"Woah, woah. Why is this coming back?"
Staff size was also important in picking a place. With a large enough staff, nobody knew whose boss is whose. Put on a slightly commanding voice and anyone will listen to you.
"The corkscrew went through the cork," the server explained, nervously tripping over her words. "They refused the bottle because they said there could be cork inside. I was going to take it to Melissa's office."
I shook my head, taking the bottle from her serving tray. "I'll take it to Melissa's office. You get back to work."
The girl nodded empathically. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I—"
"Don't let it happen again."
The girl rushed off back down the hall, and at that moment the chef shouted, "Hot dates!"
I grinned. Hot dates for a hot date: me. Me, myself, and I. With the silver tray of bacon-wrapped dates in one hand and the bottle of wine in the other, I escaped the humid, loud kitchen and wandered down the hall.
I took swigs straight from the bottle when the hall wasn't filled with servers sprinting its length with wobbling trays of dirty glasses and plates.
"Off to the VIP section," I'd tell them. "Very important dates going to very important people."
"These are for that bald guy with those glasses? He's such an asshole, right?" I'd say as they rushed past.
"What a crowd tonight, eh? I mean they're just dates, can't they wait five seconds longer so I can relieve my bladder?" I'd moan as server after server flew past my lazy stride.
But the truth was that none of that was necessary. Nobody saw me in the first place. I was invisible, just like always. I was a ghost, tethered to no one.
These men and women were all working hard so that they could get home to their husbands, meet up with their friends, snuggle their babies, play with their dogs, call up their moms, annoy their downstairs neighbour, get shit-faced with their brothers, take care of their grandfathers, fuck their high school sweethearts, lounge on the couch with their roommates, find marijuana in their teenagers' sock drawer. They all had people.
I had three-quarters of a bottle of red wine and half a silver tray of bacon-wrapped dates. And in about thirteen minutes that was going to be gone, too.
On the bright side, this meant that I could eat and drink and never get caught. I could guzzle the finest champagne, the most expensive bottle in the whole goddamn place, right in front of someone in a black vest, and all they'd see is the math for how many more hours they'd need to work to afford their daughter's braces. I'd sampled some of the finest hors d'oeuvres at the finest restaurants and hotels from here to Warsaw with nothing more than the occasional second glance.
So being alone had its perks. But that was like saying the flu had its perks because you didn't have to go to school. That didn't mean you wanted to get the flu. And I certainly didn't want to be alone.
But I was.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
I found myself in an empty hallway with burgundy carpets, gold wallpaper, and ornately framed dead dudes. I grinned, knowing from experience that one of these doors led to a linen closet. I found one marked with tiny, delicate scrawl quickly enough and stopped outside the door. I deserved a quiet, intimate spot for my date date with myself, after all.
Glancing up and down the length of the hallway, I set down the silver tray, tucked the half-empty wine bottle under my arm, and slipped two bobby pins from my braid. I blew the long sun-bleached strands from my face and concentrated on the lock. Motels don't lock their linen closets. But then again, motels don’t serve mini beef wellingtons and bacon-wrapped dates, so…
I almost had the door unlocked when I heard a voice ask, "Hey, do you know where the bathrooms are?"
I froze, shoulders tense and eyes wide. Surely no one was talking to me. No one ever even saw me. There had to be a server behind me. Slowly, I twisted my head to look down the hallway. My stomach dropped. There was a man in a suit with sharp green eyes.
"Hello?"
He was definitely talking to me.
Michael
The girl stared at me like I'd spoken to her in Finnish.
She was a wild, skittish-looking thing with lanky legs, long blonde hair falling from a loose braid and curtaining one hazel eye, and a smattering of freckles on her tanned face like she'd been out playing with the boys in the mud. Her uniform was ill-fitting and wrinkled and her uniform shoes were just high top Converse with the white emblem, sole, and toe coloured in roughly with black Sharpie.
"Bathrooms?" I prompted when she still remained silent, bent over the door handle, staring unblinkingly at me. "Do you know where they are?"
"Are you talking to me?" she asked, checking behind her down the other end of the hallway where there was no one.
"Look, you can just point me in the general direction," I said. "I can see you're really busy—"
I frowned, finally paying attention to what it was the girl was doing. A grin tugged at the corner of my lips.
"Really busy breaking into a…into a linen closet."
The girl's eyes widened in panic as she stood to her full height and shook her head. "I'm not breaking in."
I raised a curious eyebrow and took a step closer to her. "No?" I asked. "That's a curious-looking key you've got there then."
The girl fidgeted with the two bobby pins. "They're,
