Excerpt from NaNoWriMo 2002

June 1995 Bell Harbor Maine

Dahlia Crandall was running late as usual, and she blushed with embarrassment as she realized that the meeting had already started. There was nothing fashionable about being late to the first day of work. The season opening orientation for new staff at Captain McGee’s Seafood Emporium—the most coveted place to work as a waitress on the whole coast of Maine—was in full swing as Dahlia found an empty chair at the back of the group. As she settled in, and tuned in to the woman at the front of the room who was leading the orientation, she took in some of her surroundings. The meeting was being held in the dining room, since the restaurant would not be open for business until the next day. The floors were pristine, shining hardwood, and there were more windows than walls—a good choice, considering the majestic beauty of the seacoast surrounding the restaurant. There was nothing extraordinary in the décor of the place—typical for the area, really, but the food was said to be the best on the coast. The woman conducting the meeting was pointing that out—all of their seafood purchased fresh every day, from the best, most selective vendors; their steaks a cut above what is offered at any other restaurant; their chowders and stews made from secret family recipes; their produce from local sources whenever possible; and desserts prepared in house by a top pastry chef. Her description, meant to awe the servers, was making Dahlia’s stomach growl. There was an open air patio overhanging the ocean itself, and it looked like there was another group out there having a meeting. They were all men, so she assumed those were the cooks and dishwashers—the kitchen staff. She was one boy crazy girl, had been from birth, so she took her time scanning the group for possible points of interest. There were several disgusting old thug types and a couple of decent youngish ones, and then there was one that really caught her eye. He was facing mostly away from her, but his hair, his posture…she was intrigued. Her stomach fluttered a little as she realized this could be a summer job with a silver lining. She was just starting to drift off to daydream land, when the woman conducting the orientation started handing out uniforms. Her cheerful mood was quickly replaced as she gasped in horror, along with the rest of the servers, at the hideous uniform they would be wearing. It was a rust-red jumper, with buttons up the front and pleats and it was of a length which could not be flattering on anyone. They would be required to wear white sneakers, pantyhose, and a white collared shirt. Dahlia took a deep breath and reminded herself that she could still look decent if she was careful with the way she pulled up her hair. This last shred of hope was dashed as the woman demonstrated the only permissible way to wear one’s hair: pulled back so entirely that if even one strand were loose the girls would be reprimanded severely. The male servers were given tan dress pants and told to wear a white shirt. This struck Dahlia as being so outrageously unfair that she considered citing the Equal Rights Amendment in order to wear the same uniform as the men. She sighed and looked around at the other women waiting to embark on this aesthetically displeasing journey with her and decided that if they could do it so could she.
As their meeting ended, the men on the patio were also finishing up and Dahlia kept an eye out to get a better look at the one she had noticed earlier. She was standing in line to reluctantly receive her shroud as they filed past her window. She got a good, close look at him. There was something in his eyes; something that was dark and passionate and soft and sweet all wrapped up together. Those butterflies in her stomach all took flight at once—and with them flew all the thoughts in her head. He had deep brown eyes and a slight hint of auburn to his dark, shoulder-length hair. His lips, his mouth were exquisite. And when he spoke (which she hadn’t yet had the immense pleasure of hearing) he had some kind of very slight sibilance, and it was alluring. It had the affect of being the flaw which made the perfect thing more unique without diminishing its perfection.
He was to be a dishwasher, which was the first hint that he was too young, but Dahlia usually ignored hints when they were not in her favor. For example, she picked up on the hint that he smoked which to her meant he must be over 18 because surely no one under 18 smokes…. Twisting the facts to her own advantage was an art. Too bad she couldn’t declare that as a major, it would have solved that dilemma for her….and that’s where she was in life. She had finished 5 years of college—changing her major 3 times had slowed the process a bit, and she was finally just six credits short for her bachelor’s in Liberal Arts. Liberal Arts because she still had no idea what she wanted to be when she grew up. Happy and in love—that was all she knew about what she wanted to “be” but unfortunately that wasn’t a major either. And those were also things which did not come easily to her…oh happiness was readily available, but didn’t usually go hand in hand with being in love—no, that was usually paired with misery. Because she never seemed to want the ones who wanted her…or to be wanted by the ones she did want. She was restless and a bit jaded at that point. She knew she needed something, she just didn’t know what. Until she saw Jack, that is.( Then something stirred, something soft and quiet letting her know there could be a change on the horizon. ) She knew then that he was what she needed, like the proverbial desert needing the rain, only her need for him was more urgent and complete. Silly old desert, doesn’t it know that if it got all that rain it’s pining for it wouldn’t be a desert anymore? *consider deleting the rest of the paragraph* Indeed. Silly old girl, doesn’t she know that if she gets that man she’s pining for she won’t be the same girl anymore? He would affect her so deeply it would nearly change the sequence of her DNA.
Dahlia went home that day, with a goofy grin on her face and a sparkle in her eye. She tossed her uniforms onto the seat beside her and turned up the music, rolled down the windows and let the wind rip the words out of her mouth as she sang along with Robert Plant and kept the beat with John Bonham. She was a woman with a mission. She loved having a goal, having someone to not quite pursue, but to imagine in every possible scenario of their first meeting….she would spend many happy hours of daydreaming in her attempt to figure out how to meet the mystery boy.
Days passed, weeks, really, of uneventful long tedious days waiting on long tedious lines of tourists. Some of them were so great—like the family that gave her a $40 tip because one of her other tables made her cry. And some of them were amusing, like the Irish cycling team who drank a whole keg of Guinness and told tall tales and urban legends. And some of them were awful—they ranged in awful from the man who answered her request for his order with, “Well, I’m not sure yet; there are a plethora of choices—‘plethora’ means ‘a lot’ of choices.” Well no shit! Do you assume I’m stupid just because I’m a waitress?! That’s what she wanted to say, instead she just smiled and said, pleasantly, brightly, “I know that, I’m an English major.” That was a small lie—she had only been an English major for a semester and half, as a freshman. She wanted to spit in his clam chowder. The other extreme of awful customers was a rowdy group with several obviously underage patrons attempting to order liquor with—not surprisingly—no I.D. She refused to serve them and the whole group began harassing her. Their demands and outrage built up to a stunning crescendo, until the owner, Kent, interceded and sent the whole lot of them fumbling for apologies. He was a small framed man, but he had a large presence. He was truly intimidating to all of the staff and well respected by his patrons, generally. Dahlia was shaken and near tears, but finished serving them for the remaining two hours they spent drinking and eating.
So, all in all it was a good place to work, no worse than some of the other places she’d been a waitress and better than many. The worst uniform by far, but the best tips by even farther. The days were long: most days she worked from opening (at 11 am) until closing (at 10pm). If the afternoon was slow, a few members of the staff would be sent home until the dinner shift started, but most days she entered the restaurant at low tide and exited the restaurant at low tide. The irony of it made her smile every time she noticed.
Dahlia had always made friends easily in new situations, and this was no exception. There were some really great girls there, and with everyone on equal footing as far as looks—they all looked horrible—there was less of a competitive air than there often is in a female dominated environment. They all compared notes on who looked worse in the uniform and which cooks were the biggest assholes. She became very close to a few of the other girls, going out for the after work cocktail, or hitting the beach during their afternoon breaks. It was turning into a pretty good summer, even if it was the most exhausting job she’d ever had. And of course, what’s better than having ytheir eye on the prize for ytheir whole sweating, frenzied shift? That intense and beautiful boy was washing her dishes every day—a spot of sunshine in the middle of the whirling tornado which was that restaurant. She didn’t even know his name at first, and she had no idea how to approach him. This amazed her, as her confidence level with men had been peaking over the past year, and she had been really getting the hang of the pickup. However, she was still not quite confident enough to think that anyone could find her attractive in that horrible uniform—especially since she was not allowed to let any curls out of her wretched bun to soften the look. She had fantastic hair, but it was all hidden away during work. Every time she caught a glimpse of her reflection she shuddered. So she waited, hoping.

Jack Chapter 1

Jack Grayson sat in the front seat of his mother’s green Volvo station wagon, tapping his coffee stirrer to the beat of the music floating out of the car’s speakers, which she had so graciously let him select. She preferred oldies, but the hard rock he preferred wasn’t too offensive to her—she was younger than a lot of parents so the generation gap wasn’t as hard to fill. He sipped coffee from behind the dark glasses which helped him combat the hangover from last night’s “house warming party” his friends had thrown to celebrate his new apartment. It was over the garage of his Mom’s new house—new since the divorce, that is. Since he wouldn’t be 18 for another few months he was lucky to get that much. It was a beautiful cabin tucked away on the far side of Owl’s Nest Lake, with a private dock and a rope swing and not too many neighbors. It was perfect for hiding away from the world for just a little while to recover from a divorce. It was full of serenity and beauty and not too far from town.
Jack was dreading the first day of his summer job, mostly because of his hangover, but also because his mom had arranged it all as a way to keep him out of trouble. He wasn’t afraid of hard work, but just thinking about that steaming hot, smelly dish room where he would be the lowest on the totem pole in the entire restaurant didn’t exactly fill him with glee. At least there might be some hot waitresses, he mused hopefully.
“Here you are, Jack. Have a great first day and don’t forget to call me when you’re finished.” His mother beamed at him, so proud of her little boy for being sober and responsible. He nodded acknowledgement and tossed his glasses and empty coffee cup into the car as he slammed the door. She was unaware of his continued drinking and moderate pot smoking, but that was much closer to sober than he had been a few months earlier. She shivered at the memory of finding him out on the dock, convulsing. At first she thought he had fallen in the lake and was shivering—lakes were often still a bit frozen in the cold March of Maine—but when she realized he wasn’t wet, she had panicked. The ambulance had arrived quickly and after pumping his stomach and administering some counteractive drugs, he had recovered well. He swore it was an accidental overdose, but mothers are hard to convince. Something had almost stolen her firstborn child and she wasn’t about to sit by and let it happen again. He had promised her he wasn’t doing any of that anymore, but she suspected he was still drinking and probably smoking pot. This worried her, but she had no proof. He was willing to quit doing hard drugs, but he figured he was too young to give up partying altogether. She watched him walk in, then turned to head off to work.
Jack was met with a pleasant surprise when he arrived in the dishroom that morning. One of his friends from the youth rehab program he had been in after the over dose was going to be working with him for the summer. **consider changing to reflect the pre-season meeting, where was dustin?
“Dustin, what’s up?” Jack was starting to forget his hangover, feeling illuminated by a ray of hope. He knew it would be easier to meet girls if he had a buddy.
“Hey Jack—you workin’ here?” The scrawny blonde with sunken eyes had a crooked grin on his face, full of unbridled relief and joy. He was a timid boy, a follower, and Jack was his hero. He worshipped the music that Jack played on his guitar and thought of Jack as a smart, rich older brother. That poor kid had no one decent in his life, and Jack was glad to be a friend to him.
“Yeah looks like we get to slave away together in this shit hole. Have you seen any hot chicks yet?” Jack had been without a girlfriend for a few months and was itching for a little action.
Dustin laughed. “No man, not yet. Check out the uniforms. Besides, they’re all old.”
Jack’s spirits fell as a couple of waitresses passed through the dishroom, picking up clean silverware. One was forty-something and plump, the other was in her late twenties and could have been pretty but it was hard to tell with that disgusting uniform and her hair all slicked back. Jack began to get the idea that the owners of this place were more interested in keeping their employees from fraternizing than they were with providing a pleasant dining experience for their patrons.
He kept hope alive for a few days, but as it turned out, all of the waitresses were college students or older and it was really hard to tell if they were cute. Not to mention the fact that they ignored him like he was a piece of the machine which washed their dishes. There were a couple of bus girls who were in high school, or had just graduated like him, and they seemed promising at first. The less pretty one of them had a boyfriend, and the more pretty one was snobby and not very interesting to talk to. So they were off the list, and no new prospects appeared right away.
Jack and Dustin both smoked, so they would take their breaks together and generally keep to themselves. That was the main place where socializing occurred, since the time spent on the clock was so chaotic for everyone. Jack ended up listening to the servers talk to each other as they unloaded their dishes because it helped him occupy his mind while he mechanically carried out his monotonous chores. It seemed that they didn’t even notice him most of the time. They talked right on, as if he were invisible, and he learned about all variety of things, most of which he would have preferred to never know. Carla was about 40 and going through a rather ugly sounding divorce, and that was all she seemed to talk about. Amy was thirty-something and in the middle of a steamy affair which Jack wondered how she possibly kept from her husband, since she talked about it with anyone who would listen—while acting as if it were the biggest secret in the world. And then there was Kara, a plump, 20 year old who was kind to everyone, and seemed sad most of the time. Something about her really moved him—she seemed very fragile and so eager to please. There was Ginger, one of the few whose beauty shone through the strangely ugly uniform. She was also kind to everyone, but she had a boyfriend. Many of the younger women who had potential for being pretty had personalities that were completely unappealing to him—there were a lot of party girls and sluts. That was quickly apparent as he observed each of them rotate through sleeping with all the cooks. Definitely not his type. But there was one girl who seemed like she could be his type. He had caught a fleeting glimpse of her once as she walked in from her car, before she changed into her uniform, and that was enough to peak his interest, although he was left with merely a vague impression of her appearance. Dahlia, proclaimed her name tag. She didn’t smoke, so he had less opportunity to interact with her, but he had eagle eyes—and ears. He paid close attention to which waitresses she was friendly with. Just in case there was an opportunity to obtain some information. He was out of his element here, and this made him more quiet than usual. Everyone was so much older, and not interested in scruffy looking teenage dishwashers—who could blame them? He began to tune out everyone but her. She was polite and intelligent and she never barked orders at him like he was a slave, the way other waitresses tended to when they ran out of glasses in the middle of the lunch rush, or ended up with no forks for the banquet table for 30 they were setting up. She had a great sense of humor and was a hard worker. He found he knew a lot about her, but still had been unable to think of anything to say to her. He wanted to. He wanted to pull her aside and tell her she was beautiful, tell her he dreamed of her every night…every day. He wanted to just say something witty or clever or kind to her as she unloaded tray after tray of dirty dishes. But. But. He couldn’t. She always seemed to be talking to someone else, or if they were alone he remembered his age, and realized that she would never look at him the way he wanted her to. She was way out of his league. He could sense a depth to her, although he couldn’t put his finger on how he knew it. It was in her eyes—those laughing hazel eyes which were never the same color twice. She seemed more down to earth than some of the others, more real. She had a tattoo; he had heard her talking to someone about it. It was a butterfly, by her belly button. Just thinking about what it might look like drove him crazy. He was certain that she was beautiful outside of this dungeon, and he dreamed of her more and more frequently as he learned more of her personality, and filled in the blanks of the sketchy mental image he had of her.