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Betty Ingrid
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"HEY! HEY, SWEETHEART! We could use some napkins over here, you know? There may be more grease on this burger than meat if you know what I'm saying."
“Frank! You don’t gotta be so rude to the poor little thing. She’s only trying to get her work done. Can’t you see that? I’d like to see you move that fast in this century.”
“Please, woman. I’m faster than you are. And I wouldn’t exactly call that girl little. Not in this century, to use your turn of phrase.”
Betty, who was indeed moving faster than the middle-aged man in booth twelve could currently or probably had ever moved in his life, clamped her teeth together tight. She kept her head down and went right on moving because really, what else could she do? There were people in this world who didn't have to put up with the kind of bullshit she dealt with day in and day out. She'd been told there were, at least, and it was something she sometimes even believed. Sometimes. The thing about it was, it hardly mattered whether it was true or not. That particular set of people might as well have been mythological creatures as far as she was concerned. That was how much influence they had on her life. Because in Betty's world, people had to put up with crap. People had to put up with a lot of crap and most of the time, it didn't stop when they clocked out and headed home. There were no cushy jobs, no fancy cars. There were no 401k’s, and little to no possibility of upward mobilization. Instead, there were double shifts for days, fourteen to sixteen hours at a pop. There were so many of those in a row that a person couldn't tell one day from another after a little while, and that "little while" was a frighteningly short amount of time. The hours normal people kept during a day were one of the first things to go. Living a crazy lifestyle came quickly after. When you didn't get off work until midnight, there were only so many things you could do to blow off some steam, and none of those things were great for the body or mind. The cycle started to fall into place far too easily after that, and before you knew it, you'd been stuck spinning your wheels in the same place for several years without even noticing how much time had gone by. There were people who didn't have to live that way, but Betty didn't know any of them personally. What she knew was the twenty-four-hour diner she worked in while she tried to make her way through the rest of school. She only had a year left but with the way she was feeling it might as well have been a century. Meanwhile, finals were barreling towards her like a mac truck, with her woefully unprepared. And here she was, getting yelled at for taking too long to bring a man his napkins while he made cracks at her figure. Things had looked better. She didn't mind admitting it.
"Um, you just going to stand there staring into space, Betty? That guy don't look too happy with your service." Melanie, one of the waitresses at The Bellevue Diner, looked at Betty disdainfully while she popped her gum. Betty moved to grab the much-desired napkins, and Melanie stepped in front of them easily. She smiled, but there was nothing friendly about the gesture. She was a mean girl. At twenty-six Betty had believed she was beyond the mean girl stuff, but it turned out it was nothing of the sort. With the exception of a couple of people who treated her with vaguely friendly indifference, she had exactly one friend at the diner. Everyone else actively hated her for no good reason that Betty could figure out. They made a point of making her shifts harder and would have been pleased as punch to have her gone for good. No matter what time she showed up they made sure she got the worst shifts, the worst sidework, the worst everything. It had even gone so far that she had discovered things missing from her purse. She couldn’t prove it was them, but who else would it be, really? Usually, Betty handled it pretty well, but today she was far too tired to shrug it off. She lunged forward, snaking her arm around Melanie and grabbing a handful of napkins big enough to satisfy even the most disgruntled customer.
“Hey! What the hell, Betty? What are you, like, a linebacker on the weekends? Is it like your secret identity or some junk? Because I wouldn’t be surprised. You don’t exactly have the body of a supermodel, now do you?”
“I don’t have time for this, Melanie. I have tables to take care of. I’m guessing you do too, seeing as we’ve got a packed house and you only just got here.”
"Nah, not me. I've got things to do tonight. A concert, and there is no way I’m going to miss that."
“Then what are you doing here?” Betty asked with exasperation, hurrying towards the table with the bickering couple, “And why are you on the schedule?”
"I just came in to give Brad the five bucks I offered for him to stay on and take over my shift. A total steal, right? That guy's the best. Always looking to help me out." The gum in Melanie's mouth made its way from her mouth to being twined around her finger. Betty's skin went cold and then immediately afterward felt burning hot. She glanced across the diner at Brad, who looked hastily away from her and Melanie, and then pretended to do something else. When she shifted her eyes again, Melanie's smile was even wider. And if possible, even meaner.
“Oh shoot, that’s right, isn’t it? The two of you went out a couple of times a while back, didn’t you? Guess you weren't his type. Not into the curvier kind of girl.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, which is good, because it’s none of your business. Also, I don’t have time for this. I’m actually trying to work.”
"Fine. Sure, whatever. Just don't take it too hard. Some of us are meant to get the guy in the end, and some of us just aren't. You happen to fall squarely into the second category, sweetheart."
"Thanks for your valuable assessment," Betty said coldly, finally pushing past Melanie and hurrying in the opposite direction. She glanced back behind her only once to see if Melanie was following after her. She wasn't, thank God, but she was scowling wide enough for multiple people in the diner to glance over and wonder what was going on.
“No problem, Betty. And hey! Who knows, maybe I’ll toss him back to you when I’m done?”
Betty felt the color rising in her cheeks but kept her head down on her progress forward. She wasn't typically a fighter, but she was of Scotch-Irish descent, so a certain amount of temper was simply embedded into her nature. If she were to allow it, she could easily turn back to face Melanie, march right up close to her face, and let the bitch have it. She was an intelligent young woman, too, which meant that the insults she could think up to hurl at her nasty-by-nature coworker would be far more devastating than anything Melanie could think up as a retort. The temptation was massive, and Betty knew that keeping quiet would leave a bitter aftertaste in her mouth when she was done her shift and had time to think over what had happened, but she forced herself to use her self-restraint. She needed this job. She needed it badly enough to put up with this shit and a whole lot more, too. She had learned plenty at school, and she knew that education would be put to good use one day, but one of the most important lessons she had learned had been as one of the invisible of the service industry: When you needed money badly enough, you could put up with more than you would ever have dreamed.
"Well, here you are. Finally." The man who'd been hollering for the napkins grunted at her while she laid down the object of his desire. His wife gave her a sympathetic wink and then elbowed her husband in the shoulder.
“Please, dear, don’t mind him none. He’s just a man with a temper, that’s all. You’re doing a lovely job.”
“Don’t talk like I ain’t here, woman. You know I don’t like that. You know I hate that, in fact.”
"Really, it's quite alright," Betty said with her best fake smile painted across her face, "I completely understand where you're coming from, sir. When you don't have what you need for a meal, it just makes the whole experience a little worse."
“Exactly!” he exclaimed, his face lighting up for the first time since he and his wife had graced The Bellevue’s front door, “See? This girl gets it! You know what? I think I might like you after all. I think the two of us are going to get along just fine.”
Betty's smile grew even wider, and she knew the table was going to be fine from that moment on. That was how things went with her and the job. She might not like it being there, but she was an excellent read of what a person particularly needed from one moment to the next. She had a way of figuring out what it was that would make them not just satisfied, but content, and ninety-nine percent of the tables that left her section did so genuinely happy. It was exhausting to execute up to that level all of the time, but it was worth it in the end. The tips she made were far better than those of her co-workers. It was yet another thing that made them dislike her, but it was also getting her one step closer to paying her next installment of tuition. Given a choice between being loved by her peers and finally making her escape, there was no contest. No contest at all.
“Betty, I don’t want you to think I didn’t see what you did just now.”
"Sorry?" Betty's eyes shifted to her right, where that evening's manager stepped out of the servers’ station and nodded his head. The manager’s name was Gerald, and he treated his job as if it were of roughly the same importance as advising the pope. It was ridiculous how seriously he took everything, but he liked her, and she liked that.
"With that table," he went on, "the way you worked your magic on them. If I could find a way to bottle your table-side manner, this place would make more money than any other eating establishment in the world."
“Thanks, Gerald. I appreciate that. I was only doing my job, though.”
"No," he answered seriously, "no, you weren't. You were going above and beyond, the same way you always do. Don't think the management doesn't see it. We see it, and we've taken note. If I were you, I wouldn't be surprised if good things happen for you here in the future. Keep your chin up and don't let the minions get you down."
He winked at her again and bustled off to hassle somebody about something. Betty sighed and started her side duties, which on this fine evening was rolling a godawful amount of silverware. She was hoping that Gerald had been hinting at a promotion and was pretty sure that he’d been doing just that. She had mixed feelings about moving up in the company. The idea of becoming a key cog in its wheel made her slightly queasy because it made the possibility of getting away from the restaurant business altogether feel more and more remote. On the other hand, it meant more money and when you had as many financial responsibilities as she did, more money was a very good thing. It wouldn't win her any more affection with the other servers, but that wasn't something she was truly looking for anyway. She didn't need any more assholes in her life, and just in case she needed any reminders of that, she could currently hear them talking about her behind her back. At least that was mostly what they were doing. It wasn't exactly behind her back since she could hear them plain as day, but she figured it was the same basic sentiment.
"Seriously, will you look at her? She's such a kiss ass," Melanie whined to Kim, another girl who had no love for Betty, either.
“Jeez, I know, right? It’s like she wanted to kiss Gerald’s ass or something.”
“I bet she does,” Melanie laughed sharply, “I bet she wants to kiss a lot more than that.”
“God, that is so disgusting! Can you imagine?!”
“Um, I’d rather not. You know what I’d like to imagine?”
"No, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me." Melanie's smile turned devious, and Betty knew where their conversation was going without looking up from her silverware. Sooner or later, most of the conversations between Melanie and whomever she was talking to turned to sex. It was the most imaginative thing her brain could come up with. Kim's cackling answer was all Betty needed to know that she was right.
“I’m definitely going to tell you. It’s all about that foxy guy up on that tv screen right there. Lord, do you see him?” Kim practically moaned.
“I sure as hell do. How could you not see a man like that? My knees get all quivery just looking at him.”
“Right? I’d just love to see him in a club somewhere. I bet you anything I could get him to take me home with him. I bet you anything at all.”
Betty looked up briefly and saw who it was they were talking about. Zach Jameson, a man everyone who didn't live underneath a rock knew at least a little bit about. He was a hotshot businessman who had a reputation for being something of a playboy during his time off. He was habitually in both Forbes magazine and Us, for very different reasons. He was only twenty-nine years old and therefore considered something of a savant in the business world, having come to all of his success without the aid of his very rich family. This was a point frequently stressed by the media, but one Betty was far from sure she believed. There was no reason he would come out and admit he'd taken a massive loan from dear old daddy to get to where he was, was there? She didn't think so, and she didn't think it too far-fetched to assume that anyone who tried too hard to find and print the truth would be paid off or threatened. Call her crazy, but the world worked in weird and sometimes not so nice ways. Then there were the gossip magazines, in which Zach Jameson was a series regular because of the myriad beautiful and famous women he dated. According to said magazines, the term "date" was one that could only be used loosely in conjunction with Zach's activities. If the stories were to be believed, he wasn't so much the settling type, and it had gotten him into hot water with the fairer sex on more than one heated occasion. Not that Betty really cared about any of it. It was the kind of information she had picked up through osmosis, glimpsing a headline here or there while waiting in line at the grocery store or making a doctor's visit she couldn't comfortably afford. In Betty's humble opinion, there were plenty more important things to worry about in the world than some hot, rich investment banker type. Take, for instance, the fact that it was getting to be genuinely late at night and she was more than a little ready to go home. Her feet hurt badly, and she was mostly sure she was screwed for her finals. To get the kind of grades she wanted, she was going to have to pull more than one all-nighter. There weren't enough hours in the day for her to get it all done as it was and that was a life some far-off business tycoon had no part in.
“Can you imagine?” Melanie said morosely, “Living that life?”
"Nope, not even close. He's here to meet with a freaking heiress, for Christ's sake. It's like something straight out of a movie," Kim said longingly.
“I’ll tell you what it is. It’s like freaking Cinderella. And he’s the Prince Charming.”
Both girls laughed, and Betty glanced up at Zach's image. They were right, objectively speaking. He had Clark Kent good looks. The same thick black hair with just a hint of a wave, the same eyes so striking they were almost unsettling. His were green instead of blue, but aside from that, the resemblance was very striking. And just like she suspected of a superhero, should one exist, he had a body that belonged on Calvin Klein's newest billboard ad. What Zach had was beyond a six-pack; it was closer to the vicinity of an eight-pack moving towards a ten. He was very, very hot, and it very, very much didn't matter. Not in Betty's world. Betty's world was the one that most people lived in, and it didn't leave time for fairy tales. The most maddening part about that was that the mojority of that most people didn’t seem to realize that’s what they were. They spent more time trying to taste a little bit of the good life than they did trying to make a real life of their own.
“Hey! Hey, can you genuinely not hear me? Or, for that matter, the bell on the front door?”
“Come on, let’s not get–”
“Not get what? She’s a server, right? Which, last time I checked, meant it’s her job to serve her customers. We may be late, but we’re still customers. Unless this place isn’t actually interested in business, in which case I will happily find someplace else.”
Betty’s eyes snapped up, her face immediately hot with the blood rushing to her temples and face. At the end of a day like the one she’d had she was just about out of patience to handle any people coming in two minutes before the end of her shift, let alone people who were going to be pricks. She already had some choice words rolling around in her mouth when she heard several gasps from the other Bellevue workers and realized who it was she was looking at. It left her with the strangest feeling of déjà vu she’d ever felt in her life. The man on the tv screen, the man who had been at the center of Melanie and Kim’s lusty conversation, was now currently sitting at the counter at the front of the diner.
