With my shift over, I made my escape through the gauntlet of leering bus boys and cat-calling prep cooks. Sighing in relief as I reached the back door, I pushed it open and stepped into the afternoon sun. I blinked and squinted and raised a flattened hand to shade my eyes. I could see nothing.
Has she stood me up again?
I wondered. A flash of panic tickled the base of my brain.
"Over here, dummy," came Maddy's voice with a hint of a laugh.
I melted in relief. "Heeey!" I cried out as I followed her voice.
As my vision returned I could make out her yellow Camaro with the twin black stripes running up the hood: a twentieth birthday present from her parents. I could see her face in the driver's side window; bobbed blonde hair bracketing big Dolce and Gabbana sun-glasses, themselves bracketing a perfect little freckly chip of a nose: all also gifts from her parents. But best off all was her big, toothy smile: her gift to me.
"Hi Maddy," I said as I dropped down into the passenger's seat. I looked at her, but the big sunglasses told me nothing. Tentatively, I leaned in for a kiss, but she pushed me back.
"Hey, we're in public," she said.
I looked around. The back of Oak Glen Plaza was sprawled around us: dumpsters, grease traps, employee cars, delivery vans. No people. I looked a question at her, my eyes betraying just a fraction of my hurt feelings.
"Besides, you stink," she added.
"I stink?"
"Like shitty food. Grease and onions, you know."
"Well, let's go to your house. Let me use your shower." I leaned in closer. "Maybe we..."
"My dad's home. Why don't we just go to your place, it's closer?"
"Our shower's broken, I'd have to take a bath and I always still feel greasy after a bath."
"Your shower is broken
again
?"
"No,
still.
Our landlord is worthless."
Maddy shook her head at the low-rent annoyances of my life. "OK. But if my dad asks where we're going, don't tell him."
"I thought we were going to your uncle's," I said. Not that I particularly wanted to meet her uncle, but at least that wouldn't be the type of situation where she'd be spending all our time trying to convince me to try a three-way with some jerk.
"Yeah," Maddy rolled her eyes. "You know how it is... family drama. Just don't tell him."
I gave her a questioning look but she said nothing.
***
Forty minutes later, my skin was rid of its greasy sheen and my thick, dark hair lay wet and heavy against my back. Maddy confirmed I no longer stank and handed me a small wad of clothes.
"Put these on."
She liked to dress me up. I didn't mind. She had much nicer clothes and I liked when she thought I looked sexy. The only problem is that Maddy has a short, willowy gymnast's body and I'm taller and curvier, so anything of hers is both too short and too tight. The little yellow tank top that ended well above my navel and the stretchy pink mini skirt that barely came down to my mid thigh were a particularly bad example. And the high heeled pumps certainly didn't help. She wanted me to go braless too, but that was where I drew the line.
"Jeez, Maddy, I look like a hooker!" I said, looking at myself in the mirror.
"I think you look
great
," she said as squeezed my ass and kissed me wetly on the neck.
Well, what could I say to that? I followed meekly as Maddy escorted me downstairs, though the marble-tiled foyer into the kitchen, where her dad sat at the breakfast nook reading his iPad. The light reflecting in from the pool outside was sending crazy wavy snakes of light dancing around him, but I could still see his eyes pop open lasciviously when he saw me nearly bursting out of his daughter's clothes.
"So where you girls headed?" he asked as he sat down his tablet and forced his eyes away from my tits.
"Out," said Maddy.
"Damn it, Madeline," he said. "I'm your father. Tell me."
Maddy rolled her eyes. "We're gonna do some crack and bang a bunch of black guys. We're both ovulating so..."
"Jesus! Don't kid around like that."
"What? The crack part or the black guys part or the ovulating...?"
Cold stare.
"We're going shopping." I said, improvising. "I got paid today."
"A young woman with a job!" said Maddy's dad. "Those are pretty rare around here," he said, turning a baleful eye towards his daughter.
"Screw this, I forgot my phone," said Maddy. She strode out of the room, leaving me behind.
There as an awkward silence as he tried (and failed) not to let his eyes linger on my body. It made me feel uncomfortable, especially because he looked so much like Maddy that I actually felt a little echo of attraction to him. And I wasn't even into guys anymore.
"You work at that Mexican place, Dos Perros, right?" he finally said.
"Yeah."
He looked at me like a specimen. I could read his face as he gauged how 'ethnic' I looked. I really hoped he wouldn't ask me. Truth is, I'm not really sure. My mom says my father "looked Latino" and that's as much as I know.
"Waitress?"
"Hostess. I show people to their tables, work the register..." I could hear Maddy's heels tick-tacking back across the foyer towards the kitchen, so I let myself trail off.
"Yeah, the fat perv who owns the place always puts the girls with the big tits up front," said Maddy as she walked back in. "Obviously, Lily was a shoe-in." She reached around me and squeezed my breasts at her dad, twice. "
honk, honk
," she said.