Bill kissed back in kind but he did not advance or initiate anything. When Beverly took his hand and started to place it on her, he withdrew.
“Don’t be a bully,” he said.
“What? Why a bully?” Beverly was taken aback by the choice of words.
“You know we shouldn’t do anything until you’re settled into what you’re doing.”
“I am settled.”
“You aren’t, not until you take an action.”
“Please,” Beverly said. She was still holding his hand, put it inside her blouse on her bra. Bill immediately took it back to himself and sat with his hands clasped.
“Bill,” she said.
“Listen, I’m going back to the kitchen. I don’t want to influence what you do or how you do it. You’ve got to deal with this, or not.”
“I can get someone else, you know. I can bring them right here.”
“It’s your life, your reputation, your job. You have to work here all the time. Want me to tell you what happens the moment you go with one of the waiters?”
“I already know,” Beverly said. “I’ve seen it just not with me.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bill said. “You think you do, but you don’t have a clue.”
“And you do?”
“We’ve had this discussion. I know what it is to go home and have to look my wife in the eyes. I know what it is to have to lie. I know what it is to feel like a, well you know what, and to have to run to take a shower before I can touch her. What do you know? And then on top of everything, do a waiter and you’re done here. I think you think this is a good job.”
There it was. She started to cry again. It was a quiet, head-in-her-hands cry.
Bill melted seeing it. He melted so much he took her in his arms next to him and held her tight.
“I’m so lost,” she said.
“Sometimes you have to get lost to find your way,” Bill said. “But it only feels like you’re lost. You’re not so lost.”
“That what happened to you?”
“What?”
“You got lost?”
“Me? No. I needed a job. I needed a job so bad I would have shoveled shit in a pig pen if I could have found the work. The kitchen is what it was and it led to all this stuff I wasn’t looking for.”
“What harm would there be if…”
“You still gotta go home. You still gotta look him in the eyes. I know we’ve already done things, but it wasn’t with what we both know now.”
“I want it to be you. I like you. I like you and I want you. And why did you say not to be a bully?”
“Because if you go on and force me, that’s the same as bullying me. You know if you force it, I’ll do what you want. I’ll do what you want because it’s a better option than you going elsewhere, unless you know someone outside of here.”
“I don’t know anyone. I don’t know anyone here either. I just know more than half those waiters salivate looking at me. Me, I like you.”
“I was lost,” Bill said. “Almost immediately after my mother died. So I picked up alcohol and then drugs. That put me in places I should never have been, led to things I should never have gone to. Then it all culminated with me getting arrested and not being able to get a job.
“It gets better too. That’s just the stuff, you know, the circumstances. Then we can talk about me, about my lack of confidence, about my guilt and shame and feeling unworthy. And more. We can talk about self-destructiveness too. That what you want for yourself?”
Beverly, still weeping, looked at Bill. “I just want to get laid,” she said.
