owe it to them to see it through? It wasn’t like Jacob was a bad guy. He was… nice.
Nice wasn’t enough for me to want to spend the rest of my life with him, though. The thought of waking up next to him every day made my stomach roil in my gut.
But wasn’t that just me being selfish? Shouldn’t I be a good daughter and do as my parents asked? They had done so much for me, given me so much, so many opportunities that I knew others didn’t have. I had lived a privileged life. Maybe now it was time for me to pay the price for that.
“That’s not a stain,” Evan said as he came up behind me.
I jumped and whirled around, not expecting him to sneak up on me.
“It’s a dark spot in the wood,” Evan continued. “You won’t be able to scrub it away.”
I looked down at the table. I hadn’t realized I’d been rubbing at the same spot. My thoughts had overtaken me and I’d been working at this same first table for who knows how long.
“I’m sorry,” I told Evan. “I didn’t mean to dawdle. I’ll move on and get to the next tables straightaway.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Evan said. “I just came over to tell you that you’re not doing a half-bad job.”
“Not half bad,” I repeated with a wan smile. “Talk about faint praise.”
