1
Violet
“Anything else I can get for you guys?” I ask the elderly couple at my table, with one eye on them and the other on my watch.
Please say the check, please say the check, I pray to the server gods. If I can’t get this table cleared in the next three minutes, I’m going to be late for my night shift at Starbucks. Again.
“What do you think, dear?” The old man places his wrinkled hand on top of his wife’s. “How about a banana split?” He turns back to me with a twinkle in his blue eyes. “We shared one on our first date, back in 1952. Do you remember that sweetie?”
The smile is frozen on my face as I listen to them reminisce about how he went about asking her father’s permission to take her out. Sadness weighs heavy on my heart. I used to want nothing more than to grow old with someone and have them look at me like this man is looking at his wife, even when I’m gray and frail. But my marriage has already come and gone, and it took all of my money with it.
Which is why I really can’t be late for my second job.
As I glance at the door wistfully, I catch Felix’s eye. He throws me a knowing smirk and continues to clean his empty tables.
Please, I plead to him telepathically. In true Felix style, he lets out a loud sigh and tosses the cloth down and makes his way over to my table.
“Violet,” he gasps, before turning to the diners. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, guys! I’m going to have whisk Miss. Violet here away from you. Your mom is on the office phone. It sounds pretty urgent.”
“Oh, goodness,” I pretend to stammer, “thank you for letting me know.”
He always has to go down the dramatic route, but he sure has saved my ass.
I almost feel bad as the couple’s faces crinkle into concern. “Go ahead, dear. We hope everything is okay.”
I wish them a ‘happy anniversary’ once more before turning on my heels.
“Take a look through the desert menu and I’ll be right over,” Felix says in his chirpy customer service voice. It’s lucky that our boss makes us share tips, because his contagious laugh and bubbly personality is always raking in the big bucks from the regulars.
He follows me into the kitchen and leans against the counter as I rip off my apron quickly as I can. “Thanks for that,” I pant. “I owe you one.”
“Girl, you can’t keep doing this,” he says, running a judgmental eye over my frizzy edges and crumpled uniform.
With his slender figure and smooth olive skin, Felix never has to worry about looking anything but perfect, even after working an eight-hour shift. If he wasn’t my best friend, and if he wasn’t always saving my ass, I would probably resent him a little.
“Don’t really have a choice at the moment, Felix. It’s not too bad, anyway. I only work both jobs back-to-back twice a week. I’ll manage.”
“Your optimism will be the death of you.”
“At least it won’t be starvation,” I wink back at him.
He shakes his head, before licking the tip of his thumb and wiping it across my under eye. “You need a new mascara, honey. One that can withstand these long days you’re doing.”
“Hah! It can join the list, right behind a new washing machine, a new laptop — oh, and my water bill that I haven’t paid yet this month.”
He swats at me with his cloth and I narrowly avoid its wrath. “You need you a sugar daddy. Mine has been extra good to me this month,” a smirk tugs at his plump lips, “rent? Don’t know her.”
I laugh at the absolute madness of it all. Although I don’t agree with how he funds part of his lifestyle, his crazy stories always make for a welcomed escape from my own reality.
“I think I’ll be avoiding men for a little while longer,” I say, “I’ve still got the tan line from my wedding ring. I better dash!”
I plant a kiss on his cheek and wave goodbye as I head out of the back door. “Look after that couple for me!”
“You betcha!”
The cool evening chill hits me when I leave the warm lights of the kitchen, and I pull my threadbare jacket around me tightly. New York’s coldest months are behind us, so I’ve been putting off buying a new one, because give it a few more weeks, and I won’t need nothing more than a cardigan.
It’s just playing the waiting game now. And besides, at the pace I’m walking, I’ll be toasty again in no time.
My feet ache from hot-footing it back and forth from the kitchen to tables for eight hours, and my brain is fuzzy from regurgitating the same greetings and quips. And now I have to stand behind a counter at Starbucks for another eight hours, wrapping my head around unnecessarily intricate coffee orders.
But you’ll never hear me complain about it: I’d much rather be in this situation than the one I was in just six months ago. Married to my deadbeat, gambling-addicted husband Johnny. Laying in bed alone every night, praying that every creak and squeak outside wasn’t him coming home from the bar.
It was always better when he stayed out doing god-knows-what.
One day, he stayed out and never came back. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.
But that’s not my life anymore, and I can only thank my lucky stars for that. Sure, I live in a crappy apartment, work two jobs and constantly have debt collectors knocking at my door looking for my ex, but I’m also in nursing school, funding it with my own money, free to do what I want and be who I want.
Just like my father always used to say: keep your face to the sun, and you can’t see the shadows.
He always knew exactly what to say in these moments, I think to myself as I nestle my nose into the neck of my jacket.
A quick check of my watch tells me I’ve got thirty seconds until I need to clock in. I decided to dip down the small alleyway connecting 47th with Broadway to avoid the tourists, and I might just make it —
THUMP!
“Oh! I’m so sorry,” I gasp as my body crashes into someone walking into me. Dazed, I look up to see a hooded figure in my way. “I wasn’t looking where I was —”
“Give me your purse.”
The gruff voice swirls around my head, the words not making sense. “Excuse me?”
Even through my jacket, I can feel the tip of something sharp and pointy digging into my ribs.
Oh my god, I’m being mugged.
2
Atlas
TWO HOURS EARLIER
“There he is, the Atlas himself,” Romanov greets me, his gold tooth glistening even in the dim lighting of Bemelman’s bar.
I shake his hand and sink into the leather seat of the corner booth.
My boss is always pleased to see me. Mainly ‘cause I make him more money than all the other men on his payroll combined.
“How’s it going?” He asks, signaling to the waitress to bring over the menu. I wish he wouldn’t, I don’t plan on staying here for long.
My eyes sweep over the most prestigious bar in NYC. The suits sipping on Remy Martin, sprawled over couches and chairs like they own the place. The hookers dolled up in their most expensive dresses, trying not to let their eyes wander as the old men they’re with continue their rant about their jobs, wives or both.