Chapter Five – The Date, Part One

Andi

'Andrea! What do you think you're doing?!'

I looked down at the stack of dishes I had piled up in my arms and was carrying through the swing doors into the restaurant kitchen, then back up into the eyes of Jayne, my supervisor, glowering as I did so. I hated being called Andrea, and Jayne knew it. She just did it to piss me off. Bugging me and the rest of the waiting staff was the only way that the sad middle aged woman with the bad perm that should have been left back in the eighties could get any pleasure in her bleak and dismal little life, and so she took every opportunity to annoy the hell out of us. So many times I had fantasized about telling her exactly what I thought of her. So many times I had bit my tongue and kept my feelings to myself.

'I'm taking these dishes into the kitchen,' I replied through gritted teeth. 'What does it look like I'm doing?'

'It looks to me,' she began snootily, 'like you snatched those plates up off of table three then raced away without asking them if they had enjoyed their meal, or if they wanted coffee or desert.' I fought not to roll my eyes at her. 'Are you chewing gum?' she screeched, narrowing her beady black eyes and bending down trying to peer into my mouth. I clamped my lips shut and shook my head. She had warned me about chewing gum at work a million times before, but I never paid any attention. Each time she had to remind me about it she docked five dollars out of my paycheck. So far this month I was down thirty dollars.

'Andrea!' she seethed. 'Do you think the good patrons of this establishment want to see you chomping away like a cow out to graze?'

I spat my gum out onto the plate on top of the stack I was carrying. 'Happy?' I asked flatly. I could practically see the steam coming out of her ears.

'You madam, are skating on very thin ice, I hope you know that.'

'Sorry Jayne,' I replied, bumping the kitchen door open with my butt. 'I won't do it again.' And tomorrow the sky will be pink and filled with flying leprechauns and fairies.

I walked into the kitchen, leaving the door to slam in Jayne's beet red face. She loved playing the high and mighty act, pretending like she would actually fire me. The truth was I would never get fired. No one ever did. Berridge is a pretty small town, and when it comes to staff Berridge Golf Club has a pretty high turn over. The majority of new staff don't usually stay on for longer than a month, due to the fact that the place is run by an intolerable bunch of more-money-than-common-decency morons and imbeciles. As a result a large percentage of the population of Berridge have worked at the golf club at one point or another. Very few make it to long term employee status. And those of us that do would never be fired.

I dumped the dishes by the sink, pausing to give Choma, the old polish guy who worked as the dishwasher/kitchen porter, a friendly smile and pat on the back. Saturday night shifts were hell. There was always some kind of function taking place, plus the 140 seat restaurant to contend with. There were only four waiting staff working that shift which meant we had around eight tables each in addition to serving in the lounge where the function was being held.

I had just picked up two plates of ribeye steak that had been ordered by an elderly couple on table five when Melissa, one of the other waitresses came and grabbed the dishes out of my hands.

'Here, I'll take those,' she muttered. I noted that she was also chewing gum and wondered how much she'd had docked from her pay check this month, but I didn't dwell on it for too long, due to the fact that she was running off with my orders.

'Hey Mel! What are you doing?' I blocked the exit so she couldn't leave.

'I'm taking this order over to table five,' she informed me.

'Why?' I asked. 'Your section is packed, haven't you got enough tables already?'

'Party of six just came in and sat at table eighteen,' she replied. 'They asked to be served by you. Andi Addison. They insisted. Now if you don't mind I'd like to get through, these plates are really heavy.'

I stepped aside and let her pass. If only I had been tall enough to look through the porthole windows on the doors leading out to the restaurant I would have taken a peek to see who was sat at table eighteen, but even standing on my tiptoes my height still posed a problem. Curse you Mother Nature! I could also have cursed the idiot who had designed the doors without taking into consideration the needs of the vertically challenged, but whatever. I didn't have time for that. Instead I pushed the door open and stepped outside. The second my eyes adjusted to the subdued 'ambient' lighting and I was able to make out the jolly group of people huddled around table eighteen my heart took a nosedive. It was Micah and his family. Great. Just great.

My first instinct was to grab Jim or Cara the other waiter and waitress that were working that night and beg and plead with the to serve Micah and his family. But there was no way I could do that. They had asked for me especially and my section of tables was right beside their table – I was going to have to walk by them again and again whether I served them or not. And Micah's Mom, Sherrie, is a very persistent woman. If she wanted to talk to me – which I was almost certain she did, then there was no way to avoid it. My fate was sealed. Trying desperately to swallow the nervous lump that had formed in my throat I grabbed my notepad and pen and began to walk over to their table, head held high and shoulders relaxed. If I was going to do this I would do it with dignity and grace.

When I arrived at the table they were all too busy laughing at a joke someone had made – presumably that someone was Marvin, Micah's uncle – to notice me. Practically everything that man said had a punch line. I waited a second for their laughter to subside, then in my clearest, calmest voice I began to speak.

'Mr and Mrs Evan's. Nice to see you.' Immediately Sherrie's head snapped around to face me, a large grin forming on her cherry red lips.

'Oh Andi, my darling! How wonderful to see you looking so well!"

I forced a smile. Sherrie had always been incredibly nice to me and I found myself wondering if she was this nice to Sarah, seeing as she had been the girl to replace me. Thankfully, Sarah wasn't with them. If she had have been I might have had to feign illness and take the rest of the night off. But even Micah wouldn't be mean enough to bring his new girlfriend to the place I worked and insist on me serving them.

'Can I take your order?' I asked, fighting to preserve a professional demeanour.

'Oh that can wait,' Sherrie grinned, waving a perfectly manicured hand as if she were swatting a fly away. 'Let's take a few minutes to chat and catch up.'

I shifted from one foot to the other, trying to hide my discomfort. 'I'm sorry Mrs Evans, I can't. It's really busy here tonight. I have a lot of work to do.'

'Oh,' she said pouting. 'But I never get to see you anymore. You never come over to the house like you used to.'

Sadness washed over me as I remembered how I had spent practically every day at Micah's house when the two of us were dating. I had practically lived there and Marvin was always making cracks about how I should start paying rent. I tried to think of a way to reply but was saved – if that's the right word to use – by Micah's little sister, Claire.

'Mom, Andi doesn't come over anymore because Micah has a new girlfriend now.' She spoke to her mother as if she were addressing a smaller child who needed everything explaining to them. Despite the sting of truth that her words held I couldn't help but smile. Claire had always been an entertaining kid.

'I know that Claire,' Sherrie replied, her cheeks turning a slight shade of pink. 'Now just be quiet and drink your lemonade.' She turned to me with apologetic eyes. 'Sorry about that.'

'That's okay,' I replied. 'She's just telling the truth.' I wanted to go on and say that she should be grateful to have at least one child who was capable of being honest. After all Micah had lied when he told me he didn't want to be in a committed relationship, but I felt that this was neither the time nor the place to point that out. Just thinking about Micah was enough to draw my gaze over to where he sat. As usual, he looked amazing in a black shirt, jeans and that unbeatable smile of his.

'Hey,' he said softly, his dazzling blue eyes looking right into mine. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't stand there making conversation with them all like it wasn't tearing me apart inside. I looked down at the notepad in my hands and began to speak.

'If you aren't ready to order yet I can come back in ten minutes.'

'No that's okay,' said Mitch, Micah's father. 'We're ready now.'

Quickly, I scribbled down their orders and turned to leave but before I could get away Sherrie put a hand on mine and said in a hushed voice, 'I can see you're rushed off your feet. I'll try and have a word with your supervisor to see if you can have a break. Then we can take some time to catch up.'

I forced another smile. I felt like saying "good luck with that" knowing only too well that Jayne would never agree to giving me a break. Instead I just nodded politely before racing back to the kitchen to place their order.

An hour or so later things seemed die down a little. I had taken the orders over to Micah's family's table a little while earlier and had managed to get away from them pretty quickly without seeming rude. Now I was stood at the waiters' station filling up the cutlery baskets while there was a temporary lull. I sensed a shadow fall over me and looked up, expecting to see Jim standing behind me, eager to get to the glass of water he had hidden behind the baskets. But instead it was Micah smiling down at me. My grip on the desert spoons I was holding tightened instantly as my whole body seized up in awkward tension.

'I forgot how cute you look in your uniform,' he smiled teasingly.

'Don't,' I said, shaking my head.

'Don't what?' he asked.

'Don't say things like that to me,' I snapped, angry at him for coming over and acting like nothing had changed, when everything had changed.

'Why not?' he smiled. 'You never minded before.'

'Yeah, well before I was your girlfriend,' I muttered. 'Now I'm not.'

'Sorry,' he replied. I couldn't work out what he was apologizing for; the fact that he had said something inappropriate or that fact that he no longer wanted me as his girlfriend.

'Are you guys finished?' I asked, peering past him to take a look at his table.

'Yeah, but you don't have to rush to clear the table,' he replied. 'We're not ordering anything else. Actually we're leaving pretty soon.' Thank God. 'You look sort of relieved about that,' he smiled.

'As shocking as it may be to you Micah, you guys were not on my top ten list of people I wanted to serve tonight. No offense.'

'Well I appreciate that you did,' he told me. 'I know it was kind of out of line for me to ask for you to serve us when you were so busy, but – '

'You, asked for me to serve you guys?' I interrupted. 'I thought it was your Mom.'

Micah nodded his head slowly. 'I wanted the chance to talk to you out of school. I've missed you.'

'You have a new girlfriend Micah,' I replied. 'I'm sure she's keeping you entertained.'

'I miss you as a friend Andi,' he said, the look in his eyes appearing to be genuine. 'Just because we're not together anymore doesn't mean we can't be friends.'

'Says the guy who spent the past week ignoring me,' I replied.

' I was ignoring you? Hey, you were the one ignoring me!'

'I was not – ' I began defensively, but a second into my argument I realized what he'd said was true. I had been ignoring him. But what did he expect?

'How would it have looked if I'd tried to talk you at school?' I asked him. 'I would have looked like a desperate ex-girlfriend.'

'You're more than an ex-girlfriend to me Andi,' he smiled. 'You always will be.'

'I think your family are getting ready to leave,' I said, nodding my head towards the rest of the Evans clan as they all began getting up out of their seats.

'What time do you finish tonight, eleven?' he asked, still smiling. He had such an irresistible smile…

'Yeah, so what?' I snapped, trying to shrug off the effect his smile was having on me.

'I thought maybe we could hang out for a while,' he replied. 'Maybe go to Lila's for the last hour?' Lila's was a small diner that most of the kids in the Berridge area hung out at on the weekends. It stayed open until twelve and was one of the very few options people had around here.

'You…have…a…girlfriend.' I said the words slowly, dragging them out in the hope that they would sink into his thick, but beautiful head.

'Andi,' I'm asking you as a friend, alright?' he sighed. 'Nothing more. Please believe me when I tell you that I really want us to be friends. Let me prove it to you.' The only response I could muster was a scowl, the only reaction this brought out in him was a soft laugh. 'You're so cute when you do that.'

'Stop it Micah!' I yelled, perilously close to losing my temper. A split second later Jayne appeared at my side, as if from nowhere.

'Andrea, what is going on? Why are you shouting at customers?' After a glance in Micah's direction, her overly made up face clouded over and she whipped her head back to face me. 'Oh. Excuse me. It's your boyfriend you're yelling at during work hours, by all means, feel free to carry on.' Her words were so thick with sarcasm that it was a wonder she could even get them out of her nasty old mouth.

'He's not my boyfriend,' I mumbled.

'Well I don't care who he is,' she hissed. 'Just don't bring you r personal problems to work!' Seeing another of the waiting staff obviously doing something wrong Jayne abruptly rushed off leaving Micah and I alone.'

'I'll pick you up at eleven, okay?' he said backing away towards his family.

'Micah, no!' I protested.

'Eleven it is. See you then.' And with that Micah turned his back on me and walked away. If he thought he was going to get things his way, that eleven o'clock would come and I would go rushing to meet him, then he was seriously deluded. But even as I vowed to myself that I would not meet up with Micah, there was a small ember of warmth inside me, just knowing that he missed me. Even if it was just as a friend.

Jesse

'Carly, my arm…'

'Huh?'

'My arm. You're restricting the blood flow.'

'Oops.' Carly grinned up at me, loosening her vicelike grip on my arm ever so slightly as we walked down the steps of the movie theater. I wanted her to let go of my arm completely, but she seemed so casual about the way she was linking me that I really didn't want to cause a scene about it. So what if it made us look like a couple in love? It didn't mean we were.

'So what do you want do now?' she asked.

I shrugged. 'There's not a whole lot we can do.'

'Oh I think I could come up with an idea or two.' She giggled and her eyes glittered with mischief. I wasn't sure what to say to that. Carly was a nice enough girl, a little too full on maybe, but basically nice. I couldn't help but wonder what she saw this date leading to. More dates? A relationship? I didn't really want that, but I suck at trying to let people down gently.

'We could always go to Lila's,' she said checking her watch. 'It doesn't close for another hour.'

Once again I shrugged. 'I guess we could.' I was trying to seem as indifferent as possible. I didn't want to get her hopes up for no reason.

She grinned at me. 'Okay, Lila's it is then.'

A/N – This chapter was meant to be much longer, but seeing as it has taken me a while to update I decided to update it in two parts.

HUGE THANKS to dani-sgga, YouToBlame, Shadow Outome, bibble, twistedFAerieTAles, PRINCESS02, jay-a4dee-uu, kaiy914, starlightxmagic, BBreakdown, Keadae Sun, Rezie, Jessica S1, myles-miles, Misundastood AKA Lou X X X, Nova Light, hi, carol, Miss-India, queen-lala, GhostSmilez, jennycraig10, kira, sharp-tounged, Psycho, Muzzy-Olorea, LcT514