All She Can Take

E L E V E N

 Sid was out on the sidewalk in front of Grazie. It was Saturday. For the last two years, she'd enjoyed working Saturdays because every so often the restaurant would host an event and she'd get to supervise. She would float from the kitchen, making sure the proper appetizers and entrees were prepped to the clients specifications. She'd watch vendors deliver balloons for birthday parties, huge white wicker chairs adorned with pink or blue bows for a baby shower. Or her favorite-- weddings. The rough exposed brick, scuffed wood floors, and wobbly tables would be transformed into an enchanted space. The floral arrangements, hung taffeta, and white aisle runners made it a venue for love. She resented the place less when it looked so beautiful. When it was the backdrop for the beginning of a couple's life. Instead of what it was every day and especially now. Hell.

She hoisted a tote bag full of the contents of her desk onto her shoulder and looked both ways down the sidewalk. Where does one go when they no longer have a job? What are Saturday mornings for? The extra weight pulling down on her shoulder let her know that they weren't for sleeping in with a stranger and skidding into work a massive hangover just as Quinn's Uber pulled up outside the restaurant doors. She knew it was bad news if the boss was on the scene before noon.

This Saturday was one of those beautiful ones that Sid loved so much. A wedding day. A bride was set to walk down a crisp white aisle toward the endearing little garden patio tucked behind the restaurant at 1PM. As luck would have it, the bride was also set to have an absolute fit when she began to receive calls from her vendors informing her that no one was at the restaurant to grant them entry to decorate. Doesn't matter that someone was there --Raymond chose to ignore the knocking on the front doors and called Quinn instead, shouting that it wasn't his job and he didn't train for years at the Culinary Institute of America (lies) to sign for flowers and 'girly' things -- it just matters that she, Sidney Berry, was late again. Quinn had to cut her avocado toast brunch short and come in to deal with a bridal freak-out. That put the permanent ink on Sid's pink slip.

A mom clad in stylish workout clothes breezed by her with her chubby infant in a torpedo-shaped stroller. She thought of AJ, cute and chubby somewhere with Aiden and not with her. For once she was relieved. She didn't want to face the kid. He'd somehow know that his mom had fucked up. Again. She could picture him scrunching up his little nose. First no cookies and now this! Sidney let her head go limp on her shoulder as the gravity of unemployment hit her. It was just another thing on top of all the other things. Sid felt like the universe was perpetually taking the top off the blender of her life while it was still an angry churning tornado of mess. Throwing the contents of what could've been a stable adult life all over the walls. She needed to call her clean up crew. She took one last look at the Grazie and shuffled in the same direction as jogger mom. Tomi's voice came on the line a moment later.

"I was just thinking about you," Tomi said.

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, I'm getting waxed."

Sid laughed but stopped. Remembering that she was supposed to be sad about losing her job. And she was, but there was also relief in there simmering along with the panic. She kind of despised the place.

"Thinking about that bald spot --" Sid started but Tomi had already launched into the story.

"The bald spot you had after your first time! You should've just let them finish." Tomi cackled. Strong cackles at Sid's expense.

"That shit hurt. There was no way I was letting her finish." Sid thought back fondly on the experience. Tomi and her as college sophomores venturing into the city to get their first waxes. The pain? Not so fond. She'd been a member of the shave crew since.