“Been giving you her coke,” Wayne said when Jackie was out of the kitchen. He looked at Bill and shrugged his shoulders. “What it is.”
Bill slapped him high five. “Hope you have more,” he said.
“Got plenty. Just we have to keep it to us. Ain’t enough for the three of us.”
“Pay you back soon as he gets in.”
“No problem,” Wayne said.
Wayne was finished the fried eggs, plated them, put some home fries and sausage on the plate, set the plate under the warmer lights. He tapped the bell.
In almost every kitchen almost everywhere Bill worked there was the little bell to tap to let the waitresses know to pick up. A moment after the ding, Aja, the one Asian waitress they had, came in to pick up her breakfast. Aja stood only four-eleven. She was thin as a toothpick with no tits to speak of. Her almond-shape eyes were slanted Vietnamese style and she wore her dark hair in a boy’s crew cut.
Aja was sweet on Bill, not for any particular reason Bill knew of. He had it in mind, this very day too, to mess with her specially because he noted she had done her nails. They were long and red. She had the finest fingers he’d ever seen.
“Hey baby,” she said to Bill, her breakfast in hand. “Join me outside if you can. I’m sitting out in the café.”
Bill smiled and nodded acknowledgement. He hit up again, quickly snorting four lines before he went out. He took a coffee with him and found where Aja was sitting. She had chosen a table at the back of the café closest to the kitchen door from the loading dock. He would have preferred a beer, but he didn’t want customers, if any came at this early time, to see him drinking.
“So,” Aja said when he sat down, “we gonna be busy?”
“If I knew I’d tell you. Sure looks and feels like it.”
“Good. Cause I’m working all day.”
“All work and no play’s no fun.”
“Play comes later.”
“I’m closing. You live around here?”
“Not far.”
“Live alone?”
“I have a roommate. You?”
“All by my lonesome.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Depends upon what you’re thinking.”
“Thinking you probably know what I’m thinking. But if you want me to say it, thinking we don’t have to go home alone.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“You do coke?”
“Why?”
“I want to know how much to have on hand.”
“I don’t mind partying some.”
“Good,” Bill said.
That’s when they heard the crash. Bill recognized the crash, a plate, for sure, either down on the floor or against something. He hoped, as he sat there, it was down on the floor.
“I better go in,” he said quickly.
He found Jackie and Wayne in a stare-down. She was on the pantry side of the service counter, Wayne by the stove. She had dropped a plate, Bill saw. It was down there on the floor. He just didn’t know if it was purposeful or by accident, but if he was guessing…
Jackie was about to say something, but Wayne was trying to stop her. He was saying if she didn’t watch out the manager would be coming in and it surely wasn’t going to be him that got fired.
Jackie flashed Wayne the bird. It said what she wanted to say to him but quietly. About that time the manager did come into the kitchen. He’d heard the plate drop.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
Everything was not okay. In fact, everything was about as far from okay as could be, just they couldn’t see it yet. Jackie contained herself for the moment, ordered her breakfast from Wayne while the manager stood there. Bill went back on the line, the manager back to the office.
