Chapter Text
Pacifica–September 2012
My life was a lie.
Key word, was. It wasn’t anymore. But it used to be. From the moment I was born, my parents dressed me in the finest of finery, the best of the best, the tip of the top. Arrayed like a doll, with every aspect of my life carefully controlled, I was Miss Gravity Falls. Every year Dad would buy another layer of clothing (because bigger was always better and it didn’t matter how much it weighed, you’re a Northwest and you can handle it–or the bell would ring), Mom would slather another layer of product into my hair (“It has to be perfect–looks are what matter, Pacifica Elise!”), and I would apply another layer of makeup to my face (Can’t let them see anything other than the perfect, high standards of a Northwest!).
Yet none of it mattered. One by one, the layers had been removed. First during a midnight golf match, then in a scuffle with a ghost and a closet of family history, and finally, today, I would show everyone that Pacifica Elise Northwest wasn’t just the haughty valley girl stereotype–she was also a slime-covered, monster-fighting . . . waitress. If I got the job, that is. I scowled through the window at the scarlet letters painted on the wooden sign. NOW HIRING. “I’ll show you,” I told it. I’ll show you.
I breathed deeply and stepped inside. Alright, Pacifica. Time to make amends. And hopefully get a job so you don’t have to depend on Dad’s money, which can easily be misplaced in weirdness bonds, whatever those are.
The bell rang. I froze, then glared at the thing. I’m not controlled by YOU anymore. I traipsed to the counter, where Lazy Susan poured a mysterious brown liquid that may or may not have been coffee into a mug, spilling about half of it as she did so. Her good eye lifted to me and she used her finger to raise the eyelid of her bad one. “Well hello! I don’t see you around the diner much, Miss Northwest!”
Every unkind word I’d ever said about this place and about Susan raced through my head at once. It’s tackier than the Mystery Shack, and the Mystery Shack is trash! That style is so a century ago. She’s such a weirdo–
And she’ll never want you, Miss Haughty Northwest, to work in her diner after all your family’s done!
“Mrs. Wentworth?” My mouth was dry. I nearly couldn’t say anything, but I decided it would be best to be as respectful as possible.
“Oh, just call me Lazy Susan. Everyone else does!”
“Oh, well, Lazy Susan . . . I was wondering . . . I know I’m probably the last person you’d want to hire because my family and I’ve always been . . . the worst . . .” I scuffed my feet against the floor, my hands twined behind my back, unable to look Susan in the eye, “but . . . I’m here about the hiring sign . . . maybe I can help?”
“Tell you what, dear, I need a waiter or waitress. I can’t keep up with making everything and delivering it, so how about a test run? Just deliver this to that customer over there!” She handed me the cup with the mysterious brown liquid and pointed me to where Toby Determined sat in the corner. I walked over to him and set the cup down.
“For you,” I said, a little sheepishly.
“Yay!” He replied in his strange, nasally voice. It wasn’t too unlike Susan’s, I mused. I returned to the counter.
“You’re hired!” Lazy Susan declared, throwing an apron at me.
“Do you . . . always have an apron on you?” I queried, staring at the fabric folded in my arms. She shrugged.
I’d worked at Greasy’s after school for a week, and those afternoons were some of the best of my life. Yeah, a Northwest wasn’t supposed to be somewhere this shoddy and run-down, but Northwests were fake, and this was real. A surprising benefit to being a waitress was that whenever I recognized someone that the Northwests had hurt or that I had put down, I was able to apologize to them. It was a little awkward, but never as humiliating as I thought it would be.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?” I’d just finished washing up some plates. It was a busy day at the diner, and we were powering through our utensils and ingredients at an alarming rate. Susan stood by a griddle full of pancakes, spatula in hand.
“Of course!” Lazy Susan replied, flashing her trademark dazzling, slightly off-kilter smile.
“Why do people call you Lazy Susan?”
“Because I remind them of one!”
“Huh?”
“Here, let me show you!” She wheeled around, exclaiming, “WheeeeEEEeeeEe” the whole time. I snatched the spatula out of her hand as she continued to spin and flipped the pancakes over. Phew, they’re that beautiful golden-brown color–not burnt like I feared.
“Are you . . . still spinning?” I ventured to say.
She stopped. “Who, me? Oh, the pancakes!” She noticed the spatula in my hand. “My goodness, thanks for saving them Pacifica!”
“No problem!” I replied, flicking the pancakes onto some plates. I brought them to a customer when the bell rang–I flinched. Every time the bell rang, I flinched.
“The rumors are true,” someone whispered in awe.
“PACIFICA IS WORKING AT GREASY’S?”
“Candy . . . Grenda . . . hi?” I said.
We stood there awkwardly in a moment that stretched on forever. Well, it stretched on until Lazy Susan called for me to drop off some more food.
“I’ll be with you two in a moment.” I raced to go and do my job. Grenda and Candy had taken a table by the time I got back to them. I’d treated them terribly, like I had so many others, but they were the first people who’d come who were around my own age. I’d apologized mostly to people like Toby Determined and Lazy Susan. I adopted a tone of professionalism, not sure how else to sound. “Look, Grenda, Candy, I’ve been terrible to you two, and I’m . . . sorry.” You’d think it would get easier at some point!
“HOW DO WE KNOW THAT?” Grenda bellowed, unsurprisingly suspicious.
“Yes, you have been terrible to us,” Candy agreed, “but I suppose you did help stop the . . . Never Mind All That.”
“You know what? To prove that I am trying to make amends,” I said, “I’ll pay for all your meals from here for the next month. I won’t even be annoyed if you come every day just to take advantage of the deal.”
Grenda and Candy exchanged a knowing look. “Yes,” Candy replied, adjusting her glasses, “that arrangement could very well work.”
The two of them stopped by every day for the next week, but I was beginning to think it wasn’t for the free food–at least, not completely. I’d discovered that they were actually quite fun to be around, and I found a new appreciation for Candy’s quirk of taping forks to her fingers; it helped keep said fingers clean. They would talk with me as I worked, and sometimes I would end up telling them that I had to work now and couldn’t keep hanging with them, although I felt bad afterwards. They understood, and I was grateful. They were odd, but I didn’t think that was such a bad thing anymore.
I had a vague smile on my lips when I walked up the steps to our new humble two-story lace-trimmed abode. Burgundy and turquoise flowers bedecked the flawlessly manicured lawn, and a sign on the door read:
Northwest Residence. Do Not Enter: We are above you.
I smirked, shoving the door open, to be confronted by my parents. Dad had an aura of barely contained rage and Mom had her usual “I’m too pretty to be bothered with this but he dragged me into it” expression.
“Pacifica Elise Northwest, are you working as a waitress at that . . . that . . . greasy, broken-down excuse for a hovel of a restaurant?” Dad demanded.
“Excuse for a hovel of a restaurant?” I replied.
“Are you?”
I shrugged. “Yeah.”
“We lose our fortune, our good name is sullied by those Pines telling the town that Nathaniel was not the true founder of Gravity Falls, and you pour ice on our already precarious position in this town by lowering yourself to be with the laboring riffraff? Quit that “job” of yours right now, young lady!” He pulled out the bell and shook it. I scowled.
“Pacifica, think about how this looks,” Mom said. She applied lipstick using a small mirror, both of which she pulled out of her many pockets. All of the pockets were designed to hold items like makeup and other beauty products.
“It only looks bad to you two!” I argued.
“I will rescind your inheritance!” Dad barked. “I have considered doing this since the whole ghost situation, but this! This is too far!”
“Fine. You’ll only be helping me anyway,” I retorted.
“What?”
“I got a job because I don’t want to be dependent on you all my life. The earlier I can be independent, the better. So I’m working. And I like it. And I don’t care if you give me nothing for the rest of my life, because it’s never been about me, it’s always been about the appearances!”
A thoughtful look crossed Dad’s face. “While I do not appreciate the outburst or your methods, young lady, I can, perhaps . . . respect your motive of independence. You can keep your job at the diner, and your inheritance, for now. But know that we will discuss this again,” he added sternly.
“Thanks, Dad!” I gave him a quick hug and darted upstairs. I fought one battle against my parents and won. Hopefully we’d come to a truce eventually. Until then? I snapped open my phone to the Contacts app.
Me: Hey Mabel, you’ll never guess what I did a couple of weeks ago.