Part 1 (2/2)

Thom knew Rose Mae was there, though. He'd known she was in me from the very night we met. Sometimes I wondered if that bad girl hidden in the deeps of me was the thing he really loved.

Seven years ago, at three A.M. A.M. on a warm spring morning, he'd come into the diner where Rose Mae Lolley was working. She was wearing the mask-warm smile, light step-of the fake girl she'd grown over herself. Rose Mae had worn that face over hers all the time, every waking minute for almost two years now, since the moment she'd figured she'd taken enough beatings for her long-gone mother and lit out from her daddy's house. She'd waitressed her way west down the coast, every few months trading one small town with a bad job and a worse boyfriend for another, much the same. on a warm spring morning, he'd come into the diner where Rose Mae Lolley was working. She was wearing the mask-warm smile, light step-of the fake girl she'd grown over herself. Rose Mae had worn that face over hers all the time, every waking minute for almost two years now, since the moment she'd figured she'd taken enough beatings for her long-gone mother and lit out from her daddy's house. She'd waitressed her way west down the coast, every few months trading one small town with a bad job and a worse boyfriend for another, much the same.

She'd yet to find a town or job or man that made her feel safe enough to take that face off. At work, her sweet exterior upped her tips, and her most recent home was a cheap furnished room with kitchen privileges and no privacy. Her landlady, Kim, claimed to be a lesbian, but Rose guessed she had given up women in favor of Captain Morgan. Kim would barrel into Rose's room at all hours, demanding to know where the salt had gotten to or asking if Rose had taken any messages. She never knocked or apologized, even the time she burst in on a freshly showered Rose wearing nothing but a sheer white bra.

”You ain't got drugs in here, do ya?” Kim'd said that time.

”Of course not,” said Rose in her best pep-squad girl voice, picking up her towel. She was trying not to glance at her bed. A pair of red fuzzy dice was lying beside Rose's uniform. The dice were Kim's, and Rose had stolen them out of the coat closet. She planned to take them to work and sneak to hang them in the short-order cook's car. He seemed like he was a single pair of fuzzy dice away from lighting out for Vegas, and since he couldn't keep his hands off her a.s.s, Rose Mae wanted to give him a nudge.

Kim didn't notice the dice. She didn't seem to notice Rose's state of undress, either, even though Rose Mae Lolley laid bare was worth seeing: long waist, tightly curved hips, creamy skin. Kim turned laboriously and began her drunken shuffle out. Some lesbian Some lesbian, thought Rose, tossing the towel over the dice in case Kim looked back.

”I don't do drugs,” Rose called after her, still working the perky, and Kim grunted in a way that could have meant satisfied or disappointed.

With no safe s.p.a.ce, Rose kept her smiling sh.e.l.l on all the time, but some days it felt as thin as the candy pink cotton of her retro fifties waitress uniform. The uniform had a white Peter Pan collar and a miniature ap.r.o.n. It was cut to fit and the skirt was short, and when Thom Grandee came in on a double date that first evening, his girl didn't like that uniform one bit.

The sign by the door said, ”Seat Yourself,” so Thom did, sliding into one side of a four-top booth. His date followed, and the other couple sat down across. Rose was the only waitress on at this hour. She could tell by looking they were from the A&M Kingsville campus. She'd pegged them as sports boys, taking their dates for eggs after the victory party.

And it had been a victory. Rose Mae could smell it on the boys as she came around the counter bringing the coffeepot and four plastic-coated menus, a mix of pheromones and beer and fresh male sweat. The smell of win.

They were both good-looking boys, but her eye went right to Thom. He was six feet tall with a thick, meaty build that said football to her, and she liked the Roman nose. She also liked the way he eyed her as she swayed toward them. To the other couple she was a vague pink waitress shape, bringing menus. Thom looked.

Thom's date had a high ponytail that was beginning to unravel into fronds onto her pretty neck. She had a mound of bangs, flat on the back side, teased into a rigid foam of curls that humped over her forehead. This late, her Breck was beginning to fail her, and the bang puff was listing to starboard.

When Thom spent too long looking at Rose's face before the inevitable stealthy eye slide down her body, Rose could feel the girl bristle up. Rose was only twenty-one, but this girl looked young even to her. A freshman with a glamour shot fake ID. The girl narrowed her eyes, venomous, telling Rose plain that she wasn't used to chapped-lipped waitrons with no tan stealing her male gazes. She'd no doubt been the prettiest girl in her high school, but Rose was willing to bet that it had been a small school.

”Good morning!” Rose gave them her best three A.M. A.M. cheerful, pa.s.sing out the menus. ”Welcome to Duff's. I'm Ro. I'll be taking care of you this morning.” cheerful, pa.s.sing out the menus. ”Welcome to Duff's. I'm Ro. I'll be taking care of you this morning.”

They all had flipped their mugs right-side up, so Rose leaned across to pour coffee, first for the dark-haired boy, then for his date.

”Morning,” Thom said back.

He was the only one who spoke to her. She turned to pour his coffee. And then, because he was looking at her face again, not her t.i.ts and not his date, looking at her like she was a person, she found herself saying, ”So, what position do you play?”

”Outfield,” he said. ”Sometimes third base.”

She shook her head. ”I asked what position you played, mister. I didn't ask what you did in spring to stay in shape.”

He grinned then, giving her an a.s.sessing nod, like he was adding smart and sly to the pretty. ”Strong-side safety.”

”Oh. Fast boy,” she said, and started filling his date's cup.

”What the h.e.l.l are you doing?” his date demanded, bangs atremble.

Rose stopped and tipped the pot upright, smile fading. ”I'm sorry?”

”Did I order coffee?” Bangs asked.

Rose said, ”I'm sorry. You turned your cup over.”

”Yeah. Because I want hot cocoa.”

”Sure thing,” said Rose. ”I'll get that while y'all look over the menu.”

”What can I get for you today?” the girl said to her friend across the table. ”What would you like to drink? Would you care for a beverage? You'd think you'd get those lines on, like, the very first day of waitress school.”

Rose felt the fever of a blush rising in her cheeks, and she knew it was painfully visible on her pale skin. Dropping her eyelids, she focused on her feet so that none of them could see the furious deeps in her eyes. She held her hand very still to keep from pouring scalding coffee over that bang puff. She could practically smell the ashy scent the girl's hair products would release, could hear her surprised cry as the hot liquid seared her scalp and ran down to blister that smug face. While the girl was screaming and clawing at herself, Rose would say, calmly, ”You turn your cup over in a diner, it means you want coffee.” Then she'd call an ambulance.

”I apologize,” Rose said. Her voice was trembling with the effort that it took to stay her hand. She picked up the cup with the small splash of black liquid in the bottom. Made herself pivot. Forced herself to walk away.

Duff's was quiet. She heard her every footfall on the floor. There were the two obligatory old drunk guys silently nursing coffee at the counter, yellow-skinned because they had maybe half a working liver left between them. They hadn't asked out loud for their coffee, just flipped their mugs over and waited to be served. A couple in the back had cuddled up on the same side of their booth, whispering to each other. No one was feeding the juke. She could hear Bangs saying something low and giggly. She caught the word Casper. Casper.

Her blush was traveling, flus.h.i.+ng the backs of her pale, bare legs. The girl's friend was laughing with her now in a high-pitched trill that sounded to Rose like a mean pig squealing.

Back behind the counter, Rose dumped a packet of Swiss Miss with minimallows into a clean mug. That girl, Bangs, was wearing a sundress, crisp green and new. She had a sheer white sweater thrown around her shoulders. It was a frivolous sweater, the kind a doting mother would buy along with new bedding and a tiny dorm refrigerator. Rose would bet her week's tips that that same mother kept Bangs's girlhood room intact, waiting for Christmas and spring break.

And meanwhile here was Rose, prettier and smarter and nicer in public, drifting motherless from town to town. Rose lived alone in her dank room with no lock on the door. Even Kim's d.a.m.n cat, Boo, could open Rose's door. He'd stand on the back of the couch and bang the k.n.o.b with his scabby paw. He was all over scabs. A flea allergy, Kim said, but she never took him to the vet. He'd creep into Rose's room when she was sleeping and slide under her blankets to press against her side, desperate and moist. Rose was allergic to cats, but she dry-swallowed Benadryl and let Boo press and press against her, because she was that desperate right back.

She acted like a girl in hiding, but her father was too busy, what with his part-time construction work and his full-time drinking, to ever come looking. No one else came, either. She daydreamed her long-gone mother would burst in, crying, ”I'm so sorry! This time I'll take you with me!” or that her high school boyfriend, Jim Beverly, would reappear to shoo the foul cat away and say, ”Here you are! Thank G.o.d, I finally found you!” They never came. The room, the cat, the diner, the chafing mask of a happier girl, they were her whole real life, and she was living it.

It should be me in that booth, Rose thought, a college girl like Bangs, smart and busy and worthy, going places with a sharp-looking sports boy watching. For half a minute, bantering about football, the smiling girl with the sa.s.s and the bouncy step hadn't been a skin. Rose had really been her, and it had felt like coming home to someplace new and clean.

Bangs could have spared her that thirty seconds, because Bangs had all night. h.e.l.l, Bangs had all year, and more years coming. Rose poured hot water and watched the cocoa foam to life. All Rose had was prettiness, a spoon, and the right to stir the cocoa of b.i.t.c.hes until it was smooth. It was too much to swallow, and Rose found she had literally built up a fine and bitter coat of spit inside her mouth.

She couldn't help it. She had nothing, and her thirty seconds had been ruined. She crouched down, her sweet second skin finally off, disappearing behind the counter. She pursed her mouth into a kiss and bent her head over the mug. The long wad of spit drooled down into the cocoa. Rose stirred it in. She was smiling now, a genuine and ugly thing, so wide that it showed her back teeth.

When she looked up, Thom Grandee was leaning over the counter. She froze, more naked in that moment than she had been the day Kim came barreling into her room. He saw her. He saw the real Rose Mae Lolley, no longer hidden by Ro-the-perky-waitress. His face wasn't readable.

She stood up, slow, holding the mug, trying to call back her sugary smile.

He said, ”I came to get change,” and his smile was plain and open.

She blinked stupidly at the dollar he held out, uncertain. Maybe he had only just poked his big head over the counter when she looked up?

”For the jukebox?” he said.

”It takes dollars,” Rose said, her voice rusty. ”It's one song for a quarter, but if you put in the dollar, you get five.”

”That's cool,” he said, retracting the money.

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