The Truth About Forever (9 page)

"This way," she said, and I followed her, pushing my cart, to the bottom of the driveway. There we stopped, looking up. It was steep, really steep. We could see Monica still climbing it, about halfway up: it looked like she was walking into the wind.

The girl looked at me, then at the driveway again. I kept noticing her scars, then trying not to, which seemed to make it all that more obvious. "God," she said, sighing as she pushed her hair out of her face, "doesn't it seem, sometimes, that the whole damn world's uphill?"

"Yeah," I said, thinking about everything that had already happened to me that night. "It sure does."

She turned her head and looked at me, then smiled: it changed her whole face, like a spark lighting into a flame, everything brightening, and for a second I lost track of the scars altogether. "Oh well," she said, leaning over her cart and tightening her fingers around its handle. "At least we know the way back will be easy. Come on."

Her name was Kristy Palmetto.

We introduced ourselves about halfway up the hill, when we stopped, wheezing, to catch our breath. "Macy?" she'd said. "Like the store?"

"Yes," I replied. "It's a family name, actually."

"I like it," she said. "I intend to change my name as soon as I get to a place where nobody knows me, you know, where I can reinvent myself. I've always wanted to do that. I think I want to be a Veronique. Or maybe Blanca. Something with flair, you know. Anybody can be a Kristy."

Maybe, I thought, as she started to push her cart again. But even five minutes into our friendship, I knew that this Kristy was different.

As we came up to the side door it opened, and Delia stuck her head out. She had on a red Wish Catering apron and there was a spot of flour on her cheek. "Are those the ham biscuits? Or the shrimp and grits?"

"The biscuits," Kristy said, pushing her cart up against the side of house and gesturing for me to do the same. "Or the shrimp."

Delia just looked at her.

"It's definitely one or the other," Kristy said. "Definitely."

Delia sighed, then came out and started peering into the various pans on the carts.

Kristy leaned against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest. "That hill is a killer," she said to Delia. "We've got to get the van up here or we'll never get everything in on time."

"If we'd left when we were supposed to," Delia said, lifting the lid of one pan, "we could have."

"I said I was sorry!" Kristy said. To me she added, "I was having a fashion crisis. Nothing looked good. Nothing! Don't you hate it when that happens?"

"And anyway," Delia continued, ignoring this tangent, "they have strict rules about service vehicles up here by the garden. The grass is apparently very fragile."

"So are my lungs," Kristy said. "And if we do it fast, they'll never notice."

Monica appeared in the open door, holding a cookie sheet. "Mushrooms?" she asked.

"Meatballs," Delia said, without looking up. "Put three trays in, get another three ready."

Monica turned her body slowly, glancing at the oven behind her. Then she looked at Delia again. "Meatballs," she repeated, like it was a foreign word.

"Monica, you do this every weekend," Delia said. "Try to retain some knowledge, please God I'm begging you."

"She retains knowledge," Kristy said, a little defensively. "She's just mad at me for holding us up, and that's how she expresses it. She's not good at being forthright about her emotions, you know that."

"Then go help her, please," Delia said in a tired voice. "With the meatballs, not her emotions. Okay?"

"Okay," Kristy said cheerfully, pulling open the door and going inside.

Delia put her hand on the small of her back and looked at me. "Hi," she said, sounding a little surprised. "It's Macy, right?"

"Yes," I said. "I know this is probably a bad time—"

"It's always a bad time," Delia said with a smile. "It's a bad business. But I chose it, so I can't really complain. What can I do for you?"

"I just wondered," I said, then stopped. I felt stupid now for holding her up, when so much else was going on. Maybe she had just been being nice when she'd said she would hire me. But then again, I was already here. I'd climbed that hill. The worst she could do was send me back down. "I just wondered," I said again, "if the offer still stood. About the job."

Before Delia could answer, Kristy reappeared in the doorway. "Meatballs are in," she said. "Can I get the van now?"

Delia looked down the driveway, then shot a glance in the front window of the house. "Can
you
? No," she said.

"It's just one hill." Kristy rolled her eyes. To me she said, "I'm a terrible driver. But the fact that I admit it, shouldn't that count for something?"

"No," Delia said. She looked down the driveway, then at the house, as if weighing the pros and cons, before digging into the pocket of her apron to pull out some keys. "Once it's up here, unload fast," she said to Kristy. "And if anyone starts freaking, pretend you had no idea about the rules."

"What rules?" Kristy said, reaching for the keys.

Delia shifted them out of her reach, holding them out to me instead. "And Macy drives. Period. No argument."

"Fine," Kristy said. "Let's just do it, okay?"

She turned on her heel and started down the driveway, bouncing a bit with each step. Even from a distance, you couldn't help but watch her: maybe it was the boots or the hair or the short skirt, but somehow to me it was something else. Something so electric, alive, that I recognized it instantly, if only because it was so lacking in myself.

Delia was watching her, too, a resigned expression on her face, before turning her attention back to me. "If you want a job, it's yours," she said, dropping the keys into my hand. "Payday's every other Friday, and you'll usually know your schedule a week in advance. You'll want to invest in a few pairs of black pants and some white shirts, if you don't have a few already, and we don't work on Mondays. There's probably more you need to know but we're off to a rocky start here, so I'll fill you in later. Okay?"

"Sounds good," I said.

Kristy, already halfway down the driveway, turned her head and looked up at us. "Hey, Macy!" she yelled. "Let's go!"

Delia shook her head, pulling the screen door open. "Which is to say," she said to me, "welcome aboard."

At the library, I'd had two weeks of training. Here, it was two minutes.

"What's most important," Kristy said to me, as we stood side by side at the counter, piling mini ham biscuits onto trays, "is that you identify what you're carrying and keep all crumpled-up napkins off your tray. No one will pick up anything and stick it in their mouth if it's next to a dirty napkin."

I nodded, and she continued.

"Here's what you need to remember," she continued, as Delia bustled past behind us, putting down another sheet of meatballs. "You don't exist. Just hold out your tray, smile, say, 'Ham biscuits with Dyon mustard' and move on. Try to be invisible."

"Right," I said.

"What she means," Delia clarified from the stove, "is that as a server, it's your job to blend in and make the partygoer's experience as enjoyable as possible. You are not attending the event: you are facilitating it."

Kristy handed me the tray of ham biscuits, plunking down a stack of napkins on its edge. This close to her, I still found my eyes wandering to her scars, but slowly I was getting used to them, my eyes drawn now and then to other things: the glitter on her skin, the two tiny silver hoops in each of her ears. "Work the edge of the room first. If you cross paths with a gobbler, pause for only a second, then smile and keep moving, even if they're reaching after you."

"Gobbler?" I said.

"That's someone who will clear your whole tray if you let them. Here's the rule: two and move. When they reach for a third, you're gone."

"Two and move," I said. "Right."

"If they don't let you move on," she continued, "then they cross over to grabber status, which is completely out-of-line behavior. Then you are wholly within your rights to stomp on their foot."

"No," Delia said, over her shoulder. "Actually, you're not. Just excuse yourself as politely as possible, and get out of arm's reach."

Kristy looked at me, shaking her head. "Stomp them," she said, under her breath. "Really."

The kitchen was bustling, Delia moving from the huge stove to the counter, Monica unwrapping one foil tray after another, revealing the salmon, steaks, whipped potatoes. There was a crackling energy in the air, as if everything was on a higher speed than normal, the total opposite of the info desk. If I'd wanted something other than silence, I'd surely found it. In spades.

"If there are old people," Kristy said now, glancing at the door, "make sure you go to them, especially if they're sitting down. People notice when Grandma's starving. Watch the room, keep an eye on who's eating and who's not. If you've done a full walk of the room and the goat cheese currant stuffed celery sticks aren't finding any takers, don't keep walking around."

"Goat cheese currant?" I said.

Kristy nodded gravely.

"It was just one time, one job!" Delia hissed from behind us. "I wish you all would just let that go. God!"

"If something sucks," Kristy said, "it sucks. When in doubt, grab some meatballs and get back out there.
Everybody
loves meatballs."

"What time is it?" Delia asked, as the oven shut with a bang. "Is it seven?"

"Six forty-five," Kristy told her, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "We need to get out there."

I picked up my tray, then stood still while Kristy adjusted one biscuit that was close to falling off the edge. "You ready?" she asked me.

I nodded.

She pushed the door open with one hand, and some people standing nearby waiting for drinks at the bar turned and looked at us, their eyes moving immediately to the food. Invisible, I thought. After all the attention of the last year or so, I was pretty sure I could get used to that. So I lifted my tray up, squared my shoulders, and headed in.

Thirty minutes later, I'd discovered a few things. First, everybody does love meatballs. Second, most gobblers position themselves right by the door, where they have first dibs on anything you bring out, and if you try to sidestep them, they quickly move into grabber mode, although I'd yet to have to stomp anyone. And it's true: you are invisible. They'll say anything with you standing there. Anything.

I now knew that Molly and Roger, the bride and groom, had lived together for three years, a fact that one gobbler relative was sure contributed to the recent death of the family matriarch. Because of some bachelorette party incident, Molly and her maid of honor weren't currently speaking, and the father of the groom, who was supposed to be on the wagon, was sneaking martinis in the bathroom. And, oh yeah, the napkins were wrong. All wrong.

"I'm not sure I understand," I heard Delia saying as I came back into the kitchen for a last round of goat cheese toasts. She was standing by the counter, where she and Monica were getting ready to start preparing the dinner salads, and next to her was the bride, Molly, and her mother.

"They're not right!" Molly said, her voice high pitched and wavery. She was a pretty girl, plump and blonde, and had spent the entire party, from what I could tell, standing by the bar with a pinched expression while people took turns squeezing her shoulder and making soothing it's-okay noises. The groom was outside smoking cigars, had been all night. Molly said, "They were supposed to say
Molly and Roger
, then the date, then underneath that,
Forever
."

Delia glanced around her. "I'm sorry, I don't have one here… but don't they say that? I'm almost positive the one I saw did."

Molly's mother took a gulp of the mixed drink in her hand, shaking her head. Kristy pushed back through the door, dumping a bunch of napkins on her tray, then stopped when she saw the confab by the counter.

"What's going on?" she said. Molly's mother was staring at the scars, I noticed. When Kristy glanced over at her, she looked away, though, fast. If Kristy noticed or was bothered, it didn't show. She just put her tray down, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

"Napkin problems," I told her now.

Molly choked back a sob. "They don't say
Forever
. They say
Forever
…" She trailed off, waving her hand. "With that dot-dot-dot thing."

"Dot dot dot?" Delia said, confused.

"You know, that thing, the three periods, that you use when you leave something open-ended, unfinished. It's a—" She paused, scrunching up her face. "You know! That thing!"

"An ellipsis," I offered, from the across the room.

They all looked at me. I felt my face turn red.

"Ellipsis?" Delia repeated.

"It's three periods," I told her, but she still looked confused, so I added, "You use it to make a transition. Also, it's used to show a thought trailing off. Especially in dialogue. "

"Wow," Kristy said from beside me. "Go Macy."

"Exactly!" Molly said, pointing at me. "It doesn't say
Molly and Roger, Forever
. It says
Molly and Roger, Forever… dot dot dot
!" She punctuated these with a jab of her finger. "Like maybe it's forever, maybe it's not."

"Well," Kristy said under her breath to me, "it is a
marriage
, isn't it?"

Molly had pulled out a Kleenex from somewhere and was dabbing her face, taking little sobby breaths. "You know," I said to her, trying to help, "I don't think anyone would think that an ellipsis represents doubt or anything. I think it's more, you know, hinting at the future. What lies ahead."

Molly blinked at me, her face flushed. Then she burst into tears.

"Oh, man," Kristy said.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly. "I didn't mean—"

"It's not about the forever," her mother told me, sliding her arm over her daughter's shoulders.

"It's all about the forever!" Molly wailed. But then her mother was steering her out of the kitchen, murmuring to her softly. We watched her go, all of us quiet. I felt completely and totally responsible. Clearly, this had not been the moment to show off my grammar prowess.