pick up papers and fabric swatches.
It was the fanciest cafeteria I’d ever stepped foot in. Unlike my high school cafeteria with its vinyl stools and burnt, canned marinara smell, here the floors were some kind of white marble and huge urns filled with real greenery created a Zen, urban jungle feel.
There was definitely no canned marinara smell.
It was more of an atrium or a conservatory than a cafeteria. Even the food was fancy. I couldn’t afford it, but that didn’t stop me from glancing at the sushi chef’s display and the Keto Korner.
Gola and I grabbed an empty table between a potted palm and another table full of tall, thin women picking at lettuce and animatedly discussing a fight between a photographer and a make-up artist.
Gola placed a glass of green juice and a bowl of clear broth on the table in front of her. “I’m doing a cleanse,” she said, catching me eyeing her questionable “lunch.” “You’ve got to try it. It makes your skin radiant.”
“I’m more of an accidental fasting person,” I joked.
“Intermittent fasting is so the rage,” she nodded sagely.
“My situation is kind of ‘ran out of food’ and have to wait for my next paycheck fasting.”
“You’re broke?” Gola said with more interest than pity.
“More like newly and temporarily poor.”
Gola spotted Ruth in the crowd and waved her over. The redhead plopped her kale salad down and planted herself in the chair across from me. “Did I miss the beginning of the inquisition?” she asked breathlessly.
“Nope. Inquisition starts now,” Gola said.
“Tell us everything about you, including how you met Dalessandra, how you got this job, and if you really called Dominic Russo a megalomaniacal monster to his face,” Ruth said. She took a bite of her salad and crunched with enthusiasm.
“Uhhhh.”
“Okay. Start with meeting Dalessandra,” Gola said.
“Hey, bus stop buddy!” My orange-sweatered pal popped up next to the table, clutching his wrinkled paper bag. He beamed hopefully. “Mind if I join you?”
“Have a seat,” I said, gesturing at the open chairs. Turning back to Gola and Ruth, I explained, “We met at a bus stop when Dalessandra gave us both jobs on the spot.”
“You absolutely need to join us,” Ruth insisted, patting the chair next to her.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m Buddy, by the way.” He held out a beefy hand that Ruth and Gola took turns shaking.
“I’m Ally,” I told him.
Gola wiggled in her chair. “Okay, spill it, kids. What was Dalessandra Russo doing at a bus stop?”
Buddy unrolled his paper bag and pulled out a cute little sub, a bag of chips, and a Fresca. “Well, I don’t know what Ms. Russo was doing there. But I’d just finished one of those under-the-table painting jobs in the Village. And I’m sitting there at the bus stop, and I see Ally here talking to Ms. Russo. Ms. Russo is apologizing about something and then hands her a business card and is all ‘come see me Monday for a job,’” he said, theatrically producing an invisible card.
Ruth and Gola were enthralled, so I dug into my chicken.
“I’m thinking, this is my chance. One of those once-in-a-lifetime jobbies. I gotta say something. If I don’t, I’m gonna regret it forever. So I pipe up, and I say, ‘You got any more of those jobs?’ And when she looks at me, she’s isn’t all hoity-toity. She says to me, ‘What can you do?’ I say, ‘Whatever you need me to do.’ So here I am. The newest clerk in the mailroom. I have a desk. I don’t gotta paint anything. And once the health insurance kicks in, I’m taking my wife straight to physical therapy.”
“Why does your wife need PT?” Gola asked. Another point in my book. They were now more invested in Buddy’s story than juicy office gossip.
“Got hurt on the job a year ago. She was one of those linemen—line lady, she liked to say. Anyway, she fell on the job. Seventeen feet and landed on her back on concrete.”
I winced.
“Bad spinal injury. She’s in a wheelchair. She couldn’t work anymore. Company fought the workers’ comp claim. I lost my job for missing so many days after the accident. Without good health insurance, we couldn’t swing PT appointments anymore. And that was the only thing that made her feel like she had hope, you know.”
“Buddy, that’s awful,” I said.
“It’s been a tough time,” he agreed. “But I always knew there was light at the end of the tunnel, and now look at me.