The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,11
At the far end of the restaurant she spied a thin strip of yellow underneath yet another door.
“Hello?” she called again and took a few more steps inside. This time the door in the dining room swung open, and a thin figure emerged.
“We’re not open yet.” A male voice, hoarse and curt, broke the stillness.
“Oh.” She looked at her watch again. “I thought you opened at eleven.”
The man walked toward her. Narrow-faced, with a chapped nose and black eyes, he peered at Ash and coughed. A navy blue apron was tied over wrinkled khaki pants and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Yellow teeth crowded into a crooked row behind thin lips. Ash’s stomach crawled into her throat, and she took a step backwards.
This was a mistake. Definitely a mistake. She wasn’t cut out for a job in a place like this, a pampered girl from Boston’s west side, and she knew it. Who was she kidding? She’d call home this afternoon and ask for money, deal with her parents’ anger and disappointment somehow.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’ll come back later.”
“No, wait,” he said, and this time his voice was kinder. “You here for the job?”
She hesitated.
“Listen, you got any experience at all, you’re hired. Hell, you don’t got any experience, I’ll probably hire you. Got no luck finding help in the summer when the college kids go home.” He untied his apron and tossed it onto the bar. “So?” He pulled himself onto a barstool, lit a cigarette and waited.
Ash took one more look around and swallowed what little pride still hid in her heart. “Yes, I’m here about the job.” She hoped he wouldn’t try to shake her hand in hello. She could only imagine where his had been. Thankfully, he only nodded and blew a long stream of smoke toward the ceiling.
“Great. You ever work in a restaurant before?”
“Sort of. I worked behind the counter at a coffee shop for a couple of years.”
The man took a long draw on his cigarette and considered. “Okay. What’s your name?”
“Ashley Kirtland.” It became a little easier, every day, to say the made-up name. “Ash.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask her for a reference. She could only ask Jen to lie for her so many times this week.
“Marty Evers. You want the job, come back at five tonight. I got another sorta-new girl, been here about two months. She’ll show you the ropes.” He sucked at the cigarette until it was a reddened stump between his fingers. “You available full time?”
Ash hadn’t thought about that. Did she really want to spend forty hours a week in this place? “Days or nights?”
“Some of both. Course, you make more money at night. Tips ain’t so good during the day.”
“That’s okay. Yeah, I’m available full time.” What the hell. It would keep her mind off the messiness of the rest of her life.
“Good.” Marty grabbed his apron and retreated back toward the kitchen. “Five o’clock,” he repeated.
“Five o’clock,” Ash agreed. She ran one finger along the dark wood of the bar. She needed a job. She needed to pay rent without asking her father for help or dipping into her trust fund. What difference did it make where she worked? It was only for a couple of months, anyway.
Your parents are going to kill you. Jen’s words, as clear as if her best friend had walked into the bar and stood beside her, echoed inside Ash’s conscience. It was true. A Kirk daughter, hauling trays of food around a seedy jazz club? She’d be the disgrace of the neighborhood if anyone found out back home. Well, maybe not. Her father had been filling that role the last few months. Not sure she could top his fiasco unless she started working the red light district.
Ash shook her head. That thought hurt, so she stopped it. Instead, she stepped into the sunshine and let the day cheer her.
* * *
A stop at Lou’s for pasta salad and tomato soup, and Ash returned home. Home. The word sounded funny inside her head. She stood in the middle of her living room and looked around. Last night, after Eddie left, she’d laid out her faded but beloved Oriental rug and hung two Monet prints on the wall above the couch. Already the place looked better. Warmer. Another throw rug in the hallway, and it might actually feel like her own space.
She ventured into the kitchen and gazed out the window. Should she? The roof beckoned her,