Chapter One Pizza (Characters are mine, brand names are not, was a dream I had, enjoy!!)

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"Rae!" I smoothly twisted my long brown ponytail through the official black cap of the parlour, and turned towards Jess, my manager. She was holding my schedule, and death was in her eyes. I laughed as she neared, holding up my hands to ward her off.

“No way, Jess. I’m off for the next month and a half, you know that.”

“What am I going to do?” She said accusingly, trying to look mournful. “You are leaving me with Ryan, Dianne, and Frank. For a month and a half. What’s this about again?”

“Rememeber?” I made my way to the seating charts, and scanned them to make sure all the tables were doing okay. It was nice and steady, the last of the lunch people leaving, with very few dinner people coming to take their place. The heady smell of sauces, cheese and pepperoni wafted heavily through the air. Behind us, Dianne smoothly deposited three trays of pizza, soda’s, and breadsticks onto the table without one thing falling or splattering across the customers. Jess sighed in audible relief.

“I don’t remember, actually.”

“I’m taking some time to stay in New York? Work on my art? See some seminars by famous artists?” She raised her eyebrows, impressed but worried. Such a mom.

“Your mother is letting you do this?”

“Jess.” I sent her a scathing look, turning as the door banged open, the prequel to a sudden dinner rush. “I’m twenty-two. Please.”

“Okay,” she smiled at the couple coming towards us, and reached around to smooth my hair before she left. “Jared is letting you?”

“Jared doesn’t control me. He doesn’t even date me- HI!” I smiled brightly, flashing my long-since perfected smile at the elderly couple standing expectantly. “Just two?” Jess made a strangling motion, letting me know I was going to tell her the details of my breakup or else. I ignored her and seated them, my perfect work face in complete game today. I was over-pouring with happiness, excitement, and delicious denial that I had to face I was single again. It makes it worse when you choose it yourself, doesn’t it? For the rest of the day I had no time to think about my ex boyfriend, or even my trip. I hurried all over the restaurant, and finally, Jess ran to me panicked, and informed me that Anne, our new training waitress, has cut her hand. She would be switching with me. I groaned, told her to wrap it up, and come replace me. I hated waiting, but for Jess I’d do pretty much everything.

“Oh my god, this place is totally cute!” Except deal with blondes. I stared in horror as a sea of blondes came pouring in. They all looked about three years younger than me, technically. I mean, I always looked very young, but these girls had to be barely eighteen if that. They were so under-dressed, my lips pursed together in a foul expression of displeasure. Pajamas hung off hips with thongs peeking under the waistband. Tube tops with bra straps slipping over shoulders flashed here and there. Major cleavage came at me from all directions, when there were enough boobs to make the cut. Slippers were fuzzy or Tinkerbell-ed. The few wearing jeans, wore not jeans, but tatters of jeans. There were so many streaks in their hair I felt like a nudist colony had invaded, instead of sixteen prepubescent Barbies. My shackles were instantly up.

“I want bottled water, okay?” I blinked, as a head blonde bullied her way to the front. Her makeup, all their makeup was caked on, specifically to make them look older and wiser (ha!) than I could ever be.

Lord I hate blondes.

“You don’t order here,” I said patiently. “You wait until you are seated.”

“Duh,” she snapped, hands on hips aggressively. “But I’m saying, make sure I don’t get tap. There’s stuff in there.”

“Ice cubes?” I ventured curiously, sliding into bitch-mode with an ease that comes from many ,many years of dealing with bullies and morons.

“Yes, of course I want ice.” she rolled her eyes at me. “Who else wants bottled water?” Hands shot up as if this was some stupid Spanish class required for graduation of the third grade. I glanced down and saw with growing dismay that the only space for them was in Annie’s section. My section soon. Oh shit. Why did the world have to do this to me? Only one more day until I am in New York, I thought with growing agitation.

“Follow me ladies,” I started off down the steps, and seated them as far as I could from the other customers, so they wouldn’t disrupt anyone else. From experience I knew that girls alone were loud. Blonde high school girls alone were near to deafening. Hello? Sleepovers?

“Remember my bottled water!” One of them called out to my back. I gripped the extra silverware and tried not to let it bug me. Slapping the forks down, I took a deep breath, scowling.

“Lord what fools these mortals be.”

“Indeed?“ I turned abruptly to face my next patron, standing patiently only a few inches away, having heard every word. “A Shakespearean pizza girl? What a find.” I blushed. I hated being thrown out of whack for a moment, then being faced with a guy my age. To make it worse, he was very hot. He was tall, tanned, dark-haired and wearing a black suit, totally overdressed for this semi-medium sized pizza parlor. Fighting down the urge to grab my ponytail for security, I snatched up the pencil to mark him in.

“Just one?” I asked brightly, pasting on the face. I am five-six, and he was tall enough that looking up at him was pleasantly easy. He flicked his hand in a gesture of boredom.

“I have some friends coming in. Pretty big crowd, so if you have the tables…”

“I will make room.” I said, penciling in a large block in Annie’s section. Might as well make use of the situation, right? “What name shall I put down?” He leaned in, smiling.

“Don’t you need my phone number instead?”

“No, I-” Oh my god. He was hitting on me. He was busting out some seriously slick moves, and here I was, my mouth hanging open like a kindergartener. “Oh, I-” Dur dur dur.

“Nevermind,” he chuckled, winking at me in a patronizing way. “The name is Walker.” I tilted my head up, and couldn’t resist a smile. He smiled back and it oozed sex. Slow, good sex. I’m no virgin, and I know bedroom eyes when I see them. Thrown off, I scrambled to get a menu for him, when a cacophony of falsetto voices breached the low-voiced conversation of the building.

“Randy! Randy over here!” With a clatter of high heels, a girl came clopping over, throwing her arms around his waist. I do believe my mouth dropped. He looked pained for half a moment, then clutched back at her affectionately.

“Felicia! You guys beat me! Shame on you!” Giggles. Coy fluttering of eyelashes. Sharp glance at me. A mouth of metal growled at me under her breath.

“SHE already seated us. Come on Randy, we’ve missed you!” His name was Randy? How fitting.

“I was helping the limo driver park, princess.” he crooned, turning her around to face the table, and giving her butt a little pat. “Now go sit like a good girl, and I’ll be there in one second.” The girl gave him the cheesiest, little girl smile, then whirled on me, nose in the air.

“Where’s our waitress? We’ve been waiting like, forever!”

“Hey,” I snapped, all politeness gone as I was truly pissed off now. “Braceface.” Her eyes went wide. “The adults are talking. There’s a packet of crayons by the salt. Knock yourself out.” She stared at me for one long moment, then clopped off angrily. I had no doubt that sixteen very angry blondes were going to verbally dissect me for the rest of the evening. I turned to go, but Randy leaned forward, a whiff of cologne making me pause.

“The memory of that is going to keep me laughing for a very long time.” All shy feelings were gone. I don’t deal with morons, or blondes, and luckily for me, I now had a table containing both. I granted him a scathing look, and took a step back.

“Shouldn’t you go back to babysitting right now? There’s sharp stuff on that table.” His laughter followed me to the back, where I stripped off the hat and let my hair cascade down my back. I had the longest hair anywhere, reaching almost to my backside. I brushed it with my fingers quickly, checked my makeup, and added eyeliner since mine had gone away, brushed the powder puff across my nose and sighed.

“Here we go.” Annie didn’t have many tables, so I caught up very easily, and as apology, she didn’t seat many people with me, just ones she thought would be good tippers. Good thing too, since the glares I kept getting from THAT table, insured I wasn’t going to be getting much else from them. The time came where I had to go get their order. Mustering my strength, I tied the little apron around my waist, and got my pen and pad ready.

“Are you all ready to order this evening?” Glares. Randy gave me a slow, casual grin that almost made me blush. The fact that he was surrounded by Preschool Playboy Bunnies, helped damper that feeling.

“Go ahead ladies,” he made a small motion. “Let’s start with you Chelsea.” She slid closer to him, giggling and whispering in his ear with a few glances at me. I raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t have to ask his permission, I’m sure you can order by yourself.” If eyes could emit heat, I’d be charcoal.

“Three pepperoni pizza’s,” Randy said simply, eyes never leaving mine. Another girl leaned in to whisper, giving me a very disturbing glimpse of her breasts. I rolled my eyes away, perfectly content with my own 36B’s. “Add to that an order of chicken wings…” More whispers. “Seven sprites, three root beers, five Mountain dews, and one coke.”

“So much for water?” I asked, scribbling it down. He glanced at the menu once more.

“I’d like an order of breadsticks.”

“Extra marinara?” I asked, eyeing the little dish half empty. He lazily stretched, his arms coming to rest behind three or four girls.

“No thank you, I think I have enough sauce to get me through the night.” Oh, oho my god. I snapped the pad shut, resisting the urge to reach over and slap him.

“Only if it takes a few minutes,” I came back sharply, and spun on my heel to deliver the order.

The rest of the night was going well, and with their mouths stuffed, the girls weren’t much trouble. I was refilling their drinks at the small station midway to the kitchen, when a hand on my elbow scared the bejeesus out of me.

“We’d like some to-go boxes,” the girl said snootily, glancing at the spots where the soda had sprayed in my sudden jerk of surprise.

“I’ll get that right out to you.” I said shortly.

“He’s my boyfriend, you know.” she added, raising an eyebrow. “He loves me.”

“That’s very nice,” I said blandly. “Also very nice of him to put up with all those friends of your to be with you.” She glared at me. “’Scuse me.” I slid around her, “I need to get back to work.” Finally, thankfully, they were ready to go, the table scattered with dishes, sauce, a pepperoni or two flung across the seat. Smugly, they watched my face as I came with the boxes.

“Sorry,” one of them said sweetly, batting her eyelashes. I shrugged, ripping off their bill.

“Kids will be kids.” I had not made any friends tonight, I thought as they left, filing out the door with sixteen glares of complete hostility. The bill slid across the counter and came to a stop in front of me, a tanned hand holding it in place.

“Well, Rae.” I clapped my hand over my nametag as I glanced up. “It’s been fun.”

“I’m sure it was for you.” I took his bill, and his credit card, swiping it through the machine. Typing in his ticket number, I totaled everything, and handed him the card back. I stood for an awkward moment, waiting for the slip to print out. I gave him a pen as it began, all the while not looking at him. Directly anyway. It was a shame, he was so cute, and he was so flirting. He took the pen and flourished it grandly.

“So you DO want my number.” I handed him the slip just as elegantly.

“I’m sorry, I’m not a streetwalker, I don’t need a pimp, but I’ll give your name to the next desperate teenager I see.” He laughed, and it was good. His laugh made me want to smile, but I kept my face cold.

“You are excellent, do you know that?” he asked, slowly signing, and filling in the amounts. “I consider it a shame that you despise me utterly.”

“Damn, you noticed.” I took the pen back, and slid the slip into my pocket to be put in the register later. He stalled for a moment, looking me over.

“Rae…”

“Rachel.” I pointed out. “Only friends call me Rae.”

“Your nametag says Rae. Everyone must call you that.”

“Touche.” I gave him that, but still waited for him to leave. “You better go, your entourage will be waiting.” He leaned forward.

“The younger they are, the cuter their butts.”

“Wow, and with that, I am so ready for you to leave now.” He laughed again. Pompous asshole.

“You are incredible. Too bad you are so young.”

“I’m twenty-two,” I said flatly, wondering why the hell I wanted him to know that. His eyebrows raised in pleased surprise.

“Are you really? You look younger than that by many years. Underage even.”

“Sorry I’m not your type.” His smile was gigantic this time, and he took out a card like a businessman.

“Please call me sometime. I don’t live here, I’m just visiting my aunt, but I’d love to talk to you again.” I pocketed it immediately as if it burned my fingertips.

“Sure,” I lied. His coat flared as he put it on, adjusting the collar in a way that made me want to run over and mess it up again, just to watch him redo it.

“Goodbye Rachel,” he smiled. “I have a feeling we will see each other again.”

“Yeah right,” I snapped, giving him an insulting wave as he left. I reached into my pocket and tore up the card, letting the pieces drift into the bottom of the trash can. Then I pulled out the receipt and had to sit down on the cushions we kept in the lobby. He had tipped me a hundred dollars. That asshole had gone and been generous, and I couldn’t change it. Blast. I felt my face color, and prayed to all the gods there were in every religion, that I wouldn’t have to face him ever again.

Man, gods suck sometimes.