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Sometimes it's so twisted and surreal it seems like a fairytale, and she's convinced that they put some kind of curse on her. They slapped a label on her carelessly and they trapped her and then they forgot about her-- or they stalked her, which is even worse. They trapped her and she's sure that if one of them, it doesn't matter who, would just say her name, her whole real name, she'd finally be free. But they don't, and she isn't, so she serves coffee and collects tips so she can pay her measly rent and be a Waitress for the rest of her life.
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When the day seems like it's going by slow, and the Waitress finally has time to catch her breath, Dee Reynolds bursts through the door. Dee is wearing new shoes and walking funny; the shoes are too small and stolen, and, of course, Dee is blind drunk. Her dress is too flashy and her make-up overdone. She staggers to the counter and plops her purse down.
“Hello, Dee,” the Waitress says.
“I want a coffee.” Dee makes a nonsensical motion with her hands. “A real big one. Like, the size of my head.”
“Fine.” The Waitress says. “Coffee doesn't sober you up, you know. People say it does, but they're wrong.”
“Learn that in AA?” Dee says loudly.
The Waitress slaps the coffee down on the counter, wordlessly, just as Dee looks at the clock.
“Oh, shit,” Dee says.
Dee yanks at her purse suddenly and knocks the coffee right over. The lid pops off and the coffee splashes all down Dee's thin green dress and Dee stares at the Waitress. The Waitress gapes. Then Dee's alcohol-addled mind catches up with her body and she outright screams. She yanks at her dress to pull it away from her skin.
“Oh my fucking God!” the Waitress yells.
“You bitch!” Dee screams and the Waitress, stunned, watches her haul ass out of the café. Hot coffee still dripping from the hem of her dress.
The Waitress looks down at the counter where Dee put her payment, three large glimmering foiled chocolate coins. One of Dee's ugly shoes is lying by the door.
The Waitress looks up at the clock just as it strikes noon and starts on cleaning up the spilled coffee. She should be on her lunch break by now.
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Dee comes in again the next day, early in the morning right after the coffee shop opens. She has dark bags under her eyes, loose sweatpants on her legs, and holds herself uncomfortably. She goes straight to the Waitress at the front counter.
“I have burns all over my body,” she growls.
“What do you want me to do about it?” the Waitress demands, and crosses her arms.
Dee clenches her jaw tightly. She stomps around the corner of the counter and advances on the Waitress and grabs her around the wrist and isn't gentle about it. The Waitress forgets all the time how tall Dee is. Now Dee looms over her and the Waitress is dragged to her tiptoes by Dee's grip and the Waitress remembers another thing about Dee that she'd forgotten: Dee is scary. Her blonde hair is messy and frames her snarling face like a lion's mane.
“Come with me,” Dee says. She drags the Waitress across the shop into the bathroom and locks the door. In a flash the top half of Dee's body is totally exposed. Her hoodie and t-shirt are lying on the floor, and the Waitress is backed up against the wall, wedged between the sink and the hand dryer and feeling like a trapped mouse.
“Look at this,” Dee says. She gestures aggressively at her body. It's true that her stomach and lower chest are badly burnt and as they heal, will probably only look worse. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
The Waitress doesn't have anything to say for a while.
“I have some aloe vera in my purse,” she says finally.
“Well go fucking get it then,” Dee snaps. The Waitress goes and fucking gets it.
She is halfway to the back office when Dee yells, “And where's my fucking shoe?”
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On a Saturday night a rock crashes through the Waitress' apartment window and she screams at the top of her lungs. At first, she takes cover behind her old ripped-up couch, shaking and waiting for a robber or someone to fly into the room. After a minute or two, she glances around the side of the couch, still nervous. While she waits with bated breath, eyes glued to where the window used to be, she watches a few small pebbles land with soft clink's among the broken glass.
Eventually, she gets up and tiptoes to the window. Dee Reynolds is standing three stories below.
“Hey!” Dee shouts. Her voice is shrill. “I have your gel!”
“My window--” the Waitress starts.
“No, your gel,” Dee shouts again.
The Waitress has had it. She's fuming. Dee has lit that fire in her and the Waitress will do anything to get her away, far away, nowhere near her apartment, not her coffee shop or any part of her life. Without thinking she looks around, then runs to her bathroom, rifling through the cabinet under her sink. She grabs a small basket full of perfumes and hairbrushes and almost sprints back to the window, where, with tears in her eyes, she starts throwing everything she can down at Dee, praying, if there's any good in the world, that she'll land a hit. A rose-scented perfume, a handful of hair extensions, a heavy gaudy tiara with half the rhinestones gone, until the basket is empty. The Waitress throws that, too.
The Waitress regains her composure, breathing heavily. And Dee is still there looking up at her. The ground around Dee is littered with smashed bottles and stray hair ties, where they had all landed harmlessly while Dee stood still, miraculously immune to the onslaught. The Waitress has always had bad aim.
“I'll head to the front door, so just buzz me in already,” Dee yells.
Silently, the Waitress complies.
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When she was a little girl, the Waitress was obsessed with fairytales. Witches, wizards, knights, princesses, and most important-- princes. Princes who save you from your family. Princes who take you on magic carpet rides. They take your boring life and they make it so much better. They kiss you and you finally wake up, and you're not the Maid or the Servant or even the Waitress anymore, you're just you. They lift the curse for you.
The Waitress lies in bed beside Dee. Like always, when sharing a bed, the Waitress finds it hard to sleep. Dee is out cold. She snores loudly and drool steadily escapes from between her lips and adds to the puddle on her pillow. The Waitress looks at her for a long while and then leans over and kisses her forehead gently.
Dee doesn't wake up.