Chapter 2
2149 Words
McDougall"s Pub was a quaint little restaurant down in Centre Town, a hot spot for people who wanted to enjoy a quiet meal and a beer after work. Faux lanterns were hung up on the wood-panelled walls, casting soft orange light upon the wooden tables that were spread out across the blue carpet.
There were booths along each wall, most of them filled with young couples sharing a romantic evening, and the noise of soft conversation permeated the room, settling into a hum in the back of Jack"s mind.
The young hostess stood at her place just inside the front door. Skinny as a post, she wore a pair of black pants and a matching shirt that clung to her body.
Her sun-darkened face was framed by long dark hair that dropped to the small of her back, little flecks of body glitter sparkling on her cheeks. “Hello, Jack,” Genevieve Stevenson said coyly. “Working late again?”
Folding his arms across his chest, Jack lifted his chin. He squinted at her, steadying his nerves. “Genevieve,” he said, nodding once. “And how is my favourite grade-twelve student this evening?”
“Eighteen in two weeks,” she said. “In other words…soon to be legal.”
Jack snapped his fingers. “I"ll have to write Parliament about that.”
He left before she could come up with a reply, clocking in on the small touch-screen terminal on the back wall. After that, it was a quick jaunt to the middle of the room where he found several tables in a state of disarray. Nothing like a little manual labour to take your mind off things you"d rather not think about. School and grades and seventeen-year-olds who didn"t know when to quit.
“Do you work here?”
He spun around.
Mopping a hand over his face, Jack scrubbed fingers through his hair. “Yes, ma"am, I do,” he said, blinking a few times. “Is there anything I can help you with? Do you have a table?”
The old woman who stood before him wore a winter coat despite the warm spring weather. Her leathery face was marked by a mole on her cheek, and the curly hair on her head had turned white. “My hamburger is all wrong,” she explained. “I specifically told the waitress no pickles. Are you all deaf?”
Red-cheeked with chagrin, Jack smiled and bowed his head to her. “We"ll get you another one right away,” he said. “My apologies, ma"am. Allow me to offer you a free dessert.”
“I don"t want dessert.”
The old woman folded her arms over her chest. She lifted her chin and stared up at him for a long moment. “I want you to get my order right the first time. My husband and I have been waiting twenty minutes!”
“Right away, ma"am.”
He made his way back to the kitchen, trying to stuff the bile back down into the pit of his stomach. These were the joys of the service industry! Without some kind of higher education, he could look forward to a long life of taking a***e from senior citizens who had forgotten that to err is human.
The kitchen was a white-tiled room where fluorescent lights in the ceiling gave off enough illumination for the half dozen or so cooks to scurry about like a swarm of bees gathering pollen. A deep-fryer on the back wall was operated by a man in a white uniform with a hairnet on his head.
The head chef stood at her worktable, chopping carrots. A gorgeous woman in her late twenties, she wore the same uniform as every other cook, but somehow made it seem a little more…spiffy.
Her round face was marked by rosy cheeks, and sweat glistened on her forehead. A hairnet held blonde hair in place. “Hey, Tracy,” Jack called out. “We need another burger for that couple at table six.”
“Seriously?”
“Sadly, yes.”
A smile bloomed on Tracy"s face, the rosy hue in her cheeks somehow deepening by several shades. “All right, Jack,” she said softly, “but only because you ignore my cousin"s attempts to throw herself at you.”
“She can throw all she wants,” Jack muttered. “I"ve never been good at catching. I"m more the guy who shouts, "I"ve got it! I"ve got it!" then runs into the wall.”
“The wall?”
“Mine is not a happy story.”
His night went on like that for several hours: menial tasks coupled with a whole lot of self-recrimination. For whatever reason, he just couldn"t get the events of that morning out of his head. Jack Hunter, the loser. Jack Hunter, the man who had managed to screw up his life before his age even started with a two.
When he wasn"t waiting tables, he was putting supplies away, making sure that the condiments were stocked and cleaning up after people who really should have been old enough to know better. It was a lovely existence. At one point, he crossed paths with old Lou, the restaurant"s owner. A grunt and a stiff nod were all he received after wishing the man a good night.
The supply room wasn"t much bigger than a closet, its walls lined with old brown bricks, and steel shelves made it hard to move around. He spotted a box of napkins up on the highest shelf. Good thing I"m tall.
Good thing I"m tall.Craning his neck, Jack squinted at the top shelf. “All the way up there, eh?” he said, nodding to himself. “Well, good thing natural selection decided to bless me with a tall and lanky physique.”
“Hey, Hunter.”
He whirled around to find another man standing in the doorway that led back to the kitchen. Marc Norris was a large fellow with a scruffy beard on his sun-darkened face. “Your sister"s here.”
Jack buried his face in the palm of his hand. He let out a groan that reminded him of a dying weasel. “Just what I need,” he muttered. “A little mothering by proxy. Let me guess, she has food.”
“Go easy on her, man,” Marc shot back. “Wish my sister cared like that.”
“Yeah…I know.” Jack pushed past the man, making his way into the kitchen. The steel door in the back wall led out to the small parking lot that the staff used. When they could use it. Half the time, customers sneaked in there, and it wasn"t like you could tell them not to.
couldOnce he was outside, Jack took a moment to savour the sweet caress of cool wind on his face. The night was crisp and clear with a thousand tiny stars decorating the sky, barely visible thanks to the glow of city lights.
The small parking lot was packed, each space taken up by someone"s car – many of them too big to maneuver in such close quarters – and Jack wondered why anybody even bothered to drive to work. He spotted his sister maybe twenty feet away from the back porch, waiting for him.
Lauren Hunter was a slender woman wearing black pants and a short-sleeved shirt. Her long dark hair was tied back to reveal a pale face with sharp blue eyes. “I come bearing gifts,” she said, lifting a plastic bag. “Chicken soup. And I expect you to eat it.”
“Or what?”
“I"ll kick you.”
Jack rolled his eyes.
“I have something to tell you,” he began with a touch of hesitation in his voice. He had been meaning to put this off as long as possible – anxiety was like a drill punching a hole in his chest – but now that the opportunity had presented itself, he had to get it over with. “The university turned me down.”
“Oh…That"s not so bad.”
Jack turned away from her.
Marching up the steps with his arms folded, he stopped on the wooden deck. “Not so bad?” he said, glancing back over his shoulder. “I seem to remember a whole army of guidance counsellors saying the opposite.”
Lauren stood in the parking lot with hands clasped behind her back, her eyes fixed on the pavement. “You yourself said guidance counsellors don"t know anything,” she told him. “I know Dad will have a fit, but you"ll work things out.”
“If you say so.”
“Stop being so hard on yourself, Jack,” she snapped. “There are many schools and there are many ways to survive in this world without going to any of them. Our parents might have had all these lofty ambitions, but things aren"t the same for us and that"s okay. You know we"ll always take care of each other.”
He did know that much. Many times over the last year, he had considered moving in with Lauren and her boyfriend Steve. The idea of living with a couple made him a tad uneasy, but his sister seemed in favour of it. It was Steve he wasn"t so sure about. Still, it was good to know he had someone. “Thanks, sis,” he said softly. “For the soup and the words of encouragement.”
“Make sure you eat.”
The evening wore down along with Jack"s energy levels, customers gradually clearing out and leaving the pub in a state of dim silence with the scent of various dishes still lingering in the air. Somehow, he found time to wolf down the sandwich and guzzle the cup of soup before midnight.
His last few tables wanted nothing more than a pitcher of domestic beer and the odd appetizer, so he left them with their bills and set about cleaning up. With that done, he sat down to rest for a while. That was how he found himself talking to Genevieve.
Jack sat in a booth with his elbow plunked down on the table, his chin resting on the palm of his hand. “Not a bad day,” he said, eyebrows rising. “Tips alone will cover groceries for a week.”
Across from him, Genevieve leaned back against the leather seat cushion, a smile on her pretty face. “Or you could do something romantic,” she teased. “You ever hear of the Star Registry? Last week, Lou bought a star for his wife.”
“You know, one of these days someone"s gonna purchase a star that happens to be home to some other species.” His mouth stretched in a yawn that he stifled with his fist. Letting his arm drop, Jack smacked his lips a few times. “I wonder what"s gonna happen when they find out about it.”
“Are you always so glum?”
A wave of heat surged through Jack"s face. He squeezed his eyes shut, bowing his head to her. “I like to think I"m realistic,” he murmured. “But I guess I could buy a star. Galactic Domination has always been a goal of mine.”
In a way, he felt sorry for Genevieve. He wasn"t that much older than her – less than two years, to be honest; hardly a massive age difference – but deep down, he just couldn"t bring himself to open up to her. Oh, she was gorgeous, but Jack knew that if they were to ever try a serious relationship, it would fall apart. “Look, kid,” he said at last, “I promise it"s not you.”
thatGenevieve lifted her chin, her eyes as sharp as daggers as she watched him. “Then who is it?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Don"t tell me you"re going to fall back on the "it"s not you, it"s me," routine.”
“Can"t beat a classic.”
“Har har.”
“I"m not headed for a bright future, kid,” Jack said. “Trust me, you do not want to board this train.”
Genevieve lowered her eyes to stare down into her lap, her cheeks flushed to a soft pink. “You know,” she began, shaking her head, “maybe you"re right. Excuse me, Jack. I just remembered I have something to do.”
She left without another word.
A heavy sigh escaped him as he buried his face in his hands and rubbed his brow with his fingertips. “Good one, Jack,” he muttered to himself. “You"re becoming such an expert in the fine art of diplomacy.”
- Writer
