A Real Witch with a “B”

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The dinner rush was unusually busy and crashed the kitchen within fifteen minutes of the first guest arriving. Exhausted of energy and patience by 10 pm, she decided to just take out the garbage herself. This was the manager’s duty while closing up, but the one measly bag of trash from the bathroom would overflow the bins in the back of the kitchen. She had looked for the manager, the only person with a key to the back door of the kitchen that led directly to the dumpster, for almost 10 minutes. He was MIA but she was ready to leave. She would have to drag the two huge kitchen bins and her bag of bathroom tissue and diapers through the dining room, out the side door, then around back to the dumpsters.

She would be damned if she had to listen to one more person complain about those kitchen bins being overfilled. If she had to drag it all through the entire restaurant, even though the manager could just open the stupid back door, so be it.

When she got to her destination she realized that she might be damned anyway. She had successfully flung the bathroom trash bag into the dumpster and was preparing to lift a kitchen bin when she heard it.

At first she had thought it was a growl, but she understood quickly that it was a snarl.

A growl was more like a warning, but a snarl felt like an attack. And without even seeing where the snarl was coming from, she was feeling very attacked. She slowly put her hands down to her sides and turned her head to the right toward Cherribeez, but saw nothing between her and the back door. The snarl was constant and low, but when she slowly turned around the animal snapped loudly and the snarling somehow became even more aggressive.

In the parking lot, illuminated by only a few yellow-toned streetlights, was a large black rottweiler. It was standing very close to the curb, right at the edge of a treeline that separated the parking lot from the interstate, staring directly at her. Its black fur was interrupted by orange tufts. Two dots above its eyes were like comically short eyebrows, lighter patches surrounded its mouth and wide snout, and two orange triangles stood out on its broad chest. She liked dogs and had never really felt threatened by one, but this one’s snarl was unlike any she had heard before.

Completely disregarding the kitchen bin behind her, she decided to slowly inch toward Cherribeez so she could hug the side of the restaurant while she crept back toward the side door. The second she moved, the dog let out a ferocious bark and bared its teeth. She froze after one step and slowly held her hands up, as if surrendering.

“It’s okay,” she tried to sound soothing, thinking that someone sometime had told her calmly speaking to an angry animal helped. It came out more like a whisper just for her own ears.

The dog stepped up the curb, closer to the treeline, but did not break eye contact.

She took a chance at another step and its snarling intensified again, but when it didn’t move she backed up a few more steps, facing the dog with her hands up the entire time. When she reached the back door, she put her back to the building and scurried to the side. Once she rounded the corner she jogged quickly and gracelessly backward to the side door, flinging it open and herself inside.

She left the manager a note that the trash had been taken out, unsigned so he wouldn’t know it was she who had left the two bins next to the dumpster, and vacated the restaurant as quickly as her feet would carry her.

Feeling more confident and safe inside her vehicle, she drove in a slow circle around the parking lot, but didn’t see the four legged prowler. What struck her as even stranger was the absence of the kitchen bins she had left next to the dumpster. She scanned the parking lot looking for them, but to no avail. As she completed her slow circumspection, she noticed something reflecting the yellow street lights. Both of the kitchen bins were sitting next to the trees, just beyond the curb where she had seen the dog. She stopped the car for just a moment to stare. She hadn’t had time to empty one of the bins, so it must have weighed at least 30 pounds. A dog couldn’t have dragged it up the curb by itself, and both of the bins were still upright. She drove home very slowly that night, her eyes moving from the road to the treeline surrounding it the whole time. She could have just been paranoid, or maybe she was just especially susceptible to the power of suggestion, but she could have sworn she could hear howls in the distance when she stepped out of her car at home.

 

“It’s A Wet One Out There, Bob!”

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I opened my eyes that morning to a suffocating gray haze.

I had gone out the night before to a local bar with a few of my friends, nothing crazy. It was a Friday night and we were all itching for some kind of escape, and a few drinks seemed like just the cure. I made it home a little later than I should have considering my shift the next day at Cherribeez started earlier than usual, but those nights just happen sometimes. My friends and I had chatted with the bartender for a while, and he told us about the storm rolling in the following morning. The foggy memory sloshed around in my brain as I tried to make sense of the darkness permeating my room while my alarm clock blared. After contemplating the evils of capitalism for a moment, I decided that it was time to get up and shower if I was hoping to keep my job. Once the shower steam had done all it could to ease my headache, I put on my uniform and walked out the door into the light rain.

My car hummed to life and I switched on my headlights, despite it being just before 10 o’clock in the morning. I took a deep breath and made a mental note to keep to the speed limit on the winding roads that I took to Cherribeez. Cops always made good use of the hiding places afforded by the sharp turns, and I was sure they would take advantage of this blanket of fog for their camouflage. As I pulled out of my driveway, I realized this wouldn’t be necessary – the fog was so thick I couldn’t see farther than the beam of my headlights. I certainly wouldn’t be speeding, and at this point I just hoped I would make it to my shift on time.

The fog thinned some as I drove up the hill near my house, and I counted my blessings that there weren’t any other cars on the road with me. I was cruising comfortably at just 5 below the limit when I approached the narrow causeway over the lake. If I hadn’t driven this road numerous times before, I would have had no idea I was surrounded by water. The fog closed in on the road, and I began crawling along, hunched over my steering wheel, white-knuckling it.

This fog felt different to me. Living around lakes, I was no stranger to a hazy day but this fog was so thick and dark it looked more like smoke. Driving at just 10 mph, I watched the clock on my dashboard creep closer to my shift time. I was mentally preparing myself for the lecture I would be getting from my manager when I rolled down my windows to wipe down my side-view mirror. Through my open window I heard a sharp howl, and I startled so badly I ended up honking my horn. I then heard a chorus of police sirens, joined by at least two more howls in response. Were the howls getting closer, or was I just getting paranoid? I rolled the window shut as quickly as I could manage and finally made it off the causeway and back up into the trees surrounding the road. I wanted to get out of there ASAP, and this fog was seriously harshing my already nonexistent mellow.

I eventually pulled off the road into the Cherribeez parking lot ten minutes after the start of my shift. I had only been working there for about two months at this point but I knew that my manager was a stickler for tardiness. I took another deep breath and prepared myself for my dash from the parking lot to the Cherribeez’ back door, the howls I had heard on the causeway still echoing through my head. I reached to the door and found it locked, cursing my manager for forgetting to unlock the side door leading to the supply room that he was well aware the employees used to enter. I jogged to the front entrance, regretting my last two or three gin and tonics from the night before. The front door was locked as well, and I spun around to realize that my car was the only one in the parking lot.

I booked it back to my car, the rain frizzing my freshly-washed hair, and sat in the driver’s seat with my windows up and doors locked. I would wait ten more minutes, and then I was driving home and getting back into bed. I had never personally experienced my manager missing a shift, and I don’t think even the seasoned employees had ever witnessed such a spectacle. The worry dripped down my spine and I turned on the radio for some distraction. My usual stations simply buzzed with white noise, which struck me as bizarre. Are radio signals affected by weather? I made a mental note to look it up once I got onto the Cherribeez WiFi. I flipped through the empty radio stations until I landed on one with actual voices – the local news.

“It’s a wet one out there, Bob! We’re expecting at least six inches of rain over the next 24 hours, with gusts up to 69 miles per hour. A tornado watch is in effect for the entire county, so stay tuned in to hear any and all updates. We haven’t had a tornado in the region for over 20 years, but it looks like that’s going to change today.” The radio then began picking up static, so I switched it off and plugged my phone in to listen to a podcast instead, anxiety rippling through me. The rain was picking up already, and I was praying that my manager wouldn’t show up in my ten-minute time frame so I could head home before things got worse.

Around eight-and-a-half minutes after my attempts to get into my place of employment (but hey, who’s counting) a beat-up white sedan screeched into the parking lot, parking across two spaces in front of Cherribeez. I watched my manager jump out of his car and sprint to the front door, fumbling with his keys as he tried to unlock the restaurant a whole 19 minutes after its scheduled opening. I got out of my car and jogged over to meet him. He nearly jumped out of his skin as I approached him and wished him a good morning.

“Oh fu-sorry, damn it, which key is it…. I am at my wit’s end.” He babbled, red-faced. I could tell he was perspiring heavily, but he was so rain-soaked it would have been hard to tell if I didn’t have to regularly work beside him. I saw a quick flash in the sky followed by a low rumble of thunder as my manager finally opened the heavy front door.

I had never seen the restaurant so dark before my manager grappled with the switches in the foyer between the outer and inner front doors. The yellow, green, and red lights hanging above the tables flickered on and illuminated the condensation soaked windows around the perimeter of the dining room.

“I could barely see a foot in front of me on the road today. I haven’t been late to work in five years. You hear that? Five years.” He spat, shaking his head. I agreed that the fog was impressive this morning and listened to him grumble for a few more moments. I then continued across the restaurant to the side room where I put my bag down, dripping my way across the dining room. When I emerged, it appeared that the fog had entirely engulfed the place. Each window was a blank sheet of gray, interrupted only by the heavy raindrops pushed in by the wind gusts and the streaks of lightning that brightened the entire sky every few moments. The rain pelting the roof provided a low hum of white noise behind the pop-hits playlist that perpetually permeated the restaurant.

I knew that it would be a slow day, but considering the weather it seemed likely that at least a few wary travellers would make their way into Cherribeez for some relief from the interstate. Two hours into my shift the place was still a ghost town, so I made use of the time by rolling the silverware and organizing the condiments at the servers’ station. The wind had been picking up all morning, not that I could see the trees swaying outside through the frosty windows. The howling breeze through the entryway told me all I needed to know, which was that my drive home would be a torturous one. With each clap of thunder the lamps hanging over each table trembled and swayed, and I could hear the clean silverware vibrating in their containers.

I then heard an alarm start blaring from my phone in the other room, so I set the napkins down and hurried down the hall to where I had placed my bag.

“NWS TORNADO WARNING in effect from 12:00 pm until 8:00 pm. Find shelter and keep away from windows.” With trembling hands I switched the alarm off and set my phone down, turning back toward the dining room to talk to my manager. I found him frantically gabbering into the phone at the host stand, and as I was waiting for him to stop complaining to whomever was on the other line about his own tardiness that morning, everything went dark.

My manager dropped the phone, which hit the host stand with a clatter. All of the lights in Cherribeez had gone out, and the quiet left behind by the lack of background music was beyond eerie. We both gaped at the empty dining room which was somehow even darker than usual. The rest of the wait staff was in the kitchen, so it was just my manager and me standing in the dim light.

“The generator should kick on soon.” My manager said quietly. Only a few moments later a low, rumbling buzz kicked on and my manager and I stared out into the dining room expectantly.

The tri-colored lamps slowly flickered on, section by section. An especially loud clap of thunder decided it was time to give the place another good shake only a few moments later, causing the lights to go out more suddenly than they had just come back. The place went completely dark again. The only remaining light came from red LED restroom sign and one red lamp closest to the side door that cast a flickering light onto the wooden table below it.

My manager and I continued gaping at the dining room silently. After a few more moments, I realized that beyond a lack of background music, the rain must have petered out, and the unsettling silence hung heavy. The single illuminated red lamp across the dining room swung slowly, squeaking. I watched it carefully. Had the rain stopped all at once, or gradually? Why hadn’t I noticed until just now?

The red lamp then stopped swinging in the center of its parabolic path. Only seconds later, the light bulb shattered, showering the side door and the floor surrounding it with glass.

The rain started pouring down onto the Cherribeez roof once again.

“You Know Very Well Who Did It, Karen”

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Karen didn’t breeze into work that day, she downright squalled through the side door of Cherribeez. The hostess, who had been snacking on some room temperature popcorn shrimp in the dingy little supply room, jumped out of the way as the glass door swung open. Her half eaten shrimp fell to the floor as she let out a YIP around a mouthful of food. Karen, in her whirlwind of stress, didn’t notice the poor girl as she yanked the wooden door to the interior of the restaurant open and barreled through.

“I’m so sorry,” she huffed to her manager as she slid her card through the computer by the bar and clocked in, “I’m so late.”

Surprised by her disheveled appearance, the typically strict man shook his head and began a response. Karen was already headed to one of the server stations to shove her belongings in a drawer before she could hear him accept her apology.

She was having a glass of water near the drink station in the kitchen when the hostess strolled in. She stood beside the older woman for a moment before asking, “Are you okay?”

Karen jumped and nearly spat out her drink. The hostess raised her hands in a placating jester, “Jesus Karen!”

“I’m sorry,” Karen sighed, “Today was a mess.” The hostess nodded and waited for her to elaborate. “Well, for starters, before I got the kids out to school this morning there was a huge disagreement about which pancake was for which kid — actually, for starters, we got a dog last week.”

The hostess, who absolutely loved animals of all kinds, squealed with glee and asked to see a picture.

Karen fixed her with the withering stare only a stressed mother of three with a new puppy could manage, and the younger girl snapped her mouth shut.

“She is very cute,” Karen admitted reluctantly, “We picked her up from the shelter on Wednesday. She’s some kind of poodle mix, they think about six months old.” The hostess smiled excitedly and nodded for the woman to continue.

“Well, the first few nights the poor girl cried and cried all night. But the shelter people warned us that we had to leave her in her crate or she would never get used to her new home. So we left the radio on all night, the Beatles channel, which was another form of torture, and the kids filled her crate with stuffed animals. Eventually she began sleeping through the night.” Karen refilled her water glass, and the hostess waited with patience uncharacteristic of a 17 year old girl for her coworker to continue.

“She’s surprisingly well-behaved even though she’s spunky, she’s even house trained, and she loves to nap on the couch. The kids have been so much happier having her around. But anyway, back to today. So the pancake dispute solved, after I cut them all into thirds, I put Fifi – I let the kids pick her name – in her crate and took them to school. On the way home, I got a flat tire. I waited about an hour for Triple A, and when he finally arrived, he didn’t have his tire repair kit or was missing a part or something. I don’t even know. So he towed my car to the shop for free and, three hours later, I finally had a new tire. Great. I needed to go to the grocery store, but Fifi had been locked up for way longer than she should have been so I went straight home.”

Karen took a deep breath and studied her coworker for a moment, a teenager with a bouncy brunette ponytail and not a care in the world beyond how many likes her recent instagram post had gotten, with envy. No flat tires or squabbling kids or screaming puppies. “Was she okay?” The hostess asked, concerned. Karen finally relented and pulled out her cell phone to show the girl a picture. The hostess lit up and gratefully accepted the phone. Fifi sat proudly on a red leather couch, which matched the red collar that contrasted her black curly coat, amidst a sea of stuffed animals and small throw pillows. “She’s so cute! I’m texting this to myself,” the girl squealed before swiping around on the screen with the lightening speed only a true millennial could possess. Or was she Gen Z? Karen could never remember the difference. She slid her phone back in her apron before continuing.

“Oh she was fine, she was sleeping soundly in her crate when I got back. But my couch, my brand new couch, was not,” Karen griped. “The whole underside of the couch was ripped to pieces, like the damn tasmanian devil shrank down to toy poodle size and decided my couch was a tasty snack. And the pillows! My cute colorful throw pillows, were all gutted. Ruthless.”

“Was the crate locked?” The hostess asked, confused.

Karen threw up her hands, “That’s exactly it! I know that I locked it when I left. And when I got home, the door to the crate was closed, but unlocked. How the hell did that little maniac manage to unlock it, get out, and then close it behind her? This was the first time she’s caused any destruction!”

“That’s weird,” the hostess commented unnecessarily.

“I know,” groaned Karen, “I mean it must have been her, but what if we have a rat or something? How the hell did she get that door closed?”

Just then, the manager entered the kitchen. He fixed the hostess with a look that said, “Why aren’t you at the host stand?”

She smiled at him sheepishly and placed her hand on the older woman’s arm as she passed her, “I’m sorry you had such a hard day. But at least you have that little face to go home to!”

The hostess pulled her phone out of the shelf in the host stand. The text from Karen containing Fifi’s photo was waiting for her. She saved it, and opened instagram, excited to post the adorable picture. It would get so many likes.

An ad popped up at the top of her feed. Usually, she barely noticed ads, but this one caught her attention.

A picture of a red couch, surrounded by torn up pillows and their fluffy guts strewn about the living room, had a caption in big white letters superimposed on the top of the photo.

“You know very well who did it, Karen.”

Tip-Toe Through the Parking Lot

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I hate scary movies. Just seeing commercials for scary movies keeps me up at night. I have three different kinds of locks on my front door and an alarm system that sounds like patients of a psychiatric prison are escaping when I forget to disarm it before opening the door. When the news is reporting about a missing person, I have to turn it off, leave the room, and text the group chat to make sure all of my friends are okay.

How I got bamboozled into watching Insidious by my boyfriend is a mystery they will be investigating for the rest of time. After a few too many glasses of chardonnay, we made a deal that if I watched this movie with him, he would wash his own dishes for two months. Now I know that I would rather spend the rest of eternity hacking crusty food off his stupid dishes than make a deal like that again. But regardless, he convinced me to sit on the couch next to him with a bowl of popcorn and watch the movie. When I wasn’t yelling or hiding my face, I spent the entire one hundred and two minutes questioning why on earth anyone would ever make these movies, let alone watch them willingly. By the end of the movie, the popcorn was gone, though I hadn’t been brave enough to remove my hand from the safety of the blanket I had pulled up to my nose.

I showed up for my lunch shift at Cherribeez looking like I hadn’t slept all night. Because I hadn’t, and I hadn’t let my boyfriend either. Every time he began dozing off as we watched Friends reruns, I nudged him and reminded him on no uncertain terms that this was his fault and he’d suffer right along with me.

Even now, as I stood at the food window in the kitchen waiting for the steamed shrimp salad for table 69, I saw that ghoulish red faced demon every time I blinked. My eyes were burning from my attempts to keep them wide open.

The hours ticked away at an agonizingly slow rate, but I was in my final 32 minutes and 40 seconds until my shift ended when the last table, table 69, left. When I went to collect the check, I noticed an iPad in a pink case sitting on the booth. “Shit,” I thought as I snatched it up and ran out to the front lot. There were no cars in the lot, even when I ran around back. I opened the case in hopes that if there wasn’t a passcode, I could find something that would help me locate the owner.

When I switched the screen on, a familiar acoustic guitar jingle burst from the iPad.

“Tip-toe by the window, by the window, that is where I’ll be-come, tip-toe through the tulips with me…”

I’m proud to say it only took a few seconds for the shock to wear off, and I dropped the thousand dollar gadget and sprinted back inside, the high pitch voice following me.

What’s Old, Cold, and has Pockets Full of Gold?

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December was a great month for Cherribeez. Business picked up as people travelling to do holiday shopping stopped in for a bite and coworkers met over drinks to exchange secret Santa gifts. Even better than the uptick in activity, though, were the festive string lights adorning the perimeter of the dining room and the dividers between each table. They cast a precious glare onto the usually dim and treacherous paths through the restaurant.

For 11 out of 12 months, the contrast between the lighting in the dining room and the kitchen of Cherribeez gave the General Manager chronic migraines. Often, employees enjoyed slight vertigo or dizziness during dinner rushes that forced them to hustle in and out of the kitchen more than usual. But in December, the dining room was illuminated by hundreds of tiny white lights twinkling along the decorative metal dividers that separated the outer booths and tables from the inner bar area.

The hostess was admiring the anomalous bright dining room and didn’t notice the customers at the door. When she heard the inner door open, she jumped and hurried to hold the heavier outer door open for an elderly woman following behind a younger man and a child. It struck the hostess as odd that the man hadn’t made the effort to help the older woman through the door himself, especially in front of his kid. Maybe chivalry really is dead and he’s the one who killed it.

“Welcome to Cherribeez!” The hostess chirped, hoping her manager hadn’t seen her fail to get the door for all the guests. “How are we today?”

“Great, thank you,” the man replied with a smile, taking his son’s hand. It seemed an unusually sweet gesture for a man that had rubbed her the wrong way the very moment he entered the building, so the hostess decided to let it go and not let her annoyance get in the way.

“Would you like a kids’ menu, sir?” The hostess smiled down at the tiny human, who leaned into his father’s leg and nodded sheepishly. The older woman smiled down at the boy as well and patted his hair lovingly.

“Sure thing! You all can follow me this way,” the hostess said, grabbing two adult menus from the side of the host stand and a folded kids’ menu from the basket next to the seating chart.

She seated them close to the front entrance and the host stand, following the protocol that attempted to prevent elderly people from walking more than necessary. After setting the menus down and promising their server would take care of them soon, she returned to her stand.

The family was nearly done with their dinner when the hostess noticed the elderly woman stand and look around. After a moment, the woman saw the red LED restroom sign all the way across the restaurant and she began to slowly move in that direction, leaning on each table she passed for support.

After ensuring that no cars had pulled up recently, the hostess caught up to the woman in a few short strides.

“Would you like an escort, ma’am? You’ll need to pass by the kitchen to get to the ladies’ room from here, and that can be treacherous.” She offered, hoping someone would do this for her own grandma at a restaurant.

The woman smiled at her and took her arm. The woman’s grasp was cold on her forearm, but the hostess pretended not to notice and continued on with a smile. The pair waddled slowly to the restroom, the hostess calling “Corner! With a guest!” when they passed the “in” door to the kitchen and again when they passed the “out” door.

When they finally arrived at the bathroom, the host promised to escort her back to the table. While she waited, she took a quick stroll around the dining room to check the parking lot for recently arrived cars. Seeing no activity, she returned to the back corner to wait outside the ladies’ room. The woman emerged shortly, and they began their slow return voyage.

They safely traversed the kitchen doors and were walking up the ramp that led to the section nearest the host stand when the lady paused and reached into her purse. The hostess watched with confusion and slight concern until she was handed a folded twenty-dollar bill.

“Oh no, ma’am, this really isn’t necessary-” she protested and tried to gently push the money away.

“Now, not all young people would be so nice to an old lady like me,” the small woman said in an equally small voice and insisted further, “You take it, you deserve it.”

The hostess smiled slowly, feeling partly guilty and partly touched, “Well thank you so much, this is extremely generous.”

The woman merely shook her head and began walking again. “I can take it from here, dear,” she said as they rounded the corner and she released the younger woman’s arm, holding onto the tables once again. The hostess felt a shiver run down her spine, and made a mental note to ask her own grandma about her circulation. Was it normal for old lady hands to be so cold?

The hostess hesitated and asked, “Are you sure?” But the older woman hobbled along silently. After waiting to make sure her generous benefactor arrived safely to her seat, the hostess ran back into the kitchen to tell her favorite co-worker about the sweet old lady.

While the two employees were discussing the increase in generosity surrounding the holidays, their manager came in and chastised, “There are guests about to leave, why aren’t you by the door?”

“Whoops, sorry!” The hostess said, already halfway out of the kitchen.

She trotted through the dining room and arrived at the front door just in time to wish the man and his son a good night as they passed between the inner and outer front doors. She noticed immediately that they were missing the elderly woman, who she had wanted to thank again.

Glancing back at the table they had just vacated, she noticed that the signed copy of the check hadn’t been picked up yet and there were only two dirty dishes – the father’s nearly finished burger and his son’s half-eaten grilled cheese. Sure, her own grandmother often doesn’t have an appetite and rarely touches her food at dinner, but she would at least order a meal to bring home and pick at for a week. Why would he make an elderly woman walk painfully to and from a restaurant if she isn’t even eating?

Flabbergasted, she approached the table and read the first few lines of the receipt.

CHERRIBEEZ

December 3, 2017

Server: CARA

# of Guests: 2

The hostess fumbled around in her pockets to find the bill the older woman had given her. The twenty felt cold to the touch, somehow even icier than the old woman’s hands.  She pulled it out and Andrew Jackson’s yellow face stared up at her smugly.

Coming Out of the Closet

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At just before nine o’clock, the best thing happened. My manager gave me the keys for the toilet dispensers. My golden ticket home. It wasn’t the most glamorous thing to get excited over, but I immediately made a beeline to the back corner of the dining room. I stopped in the tiny room next to the restrooms to grab the box of cleaning supplies and my headphones. The room was the size of a big closet with a chair and a computer for inputting orders on one side and a small counter with shelf space above it on the other. I kept my bag on the counter below the supply box. Once I was done with the bathrooms at night I could quickly put everything away, collect my belongings, and high-tail out of there. It was perfectly private, and no one else used the computer to input food orders even when all the stations in the dining room were being used. The side door for delivering take-out orders to cars was located in this room, and I thought maybe people were paranoid about someone coming in from the back parking lot and stealing something, but the exit door was always locked. The rusted door hinges creaked and groaned every time the closet door opened or closed, so I could tell even from where I stood at my host stand by the front door if anyone was entering and possibly messing with my things.

I opened my phone and hit play on episode 47 out of 69 of the podcast I had started barely a week prior. I plugged my headphones in and pulled on my latex gloves. I always clean the ladies’ room first and knocked to make sure there was no one in there, even though we hadn’t had a customer since the “lunch rush” (which consisted of Cowboy John coming in for his daily pre-night shift brew). After waiting a half a second for a reply, I swung the door open. The next episode of my most recent listening obsession started feeding my addiction as the hosts introduced the episode. Thankfully most of the toilet rolls were full and there wasn’t much to sweep, so I got out of there just as the story was really starting.

Opening the door with a force that could’ve incapacitated someone even faster than our fried-shrimp entree or occasionally undercooked chicken could, I lugged the cleaning supplies and garbage out of the ladies’ room. I paused only to lean the half-empty trash bag against the wall next to the closet.

Movement in my peripheral vision made me look up, and when I did, the bottle of Windex in my hand silently slipped out of my grip and landed on the carpet with a thud. In one wave of moving light, the red, green, and yellow hanging lamps above each table creaked from one side to the other in perfect unison.

The podcast prattling on in my ears was introducing their next segment by describing a grandfather clock. Its golden pendulum swung back and forth to a steady beat…

 

TICK, TICK.

 

I heard the back door, five feet to my right, start to creak softly. By the time I registered what noise I could be hearing in the empty dining room, the door banged closed and the lights stopped moving.

Country Road, Take Me Home…

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Garth was hungry, tired, and hadn’t peed in at least three states. He’d been trying to test his bladder, maybe build up some endurance, or maybe he just got too bored during his shifts recently. Or maybe he’d seen one too many adult diaper commercials and was having a midlife crisis. He certainly hadn’t seen a toilet outside of a port-a-potty in weeks. This stretch of the interstate was devoid of streetlights and the glowing Cherribeez sign was a beacon in the darkness. Mostly, he just had to go so badly. Like, really go. Like, you don’t even have the energy to hover over a nasty toilet seat, have to go. He swerved to the right onto the exit for the restaurant and rolled towards it, feeling each bump in the road even from the inside of his 18-wheeler.

The lighting in the men’s room was blinding compared to his brief jog around the perimeter of the dining room. The hanging overhead red, green, and yellow lamps rushed by him during his trot, the only substantial sources of light for his path. It was a walk of shame unlike anything he experienced before.

But not even vertigo ruined that moment after he reached the black door under the LED restroom sign. And no one was in there.

He finally leaned back in his bouncy red booth and waited for his appetizer combo. Bone-in buffalo wings, chicken tenders, and potstickers. It had taken some serious will power to order a Pepsi instead of a beer, but he was being paid to be sober. And they were paying for his meal. He was irrationally disappointed when his otherwise cheerful server informed him they only had FizzPop and asked, “would that be okay?”

It was not okay, but the steak he was waiting on would make up for it.

The FizzPop arrived swiftly, along with a straw and silverware rolled in a paper napkin. Garth took a hearty swig and didn’t notice it wasn’t Pepsi.

He had always found the sports memorabilia covering every available inch of wallspace to be cluttered-looking and kind of tacky. Maybe it would be different if you cared about the teams, he thought, but he also couldn’t imagine why anyone would care that much about high school sports and little league. Naturally, his eyes were drawn to the oversized framed team picture adjacent to his booth. His eyes passed absently over the teenage faces topped by baseball caps, row by row. The photo reminded him of his own days on the field, distant as they were. He was never gifted, but Garth’s father had played, and his father’s father had played, and so he at least warmed the bench to make it seem like he was interested. As he glanced over the last row, one of the faces stood out more than the others. The boy was so strangely familiar. And the number on his jersey, 69. What was it about him?

Garth stopped sipping his FizzPop as the memories came flooding back. They hadn’t been friends, but everyone in his hometown had known that face. It had been plastered on every milk carton, for Pete’s sake. Kenny had gone missing the summer after ninth grade. They had both been on the baseball team, but Kenny actually made it onto the field. His disappearance had rocked their entire community, and parents started locking their doors for the first time in his memory. And yet there Kenny was, happy as a clam, beaming at the camera. He was wearing his same jersey number and he looked just the same as he did the last time Garth had seen him.

Garth had grown up halfway across the country from this particular Cherribeez, but there was simply no way that Kenny could have picked up and started at another high school without raising some suspicion. Garth was gaping at the photo when his server walked up to his table carrying his appetizer combo, which definitely took longer than it should have for a bunch of fried meat. She was a little past her prime so he guessed they were probably about the same age, and if she worked here, odds are she also went to whatever high school was plastered all over the walls.

As she set down his steaming plate, he asked, “Did you go to high school here? I could swear that I know this kid on the baseball team, but-”

When Garth looked backed towards the photo to point to Kenny, he froze as his eyes landed on the last row of baseball players again. Kenny was gone. In his place was an equally nondescript looking teenager, but it was not Kenny. He realized after a moment that his mouth was still hanging open, and his server was looking at him with bemusement.

“I went to that high school, but you wouldn’t have caught me with those assholes.” She said, immediately turning around and walking away from his table. Garth looked back at the photo again, and Kenny hadn’t reappeared. And the jersey on the kid in his place bore the number 13, so it couldn’t have been Kenny. But it had been him. After staring at the photo for another few minutes longer he should have, he decided that maybe he really was getting too bored during his shifts recently.

His steak arrived a moment later and he cut into it without another thought. It was cooked perfectly. He ate nearly the whole thing, and half of his fried onions, before he found it. One measly grilled shrimp had snuck under his charred chunk of meat. The offender was small, with that same char, and he almost wouldn’t have seen it but his steak knife had cut it clean in half with his last bite. The light pink flesh his knife had exposed told him he had already swallowed half of it.

The adrenaline rush from the epipen distracted him from Kenny’s picture until he was already in the next state over, barreling past Exit 69.

“We’d Like to Invite You to Join Our Team!”

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Finally.

After four months of unemployment, and a few more than four “big-girl job” rejections, an offer from my local Cherribeez was a godsend. They had a sudden opening and needed me right away, and my bank account needed them too. My fresh and sparkly English degree had left me with a love for classical literature and a large hole in my pocket in the shape of student loans. My hairstylist Veronica had told me that she worked nights at Cherribeez and they were desperate for somebody to fill in but couldn’t find any experienced servers. I jumped at the opportunity and they were offering me more pay (and tips) than I ever would have thought to ask for at a chain restaurant. Sure, I’m doubling up on hosting and take-out service, but that means double the tips in my pocket. What’s a underemployed millennial to do?

I started that Friday. Veronica was quick to point out who to go to in a pinch, who was hiding in the bathroom taking Snapchats, and who would need cigarette breaks after a big rush. She marched me through the kitchen and the dining room, sparing no details about the time one of the expos decided he could squeeze her ass as she waited for him to pull her food out of the window.

“Don’t worry, he learned not to do that anymore. At least not to me,” she said with a wink. I love Veronica as my hairstylist, but I didn’t feel ready to know what kind of cruel tricks she had up her sleeve. I made a mental note to stay on her good side for the sake of self-preservation.

It was otherwise an unremarkable night at Cherribeez. I would need to get a new pair of shoes if I expected my feet to survive my next shift, but my coworkers were all so grateful to have me there and it felt good to be productive again after fruitlessly looking for work for so long. In fact, five or six employees came up to me throughout the night telling me how much they all appreciated what I was doing and for taking on the role on such short notice. By the fourth time someone told me this, I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. There are only so many times you can tell your superiors “you’re welcome” before you start feeling like maybe there’s a reason you’re being overpaid.

Our last customers left around midnight, and I was anxious to see them go. I was ready to get back to my bed and my dog at home, but first I agreed to help roll the silverware for the next day with one of Veronica’s favorite coworkers, Cara. She was a 40-something divorcee who had a haircut suspiciously similar to mine, so I liked her immediately. We chatted about nonsense and our coworkers for a while, Cara complaining about the same expo that Veronica had. I’d have to keep my eyes out for him.

About fifteen minutes into our gossiping, Cara looked at me gravely.

“I am really so glad to have you here. It’s been so hard with Piper gone, and nobody was willing to take her spot for too long.” She shook her head softly. The look she gave me convinced me that it was time to figure out why everyone was so irrationally happy to see me, mostly because she suddenly seemed anything but happy.

“Why did Piper leave?” I asked, and then tried to lighten the mood a little. “Were tips bad this summer?”

“Nobody told you?” Cara asked. I shook my head this time. She looked at me for a moment, biting her lip, and eventually sighed.

“Well, I guess I understand why they didn’t say anything. They were probably so happy to have someone who hadn’t heard about what had happened that they figured they should count their blessings.” Cara sighed heavily again. I waited a few moments for her to continue, but she didn’t. Eventually I put my silverware down and looked at her.

“Ok, now you’re freaking me out. What happened?”

“Piper was a good friend, and such a nice girl. It’s just so sad. She was working as a host that night, and we were short-staffed as per usual. She was getting a take-out order ready around 9:30, just before we have the cut-off time for pick-up orders. What a jerk. Anyways, she brought the food outside. I know that I saw her walk out, and go behind the restaurant to the pick-up area in the parking lot. Ugh, I hate that place. Why can’t they replace that damn blinking streetlight? They have the money to repave the entire parking lot but not change a stupid lightbulb? Ok, I’m sorry, I’m just a little worked up. Back to what happened. Yeah, Piper brought the food out and she just never came back. You can see her on the security tapes with the food, too. She just walked out with the plastic bag and she never came back in. We went outside to find her after a few minutes, mostly because we needed someone to start rolling silverware for the next day, and there was nothing out there. No car, no Piper, nada. Actually, that’s not true. We found the receipt. They ordered four sides of steamed shrimp.”

There aren’t enough tips in this world.