Impressions of Me (Impressions Series Book 2) Page 2

  "Jeremey Stilen"

  "Shit." It's all I can say. Game-set-and match, Mia Careri - oh wait, it's Marsden now, isn't it- that'll take some getting used to. I haven't heard the name Jeremy Stilen in years. He was a guy from high school that I claimed to have no feelings for - captain of the football team type, only at our school Lacrosse was king. I told Mia I didn't like him, despite her insisting that I did. Then we hooked up one night after a drunken party at a friend's house. I told Mia nothing happened between us. Maybe I'm not such a good liar after all. "You win."

  "Great, now we can eat shitty waffles while you explain about Sally."

  I explain all about how irresponsible I've been; how I've been late to shifts and even slept through one because I had been out partying the night before. Whenever I tell stories like this Mia gives me that look; almost like a big sister look - like she's trying in vain to hide the judgement lying just behind her eyes, and she's patiently waiting her turn to speak so she can give the responsible-best-friend advice like she's done a million times before. I need to stop being the irresponsible side kick and get my shit together. Easier said than done. I listen to her advice, politely, like I have a thousand times before, then I decide it's time to talk about something less depressing than my irresponsible behavior.

  "So, how excited are you for the honeymoon?" I ask. She's still glowing like crazy.

  "I'd be more excited if I knew where we were going."

  "Wait, what?" I ask, "you don't know where you're going?"

  "Wesley wants to make it a surprise," she says. That sounds like something he'd do - he loves Mia more than anything in the world, and he wants to make this the most memorable thing ever. And lord knows he's got the money to take her around the world about fifty times over.

  "That's kind of exciting. I think I'm a little jealous."

  "You know, I never thanked you," she says, almost ignoring what I said to her. I can't imagine what she has to thank me for. If anything I should thank her for all the help she's given me through the years.

  "For what," I ask, genuinely curious.

  "For everything. For being there for me through all the drama with Wesley last year, for being my maid of honor, and even for dragging my lazy ass to The Drip that night. Without you none of this would be happening to me, and I needed to tell you that."

  I'm speechless. I can't believe the words I'm hearing because she's never said anything like that to me before, and I feel like I'm going to cry. "You don't need to thank me for anything," I say, looking down awkwardly, "I didn't do anything but try to be a good friend, that's all."

  "Exactly," she says, putting her hand on mine, "a good friend is exactly what I needed to help get my life together, and a good friend is what you are. So thank you for that."

  "Aw, dammit, are you trying to make me cry?" I joke, the tears welling up in my eyes, "I get your plan - this way you get to be the hot one, and I'll be the puffy-faced mess. I get it." I'm smiling and we're giggling, but I am truly touched by her words. I know that technically she's right - I did all of those things she mentioned - but hearing it said the way she just said it is really special, and all I can think to do is lean over and give her a hug.

  "And just so you know, you'll always be the hot one, D." She whispers in my ear.

  "I know," I joke, "I was being polite."

  "Me too," she says back in her fakest evil voice, "you should totally be jealous of my honeymoon, it's going to be spectacular."

  "I know it will," I say back seriously, "and you deserve every minute. You better take a thousand pictures and show me first thing when you get back."

  "Promise." She says. When our Kodak moment is over we order and have lunch. I realize how long it's been since we've just been friends who do normal things like this - not wedding planning or dealing with relationship drama, but just being friends. It feels really nice, and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself while she's gone, it's going to be a long two weeks.

  When we're done we walk out to the finer parking lot together, just making small talk like we do. Before she gets in her car to leave I give her the biggest hug ever, and wish her and Wesley the best. "What time's your flight?"

  "Uh, don't remind me," she says, "we need to be at the airport at six, so I need be up by...I don't even want to think about it."

  "I’d miss the flight."

  "I know," she says, "you're more of a go-to-sleep at five than a wake-up-at five kind of girl."

  "This is true. I love you."

  "I love you to. I'll text you when we get...wherever."

  "You'd better not," I yell, "the last thing you need to do while you're on your dream vacation with your gorgeous billionaire husband is to text me. There are about a hundred better things to be doing."

  "I'm still gonna text you, it's kind of what I do, you know?"

  "Fine," I say with a big smile, "I can't stop you, but I don't have to answer, either."

  "You'll answer, I know you."

  "Yeah, I probably will," I admit. "Bye Blonde Mia, enjoy whereever-land"

  "I will."

  We hug one last times and then head our separate ways - Mia to pack and me to...I don't even know, maybe go home a sleep a little. I do that well.

  Sure, why not?

  Chapter 2

  Why is that so hard for everyone to say my name correctly! It’s Dacia, like DAY-SHA. I’m not DACK-E-YA, not DASH-E-AH. It’s times like these, when I’m having my name butchered, that I pray for a time machine so I can go back slap my strung-out mom for naming me some weird shit she saw on the History Channel. I guess that when you give a junkie plenty of drugs and access to educational TV, my name is the outcome. I actually love my name, despite the eternal struggle of people to pronounce it correctly, but the lesson is that a few bumps of meth and a documentary about the Roman Empire is a bad combination.

  At this point I’m used to having to say my name phonetically every time I introduce myself to people, I’m used to it. I'm starting to get why people with names that are much harder pronounce than mine just give in and let people butcher them; it's exhausting having to correct people all the time. Why am I so angry? Oh yeah, because the name thing is even worse when I’ve been standing on line for a ridiculously long time for a damn cup of coffee. Some guy calls out my name (or what he thinks my name is) to make sure I want my drink served hot and not iced. I’m a purist when it comes to coffee - the natural state of coffee is hot – you need to work to make it iced, so really, shouldn’t you be double-checking all of the iced coffee orders? “Yeah, that’s right, hot.”

  “I’ll never understand how you can have hot drink in this weather,” a strange older guys says from behind me. Little does he know that this isn’t the time to challenge me to a game of dueling coffees – that’s a losing battle on his part – but I decide to entertain his ignorance because I’m bored and fiending for caffeine.

  “That’s an easy one,” I say to the stranger, “Iced coffee is a waste of money.”

  “Hot coffee is about the last thing I can imagine putting in my mouth right now,” he says. Funny, I can think of something else worse than that. “And why is iced coffee a waste of money?” I love when people ask me about this; it lets me go on rants about my favorite drink.

  “Where to begin,” I say, “Let’s start with the ice.”

  “Okay.”

  “They put in in the cup first.”

  “So what?” he asks.

  “So, that means that they fill the cup almost to the top with something that we can all make in our freezer, then they put in the coffee, and then they charge you about a dollar more. It makes no sense.”

  “Yeah but it’s cold,” he answers, “And that’s what people are really paying for. Something cold on a hot day.”

  “What people are paying for is frozen water that takes up half of their drink. Have you even taken the ice out of an iced coffee?”

  “Can’t say that I have, no.”

  “Well I have,” I tell
him, “And when you take out the ice you have about a half-filled cup of coffee, it’s insane.”

  “I don’t think that’s what’s insane.”

  “Well, let’s recap, then,” I say, needing to prove my point in the worst way. “First, they fill up your cup with frozen water that costs them almost nothing, and then they give you half the amount of coffee they normally do. That coffee loses all of its flavor because the ice melts in the hot weather and waters your coffee down. You with me so far?” I ask. He nods while looking a little defeated. “Okay, so after selling you a half-filled, soon to be watered down cup of coffee; they then charge you more than if you got a full cup of actual coffee. Insanity.”

  I had spelled my name out for the woman who took my order, and she wrote it down with her black marker, right on the cup, and now it was onto phase two, where the person making the coffee yells out when the drink i ready. She yells out something that starts with a D, but it sure as hell isn’t my name. "Dacia,” I say, correcting her with more than a little bitchiness in my voice, “Day-Sha."

  "Oh I'm sorry," she says back to me, nervously, "Here's your cappuccino, Dacia." She says it perfectly the second time around, handing me my drink with a shaky hand. I feel bad now, this girl looks all of sixteen years old, and completely overwhelmed by the amount of angry, under-caffeinated people forming a line out the door on their way to work. I can tell this is her first job - probably the first day of her first job. She’s got that teenaged, deer-in-headlights expression fixed on her face, and she’s yet to realize how little any of this actually matters. I've probably worked more shitty service jobs than anyone on earth, and I know all too well the stress that annoyed customers can bring, but experience taught me not to let my mood be effected by their moods, it just isn’t worth it. And here I am, being selfish and adding to her stress over a name that no one says right anyhow. I was this girl years ago, and I want to sit her down and tell her that long lines are inevitably filled with at least twenty-five percent rude people, and not to let it bother her because she’s doing her best.

  "Thanks...Alyssa, I say, reading the name tag, “I’m sorry, I’m just in a rush, I didn’t mean to snap at you. You’re doing a good job.” Alyssa the sixteen year old barista grins when I offer her some relief from my own attitude, and for a moment her anxiety-ridden face turns into her real face, and I can see the pretty girl underneath.

  “Thanks, Dacia,” she says before going right back into panic mode.

  “No worries. Just breathe.” It’s the only piece of sage wisdom I can offer; a veteran of shit jobs trying to make a rookie feel a little bit better. I wish I could say more to make this day easier for her, but there’s a line about fifteen people deep, and as I walk out I see the expressions on most of their faces range from slightly annoyed to who hired this stupid kid? She’ll be okay, but she’s going to have a bad first day. I’ll come back tomorrow and see how she’s doing, but right now I’m off to my own crappy job.

  New York is where I was born and raised, where my best friends live, and where people at least make an honest attempt at pronouncing my name, but it’s also a place filled with bad memories and broken relationships. The last guy, Jamie, had been the last straw of me giving up on relationships for a while. I remember being so messed up about it that I texted Mia at work, which I normally never do; that girl has a hard job and she needs to concentrate on things way more important than my fucked up love life, but I had been so fed up that I couldn’t even help it.

  Jaime’s one of those wolves-in-sheep's-clothing kind of guys - the one who's mastered the role of the nice, sensitive guy like he’s a method actor - the Daniel Day Lewis of assholes. But guys like Jaime can only play that role for so long before they expose themselves for the bad guys that they really are.

  For me the big reveal came over a dinner. Well, not a real dinner, there was no restaurant involved. Guys like Jaime didn’t do restaurants; they did shady, late-night invites to their basement apartments – that should have been my first red flag - and then they let you know in no uncertain terms that they feel like some TV and a slice of pizza means that you're expected to fuck them. Not only did Jamie think that sex for pepperoni was a fair trade, he didn't even wait for pizza to come before he tried! Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure he ever ordered it. That’s typical of my dating life, and scary enough, Jaime isn’t even the worst of them.

  That’s why I almost decided to leave New York. Right after Mia got engaged I had just about had enough. The way I figured it, a place could only offer you so much before it ran out of resources, but instead of water or clean air, the resource is good guys. I was like a romance biologist, and years of field research had given me overwhelming evidence that a mass extinction of good, datable men had been occurring for several years, and it seemed like my best friend had snatched up the last of the species. I really thought it was time to move on to new places, but something inside told me to stay, that just maybe things here can work out. You think I’d be more of a cynic after all I’ve been through, and maybe I should be, but there’s always that part of me that hopes for the best, no matter what bad things have happened in the past.

  I walk out of the coffee place and into my piece of crap Honda Civic. Say what you will about the car, it’s probably the most reliable thing I’ve had in my life other than Mia and Kevin. It’s really old, a graduation present from my adopted mom and dad, and when I say ‘graduation’ I’m talking about high school; I was happy enough to get through that without losing my mind, I wasn’t about to torture myself with college for another four years just to end up with a boring job that I’d hate. I’m a free spirit, and being locked behind a desk in an office just wasn’t what I ever wanted for myself. Of course there are a lot of things I didn’t want for myself, but I guess that we play the cards we’re dealt.

  It's no shocker that I'm late - I'm one of those people that you need to tell to be somewhere at least a half hour before you actually want me there. Sally knows this about me - everyone does, really- but she's still gonna bitch me out for being late for the breakfast rush. If I owned a successful business, I'd probably be the last person to hire someone like me, but Sally's been like a grandmother to Mia and I, so she deals with me despite my questionable work ethic, and I love her for it.

  Sally's is one of those places that's always busy no matter what time of the day it is. Other restaurants in this area - even ones with great reviews and expensive menus- have closed their doors less than three months after their grand opening, meanwhile Sally's has a line out the door for every meal of the day since the doors opened, especially her famous Sunday brunch. And that's exactly what I'm late for. Shit, she's gonna kill me this time; I hope I haven't messed the whole service up.

  From my fucked up jalopy I can see the line - Sally doesn't believe in reservations, and if you even suggest it to her she'll snap at you. She's done it to me a few times, "This ain't some fancy French place, Dacia, if you want my waffles then get your lazy butt out of bed and get in line like everyone else." She has a point, but reservations would curb some of the waiting-in-line drama that breaks out sometimes. I practically had to stop two old ladies from coming to blows once because Old Lady 1 swore up and down that Old Lady 2 had pushed ahead of her in line. People can get crazy for Sally's waffles.

  I down the coffee I stood on that long line to get because if there's anything worse than being late, it's showing up late with a drink you waiting fifteen minutes for in your hand. Still, I need the caffeine like the true addict I am, especially if I'm going to make it through another demanding Sunday brunch service. On days like this, the customers didn't just get testy with each other over their place in line, they got really testy with us wait staff, expecting us to cater to every little stupid demand they could think of. Last week I almost smacked a bitch when this table of churchgoers (ironically always the rudest people to deal with), dressed in their Sunday best, kept stopping me every time I walked by their table with something else the
y had "forgotten" to order. Another napkin, more syrup, more butter, a coffee refill, you name it. It got so bad that I developed a case of busy waitress deafness, that sudden disorder where I suddenly lose the ability to hear the demanding, ridiculous shit that's being yelled at me across a crowded room.

  One of the women even caught an attitude with me when I was a little slow getting her third cup of coffee. "Umm, excuse me miss, I called you over four times," she said with a snotty look on her face. It's like they can't see all of the other people in the room also demanding refills and syrup and more napkins to a clearly outnumbered group of stressed out waitresses who are actively considering never coming back from their bathroom breaks. And the worst part of people like that? Yup, horrible tippers, one and all. You slave over them like they're kids I'm a cafeteria, and what do they do in return? Shitty tips, bad attitudes, and a promise to return, like clockwork, to repeat the whole scene the next week. Why did I take this job again, I don't even like people that much.

  After I gulp my coffee so fast I feel like I'm going to gag, I sneak in the back entrance of the kitchen hoping to miss Sally's judgmental grandma glare altogether. She's usually out front greeting all the guests anyway, and giving them her famous "it'll only be about five more minutes" speech. Such bullshit, Sally, why don't you tell them the truth and say that it'll be forty-five minutes spent standing on line while your toddler pulls at your leg and asks when they get to eat. And that's if you're lucky enough that the people already sitting and scarfing down sausage and eggs like it's their job decide to not sit an extra half hour to just shoot the shit over yet another cup of coffee. This is my morning, serving people like this, but I figure it's best to just slip in the back, throw my apron on real quick, and come out front looking flustered so that maybe Sally won't notice how late I am.

  The second I walk in I know that I should have just called in sick. At least when you do that your coworkers keep their judgements of you quiet, or at the very least you won't be around to hear them, but when you meander into a busy brunch service late, you get the justified "fuck you bitch" stares from the girls who've been covering your tables and dealing with disgruntled customers who want their bacon more well done. I get it, but it's still uncomfortable. Maybe I'll just kill them all with kindness and see how that goes. Who are you kidding?