Page 6 of Drawn Together

Hearing that, I should have known what to expect, given the bar the other night.

However, when we pull up to the Backside Diner, which still has a smoking section, I am overly delighted.

The waitresses are on skates, which is equally fun and exhausting to watch.

This whole place is kind of like Hooters but with older women in very tiny shorts, the curve of their behinds on display—the backside in Backside Diner, if you will.

I have to say, if my butt looked as good as some of these ladies’, I might do this after retirement, too.

The menus are laminated, sticky, and feature breakfast cocktails with names like, I Like Big Buns and I Cannot Lie, and Fuzzy Navel.

Every fifteen minutes, there is a dance party that involves a chef behind the counter flipping a pancake on someone's butt while they’re bent over.

I thought it was just a waitress thing, but then a man decked out in full biker leathers happily leaned over and let a chocolate chip pancake fresh off the skittle hit his behind.

I wonder what they do when it’s your birthday.

Lennon orders a number seven, fried eggs over easy and three slices of toast that are—you guessed it—also in the shape of a butt.

I go for the French toast sticks with strawberries.

Our waitress, Diane, takes our silverware out of her skirt—a tad unsanitary for my liking—and sets our plates in front of us.

“My mom used to say you could tell a lot about someone by what they eat for breakfast.”

Lennon looks down from her plate to mine with a raised brow, like I might have insulted her, so I tack on, “I love fried eggs and toast!” like that is an actual compliment.

She takes her fork, breaking up the yolk so it runs across her plate, while I grab the syrup dispenser with a ceramic bikini bottom over the top.

Silence falls upon us as we scarf down our food, and while I am clawing at the cage in my mind telling me to not ask what Lennon’s friends did, I decide if I am going to pull this whole friendship thing off, I have to do it the right way.

Pushing myself into her life hasn’t worked in the last few months.

So, if it’s uncomfortable silence she wants at a butt diner, then that’s what we’re going to do.

I take ?it in. A cluster of Harley Davidson's line the front of the diner, and the window has a decal of a pancake flipping the bird.

Mismatched memorabilia covers the walls, including vintage license plates, a sun-faded poster of Burt Reynolds, and a chalkboard labeling the week's backside-dedicated drinks.

I stare in amazement as the older waiters and waitresses keep passing us with phrases on the butt of their micro shorts, like Hot Griddle or Over Easy.

Our booth has a crack in the vinyl shaped suspiciously like Florida.

I kind of love it here.

I take a bite of my vanilla French toast when Lennon asks, very loudly might I add, “So, did you sleep with Fletcher?”

The half-chewed food on my tongue shoots to the back of my throat as I gasp, back straight, and fist hurling into my chest in an attempt to save my life.

Our waitress looks up at me with minimal concern before turning back to the man trying to get her to refill his coffee for the sixth time since we sat down.

“I—I’m sorry?”

“He walked you home from trivia.”

“Well, he didn’t walk me home.” I try to make my breathing normal, and it’s not going well.

A vision of Fletcher in a vulnerable position makes my skin tingly and my whole body shudder.

“He walked to his home, which is coincidentally across the street,” I say, with a hint of Would you like to explain further?

She doesn’t. She skips right along.

“I wasn’t saying it in a judgmental way. Fletcher is nice to look at.”

I don't know if I have ever been so unbearably warm in my life. The orange juice I am shoveling down my throat is not helping either. “Well, definitely nothing happened there.”

“Just wondering.” Lennon shrugs and goes back to her food.

We eat mostly in silence beyond the dance parties—where I am almost convinced to get my own free pancake—the sounds of skates along ceramic tiles, and the distant chatter of the many filled tables around us.

I take such large bites of my perfectly crunchy and somewhat soggy French toast sticks that Lennon gawks at me, and I have to send a friendly reminder to myself to slow down.

When she clears her throat to speak, I assume it’s about my caveman table ethics, but she murmurs a low question.

“Are you not working today?”

“Oh.” I straighten. “I am, but not until one.”

I try to take the morning shifts, because it’s nice to have my shift over so I can spend the whole afternoon on sketches without feeling the impending doom of walking into Nook and Cranny as my boss lets me know I am not doing the book displays right in the kids’ corner.

Seven-inch ribbons every two feet, Flora.

I love working there. It’s quiet and a great way to catch up on my reading and get access to new release ARC copies.

And, I get to read books during story time to all the precious little faces in our little nook.

But Edith, at her four-foot-nothing stature, is someone that can haunt your nightmares.

“Are they hiring?”

“What?” I look up from the syrup I’ve been prodding my fork around in. “Who?”

“That bookstore you work at. Are they hiring?”

My eyebrows lift, and I shovel another bite of French Toast in. “Actually, they are.”

There are only three of us working there, since our last cashier had to leave on account of making horribly graphic fanfics about the rest of the staff. Mine, titled Wizard of Want, gained thousands of readers. It was both flattering and scarring.

I look up at her mid-chew, my right cheek poking out as if a golf ball sits in it.

“Do…do you know someone looking?”

Lennon shakes her head, pushing her plate out in front of her, like she needs to signal that she’s done—only three bites from an untouched plate. “I lost my job two weeks ago.”

“What?” My voice is shrill, and a woman two tables behind Lennon glances back at me with a scowl, and I lower my voice.

She lost her job? Then, where does she go every day?

What even was her job? How did she lose it?

Questions are bouncing around my mind like the DVD logo hitting every edge of the TV, but never the corner.

I would love nothing more than to have five minutes alone in Lennon’s headspace.

“Long story.” She waves a hand. "I missed this big event, and they called me to tell me I was fired."

I use all my brain cells to piece enough words together to make a sentence. “Um, well, I am— Oh boy.”

“So, can you get me an interview?”

Maybe I should have given it some thought. Maybe I should say I will see what I can do, or that I can give it a shot.

But I do neither of those. I blurt out the words, “Absolutely, of course,” as if I have an ounce of control in the job where I don’t know if the others working there even like me.

The other day, Edith saw me re-shelving some YA Sci-Fi fantasy, not knowing if it belonged in YA or Sci-Fi or fantasy, and when I landed with YA she shook her head and made a disapproving ‘mmm’ noise, before turning to the two other workers there and whispering something.

I don’t enjoy jumping to conclusions, but I imagine the conversation was something like Flora is stupid.

What a loser. I moved the book back to fantasy immediately.

“Cool, thanks.”

By the time we receive our checks—a strip of paper with lipstick stains in the corner—my plate is completely empty, and my mind is filled with a million more questions.