Finally, they get ready to leave. Thank God they overtip. Charley winks at me as they go, working the dimples. “The mainmast offer stands, Sammy-Sam.”
“Get lost, Charley.”
I’m cleaning up their completely trashed table when someone tugs at the waistband of my skirt.
“Kid.”
Tim’s unshaven, his rusty hair rumpled, still wearing the clothes he had on the last time I saw him, flannel pajama bottoms incongruous in the summer heat. Clearly, they haven’t paid a visit to the washing machine.
“Yo, I need some cash, rich girl.”
This stings. Tim knows, or used to know, how much I hate that label, which got tossed at me by the kids on opposing swim teams.
“I’m not going to give you money, Tim.”
“’Cause I’ll ‘just spend it on booze,’ right?” he asks in a high, sarcastic voice, imitating Mom when we passed homeless people on visits to New Haven. “You know that ain’t necessarily so. I might spend it on weed. Or, if you’re generous and I’m lucky, blow. C’mon. Just gimme fifty.”
He leans back against the counter, folding his hands and cocking his chin at me.
I stare back. Face-off? Then, unexpected, he lunges for the pocket of my skirt, where I stash my tips. “This is nothing to you. Don’t know why the fuck you even work, Samantha. Just give me a few bucks.”
I pull back, jerking away so abruptly I’m afraid the cheapo fabric of the skirt will tear. “Tim! Come on. You know I’m not going to.”
He shakes his head at me. “You used to be cool. When did you turn into such a bitch?”
“When you turned into such an asshole.” I brush past him with my tray full of dirty dishes. Tears spring to my eyes. Don’t, I think. But Tim used to know me as well as anyone could.
“Trouble?” Ernesto the cook asks, looking up from the six frying pans he’s got going simultaneously. Breakfast Ahoy is not a health food restaurant.
“Just some jerk.” I dump the dishes into the bussing bin with a clatter.
“Nothing new there. Damn town full of damn folks with silver spoons up their damn…”
Oops. Inadvertently activated Ernesto’s “favorite rant” button. I tune him out, paste on a fierce smile, and go back to deal with Tim, but the flash of a dirty plaid pajama cuff and the slam of the door is the only sign of him. There’s a skim of coins on the table by the door, and a few more on the ground. The rest of my tip is gone.
There was this day a few weeks into seventh grade at Hodges, before Tim got kicked out, when I’d forgotten my lunch money and was looking for Tracy or Nan. Instead I ran into Tim, sitting in the bushes with the worst of the worst of Hodges’ stoner crowd—Tim, who, as far as I knew till then, was as innocent of all that stuff as me and Nan. The hub of the crowd was Drake Marcos, this senior druggie guy who always hung with an equally well-baked posse. Quite the achievement for the college essay.
“Oh, it’s Tracy Reed’s sister. Take a load off, Tracy Reed’s sister. You look tense. You need to re-laaax,” Drake said. The other kids laughed as though he was hysterically funny. I glanced at Tim, who was staring at his feet.
“Walk on the wild side, Tracy Reed’s sister.” Drake waved a bag of—I didn’t even know what—at me.
I made some lame comment about how I had to get to class, which Drake enjoyed riffing on for several seconds with lots of sycophantic chortles from his loyal groupies.
I started to leave, then turned back and called “Come on” to Tim, who was still staring at his loafers.
That was when he finally looked at me. “Fuck off, Samantha.”
Chapter Twelve
It takes me a while to shake off Tim’s visit, but things at Breakfast Ahoy come at you fast, and that helps.
Today, however, it’s all bad.
The morning also features a woman who becomes extremely indignant when we can’t allow her cockapoo to sit at the table with her and a man with two extremely cranky toddlers who throw the jam and sugar packets at me, and squirt mustard and ketchup into their napkin dispenser. As I walk home, I check my cell messages, finding one from Mom, still sounding peeved, telling me to clean the house: “Make it immaculate,” she emphasizes. And then “Make yourself scarce, as Clay’s bringing those donors over.”
My mother has never asked me to make myself scarce. Is it because I asked about Clay? I walk up the driveway, pondering this, then see the vacuum cleaner, still sprawled like a vagrant.
“Samantha!” Jase calls from around our fence. “You okay? Looks like life was tough today on the bounding main.”