Las Vegas Savior

The next morning, Emily woke up with the chills and it was not because her apartment was freezing cold. The fire in the pot bellied stove had gone out during the night and the single wall construction of the building had no insulation in the walls and there was at least two feet of snow on the ground outside. But her chills were because she was sick.

She hurt all over, especially her head. Her nose felt like it weighed about 10 pounds and she could feel the fever in her eyes. She hated to call in sick on Saturday, because she hated to miss the busiest day of the week at the diner but there was no way she would be able to work the way she had felt. Sunday the diner was closed. On Monday, she finally gave in and had allowed Shelly to drive her to the local urgent care clinic for some antibiotics.

The clinic had charged her $50.00 for the office visit and the antibiotics had run her another $80.00. Her hope of how she had planned to spend the money she had been scrimping and saving to hopefully be able to buy a new coat and boots so that she wouldn’t freeze every time she stepped out the door when she went back on the run went right out the window. She promised herself that if she was still on the run next winter, she would make sure she was somewhere warmer than Idaho!

For the next three days, she slept a lot, only getting up to go to the bathroom and to take more medicine. On Thursday, Shelly called and told her that their boss had said that if she was not back to work tomorrow, that he was going to have to hire someone to take her place. Emily was tempted to tell her to tell their boss that if he fired her for being sick then she would come in now, give him a big wet kiss then cough on him and demand her paycheck! But thankfully her sense of self preservation kicked in and she kept her mouth shut.

So Friday morning, sick or not, she was going to work. She needed the money so that she could get out of this one horse town. She had barely slept at all last night and what little sleep she did manage to get had been filled with dreams of Derrick mixed with memories of her childhood and her father. But she couldn’t dwell on that right now. She really wished she could just go back to bed and if she didn’t get a move on, she was going to be late for work and would probably lose her job for sure.

She pushed her legs over the side of her bed and tried to shake off the remnants of the nightmare that had had her in its grip when her alarm clock had awakened her. Her feet quickly searched for the fuzzy slippers that she had left on the floor the night before.

She hurried into the tiny bathroom to empty her bladder and take her temperature. She hoped it would be close to normal this morning and was relieved to see that it almost was, even if she still felt awful. She put the thermometer back in the little plastic holder and returned it to her toiletries bag.

She got a quick shower and brushed her teeth, then put it all back into her backpack. She pulled on the ill-fitting uniform, shoved her feet into her sneakers, pulled on her coat then picked up her purse and her backpack and left the apartment. She was relieved to see that no new snow had fallen as she ran over to her car which was parked under the lean too next to the utility building.

Emily always tried to go in early to do her kitchen duties of prepping the salads and making sure she had enough flatware wrapped with napkins to get her through her shift before going on to the floor to wait tables. By now she was used to the truckers making passes at her, trying to get her to go back to their trucks with them for some “fun”. She pitied anyone who tried anything with her today with the way she was feeling. Besides, men and fun were at the very bottom of her list of priorities right now.

Emily drove to work and parked behind the diner, out of sight of the road, like she always did. Jack, the busboy/kitchen helper, was standing outside the back door, smoking, when she locked her car and walked across the gravel parking lot to the back of the diner.

“Morning. How are you feeling?” Jack asked.

“Morning. Better but still feel like death warmed over. Is it busy this morning?” Emily asked as she hurried past, wanting to be inside where it was at least warm.

“No, not really but Henry is in one of his moods. Bitchin’ about everything, as usual.” Jack said. “I’ve got the salad stuff done but Alice didn’t leave much wrapped silverware. Either that or they got really busy last night. I’ll try to get some more done as soon as I’m done out here, if you can cover the floor.”

Alice was the temp waitress that had been helping out while Emily had been sick but she wasn’t actually much help since she wouldn’t do a lot of the prep and close work that they had to do. She was there to wait tables and that was it. That was why she had been scheduled to be the last one on for the late night shift, which was more of truckers stopping for coffee or drunks from the bar needing to sober up before they tried to drive home.

It was the worst of all the shifts and they really needed a guy to work it but that usually ended up in fights so the owner had taken to offering free coffee and meals to cops and there was usually at least one officer either in the restaurant or outside all night.

“Thanks, Jack.” Emily said as she pulled on the door to go inside. She punched her time card and then grabbed a clean apron from the shelf next to the time clock. She stowed her purse in her locker then left the back room and walked through the kitchen.

Jack came back inside as she greeted the kitchen staff, which consisted of the dishwasher, Oscar the octopus, aptly named because if you got too close he would try to grab your ass or if you let him, your boobs. He was a horny, round faced man with a toothless smile and Emily strongly suspected he wasn’t mentally all there.

Shelly had told her that he had grabbed a woman’s ass in a bar one night and the woman’s boyfriend had beaten him senseless, leaving him with no front teeth and brain damage.

On the day shift, Henry the cook, who was a big man with skin the color of coffee and a yellowed smile, from too many years of drinking black coffee and smoking cigarettes. Nothing any of them did ever seemed to be to his satisfaction. There was also a helper named Jack, who bused the tables, kept the floors swept and helped Henry in the kitchen. Henry cooked the meat and Jack did almost all of the side dishes. Jack was a nice, quiet, hardworking man who minded his own business and kept to himself.

Henry gave her a scowl which she met with a deadpan look that told him to just try and give her a hard time today. She wasn’t in any mood to put up with any of his bullshit today.

Henry, however, had to make a sarcastic comment. Emily had expected no less from him when he said “Well, well. She finally graces us with her presence.” To which she replied “Henry, zip it or I’ll spend my day purposely coughing on you so you can suffer through what I’ve been dealing with for the past four days. I’m still not over it but I’m out over two hundred dollars in medical fees and lost wages and tips so I’m in no mood for your BS today.”

Her response seemed to shock him so he wisely kept his mouth shut after that and for the rest of the day, he was easier to get along with than he had been since she had started. She doubted if anyone had ever tried to stand up to him before and with the way she was feeling right now, she didn’t give a damn if they fired her for it or not.

Sick or not, she needed the money so Emily tied her hair up in a ponytail and then twisted it into a bun and stuck her fancy chopsticks in it to keep it in place.

People were quickly filling the diner and she was thankful that Jack had done the most important opening duties of making coffee and her salad prep.

Emily looked around the diner at the people who were filling the seats and reading the menu. She didn’t see anyone that looked either familiar or suspicious, so she stepped behind the counter, made sure she had an order pad in her pocket and a pen.

She shoved some straws into one of the apron pockets with one hand and tucked a clean rag into her waistband with the other, then she picked up the full coffee pot and walked down behind the counter, asking the men seated there if they wanted coffee and taking their orders.

By the time she got to the other end of the counter, the coffee pot was almost empty and she had two offers for some fun times. She turned in her orders then walked back to the coffee machine and set it up for another pot, putting the empty spare pot in place before she went around the counter to ask people sitting at the only two occupied tables if they wanted coffee and to ta0ke their orders.

Shelly came in about an hour early and sat on a stool at the very end of the counter and began wrapping silverware for her shift. Emily had done some between orders but it had been steadily busy all day and she hadn’t had much chance to do the extras that Shelly would need for her later shift. Emily had already served all of the people that were currently seated, so Shelly would have to wait until someone new came in to be able to earn any tips.

“So what has it been like here while I was out sick?” Emily asked.

“Same old shit, different days.” Shelly replied.

“Well, that trip to the clinic and the antibiotics really did a number on my savings. I’m kind of hoping that we get busy with some big tippers here in the next couple of days. Thanks again for taking me. I don’t think I could have driven there the way I was feeling.” Emily told her.

“I hear that! When my son and I got sick last winter, it really did a number on my savings too. They made me pay for two office visits because we were both sick! I was so pissed. But at least they gave me samples of the antibiotics so that helped out some.”

“Yeah, the office visit was $50 but the medicine was over $80! I’ve still got one more day to go on that and then it will be done. I wish the cold would go as quickly as the money did.”

Shelly was the only one that knew any part of her story. Emily didn’t normally tell anyone anything, for their own safety as much as hers, so she had sworn Shelly to secrecy to never repeat to anyone about why she was on the run.

Emily had shown Shelly the picture of Derrick that they had taken together in one of those photo booths at the fair. It was better for everyone if she didn’t get too close to people and kept moving. But since she was stuck here until she got her car fixed, she figured that an extra set of eyes and ears would help if Derrick did show up.

She had told everyone that worked here to not admit to knowing her or anything about her and to let her know as soon as possible if anyone came looking for her. The evening kitchen shift came on just after the lunch rush and while she didn’t know them as well, they all knew who she was but that was about it. Shelly and her boss were the only ones that knew where she lived.

Up until a little over 4 months ago, for the past three years she had never stayed in one place for more than a couple of weeks. She usually stayed in the big cities because it was easier to hide and blend in there. They also had more places to stay and to work and people were less likely to ask a lot of hard to answer questions.

She had been planning on telling Shelly that she was going to go that past Sunday and then she had gotten sick. Now she was either going to have to stay longer or put in some OT time to make up for what she had lost not only in medical expenses but lost wages.

She knew her boss well enough to know that the OT was probably not going to be an option since he hated paying time and a half to any of them. Since Emily normally only worked from 6 to 3, it was hard for her to make enough to really save anything to put away for her “running money”, as she thought of it.

She was hoping to get enough savings for at least 6 tanks of gas and meals for a month and hopefully at least a few nights at the YWCA until she could find a job. Right now, she might be able to fill her car up 3 or 4 times and would be able to feed herself for a couple of weeks if she stuck to cheap fast food but she wouldn’t be able to pay for any place to stay for more than a few nights.

If this was summer time, she could find parks to camp in. But during the winter, she had to find a place to rent or get far enough south where it would be warmer and she could stay outdoors. It wouldn’t be as pleasant as staying at a hotel or having her own apartment but at least she wouldn’t freeze to death.

The next couple of days were rough but she made it through them and had actually done pretty well on tips. Her cold was almost gone and she was feeling better but she still got tired fast and had to sit down several times when she got dizzy and almost passed out.

Shelly was concerned for her and offered to come in early and help her through those first few days but their boss had put a stop to that pretty quickly. He told Emily that she had to pull her own weight or leave.