Page 50 of Pete and His Precious

Zoe

“Would you like toast with that?” I say, and I say it in my cookie monster voice. Yeah, I don’t look like the kind of person who has a cookie monster voice, but I got a whole repertoire of voices.

“Yeah!” Richard, the little kid I am talking to, bounces up and down in the booth beside his mother, as she beams at him.

Richard and his mom are regulars. She’s the wife of a businessman, who has a little bit of extra money, and is rather lonely. She drops the other two kids off at school and sometimes brings her youngest, Richard, into the diner to eat. They're some of my favorite customers, mostly because Richard loves my voices. They are also at the library almost religiously for story hour. I don’t really know what her husband does, but sometimes I resent the fact that it seems like he’s never around.

I write down toast on his order, and smile at Carrie. “I’ll be back with your drinks in just a bit.” I know how she takes her coffee. She’s one of those customers.

I walk away from the table, trying to keep a smile on my face. I am a little disgusted with myself. I had the chance last night to talk to Pete seriously about the possibly of a relationship, and I go rambling off about my career and how I don’t want any entanglements or something like that. I realized later that maybe he was feeling me out. Maybe he was interested in more, and I totally shut him down.

A guy like Pete doesn’t come along very often, and I know I didn’t handle that well. But my fear of admitting that I was on the brink of losing everything, and knowing that that is not the slightest bit attractive to anyone, I felt like I had to...maybe take myself out of the market so to speak.

I haven’t had a good feeling since.

I go to the back and tack my order up, telling the cook two eggs over easy and one egg sunny side up, before I go to the counter and put both hands on it, my head down.

I have to stop beating myself up about this. He probably wasn’t interested anyway, and he certainly isn’t interested in someone who can’t take care of herself. How am I supposed to take care of a husband and a home and do all the things that a wife is supposed to do if I can’t even take care of me?

“Hard morning already?” Connie, an older co-worker, comes by and puts a motherly hand on my shoulder. She feels more like a mother to me than my own mother does. Or I guess I should say my stepmother. I don’t really know my real mother.

Regardless, I think there’s something in every person’s soul that longs for family, someone to care, someone to go out of their way to do whatever they can to be a blessing to you, and know they’re in your corner no matter what.

I guess I just don’t feel like I really have someone in my corner. I’m sure that my family would be horrified if they heard me say that, but, I guess whenever you are in someone’s corner, you make whatever sacrifices necessary to be there for them.

At least that’s how I feel about it.

“No. You know how sometimes you just say stupid things because you think you’re making yourself look better, but you know you’re shooting yourself in the foot while you’re doing it?” I don’t expect her to understand.

“I suppose. You want to give some details so I can tell you for sure?”

“There’s this guy,” I say.

“I thought so,” Connie says immediately. That makes my head jerk up. I suppose there are questions in my eyes, because she smiles her motherly smile.

“You look like someone who is having some love issues. Everyone your age goes through that, before they finally settle down with someone.”

I don’t know if I agree with that. But, I do think that it’s probably very common. Except...

“I don’t think that too many people are as stupid as I am,” I say, knowing I’m not supposed to call myself stupid, but if the shoe fits, and all that.

“Why don’t you tell me and let me be the judge?” Connie says, as she fills her tray up with an order.

I see another order ready for a different table and I turn and grab a tray.

“I feel that someone like me - I can barely pay my bills, barely make ends meet - I’m not girlfriend material, you know? How could anyone look at me and see anything good?”

“Because you don’t have money?” Connie says gently, and it makes me feel even dumber than I already did.

“Yes?” I say. I want to justify myself. “Someone who can’t even take care of herself, who is constantly struggling to pay bills, who is one paycheck away from moving back in with her parents, is not the kind of person that anyone finds attractive.”

“If it was because you refuse to work. If it were because you’re too lazy to get a job. If it were because you squander your money, because you gamble, drink, have a shopping addiction, or whatever it is that people squander their money on, okay. Even then, that’s just a flaw. It’s a fault. You don’t have any of those things. You just want to try to use the talent God’s given you to be a blessing to people, and to support yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that. And in fact, I find that rather admirable.” Connie lifts the heavily laden tray to her shoulder, and then backs out the swinging doors.

We’re used to having conversations that are interrupted by our jobs. And I soon have my tray filled and go to deliver it as well.

I take another order, and go back to the back, putting my order up, and turning around to find Connie waiting on her last plate for the next order.

I go over and stand beside her.

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