She hated every second of that first shift at Titiboo. Makeup felt like chalk on her skin, and the Pigmasks all deserved to lose a few teeth, and god, Duster, why here?
Kumatora didn't even properly meet her coworkers until the end of the night. One by one, the other girls filed out, shouldering their pointlessly tiny purses and chattering gossip back and forth. She'd better get used to ignoring that stuff, she figured. There was plenty of it ahead. A chunk of Kumatora's cuticle peeled up like it was trying to flee; she picked at it and blamed the fake nails. That was when someone waitress-coloured moved by Kumatora's elbow and she bothered to look up.
Hi, the girl said. I'm Millie. Simple as that.
Kumatora blinked at her. Cool, she said, to smuggle the K sound out of her mouth. Violet. She was Violet.
It took a minute. It took some more smiling. Millie looked like all the others, same hair and same perfect lipstick, except she had dimples like her smile was nailed in hopeful. Then she said sorry, but her purse was behind there, and she was stooping for it before Kumatora had stepped out of the way.
Her first thought was that it was pretty much like of the Magypsies brushing against her. Soft hips, and a bell-twinkling giggle. Then Kumatora shoved that thought away because this wasn't the same as her old life at all. She needed to go back to her room, and wash off this makeup crap, and put it on again to practice.
She got the eyeliner right after a week or three. Duster -- or Lucky, same difference -- took the stage night after night. Gradually, Kumatora decided that serving tables wasn't that bad, except for the customers and the food and all the damn giggling.
The other girls had soft, ordinary names that matched together like a set of teacups. They tried to tell Kumatora about So-and-so and What's-Her-Face but she wasn't having any of that crap. Kumatora told the inside of the broom closet about it one night -- it was either that or beat up the mop before she started using it -- and oh, judging by that figure in the doorway behind her, Millie overheard.
Who was she talking to, Millie asked, soft as play.
Nobody important, Kumatora said.
It was okay. Millie shone warm, shadowed, the hallway fluorescents dancing on her hair. She came to this closet sometimes, too. It was actually a pretty good honesty closet.
So when Millie was gone and the door bounced back against its frame, Kumatora went ahead and smacked the mop one. She ended up cracking the wall plaster and she didn't care; she was just being honest.
She asked Duster again if he remembered.
No, he said slowly, like deciding what to put on a hot dog. Still just wandering. Still just arriving here.
Nothing, Kumatora asked? Not even her?
He thought some more, all polyester suit and mud puddle eyes. No, Violet, he said. Sorry.
That was how missions of world-bending importance went, sometimes. Kumatora told herself a few more times, until the words thinned like stretching rubber. She could wait. However long it took. She needed Duster and the Egg, because that was what the whole world needed, and she could wait even if she wound so tight that she broke.
The other girls were nice enough. Dumb as bricks, but nice enough. They switched as many shifts as it took for Kumatora to work closing, the same morning hours Millie worked. They actually had the time to chat, then, across vacant tables, without any paper-thin giggling. Millie had bits of news about this King P punk, and the stories of accidently spilling drinks on people. Kumatora held on to those conversations, pressed tight in her memory.
She was lucky, Millie told her. Having a name like Violet.
Yeah, Kumatora said? What's wrong with Millie?
What was wrong was that it was short for Mildred. Millie gagged that part, like the name of some horrible old witch. Whereas Violet was a pretty name, she said, it suited her.
Kumatora might have called that crap, a lifetime ago. She settled for rolling her eyes. Millie giggled; it sounded real this time.
Those words sat in Kumatora's mind all night. She finally realized, staring at the night-dark ceiling of her bedroom, that Millie had called her pretty. That didn't make the thought leave her alone. Oh, no. It sat inside her like a big glowing coal.
Because Millie was prettier than her, obviously. More polished. Better at all of it. Didn't forget how to walk on heels when a distraction got under her skin. And who even cared about names, Kumatora thought, when you could just slap a new one on yourself if you felt like it. If a different girly flower had come to mind, she could have called herself Daisy or Tulip. It wouldn't matter at all. She still didn't have anything to say when Millie asked about her hometown. Millie was from somewhere called Summers, with beaches and a club and blue, blue sky. From the looks of things, talking about it came as easily to her as rhyming off dinner specials, if a bit happier.
Lucky practiced new baselines, sitting on the stage in the afternoons; Millie wiped tables with circular efficiency and smiled -- dimples and everything -- when she caught Kumatora's eye.
How do you stand it, Kumatora asked Millie on their shift one night. She crouched under Table 14, glaring at the wobbly leg like that might fix it.
Stand what?
Any of it. Glare. Wobble. Glowing-hot ache in the balls of her feet, from yet another night in heels. Kumatora straightened up to ask it: how did a nice girl like Millie end up in a dump like this?
In that silence -- Millie blinking at her, the gentle squeak of a polishing cloth on a rocks glass -- Kumatora knew she was showing through. The makeup smudged; the ruffles slipped; she was a runt princess playing dress-up.
It wasn't a dump, Millie finally said, smiling like a promise. Maybe it was bit of a hovel, though.
Kumatora laughed. She hadn't done that for a while; giggling didn't count. Quiet crept in gold and she felt good enough to finally ask, hey, Millie. Why did she leave Summers?
Millie thought. Then she said it was such a blur in her memory. She didn't remember why she left, sorry.
Seemed like they were both lost, this close to the stage lights. Cheers, then. Cheers to not bothering to remember. Kumatora said they deserved a drink after a night like this and she kicked off the damn heels and went behind the bar for a few cold ones. Millie hardly hesitated at all before murmuring that no one else could get away with it, Violet; she smiled girl-soft, and accepted a bottle with warm fingers.
Manicures always looked stupid when the Magypsies did it. Too many glittery bottles and scrubby thingies and too much fawning over splayed hands. Kumatora finally let Millie give her a manicure and there really should have been a different word for it, because manicure was too girly for what Millie did with an orangewood stick and clear polish.
Hey Lucky, Kumatora called one night, leaning on the stage and putting down a glass of water for him, remember anything yet?
She'd started saying it as a joke. It stung less like that. He'd started smiling back at her like he half-remembered the punchline. Sorry, Violet, he said. Rainbow light shone around him, dancing on the strings of his bass, and he looked hard at her and asked if she'd done something with her hair.
Yeah, she had. She'd grown it for two and a half years. But Kumatora didn't say that, just smiled as best she could and said nothing special, Lucky. Break a leg up there.
The hordes only grew. The army was hiring, Millie said, whispering conspiracy to Kumatora, wide-eyed and loading more drinks on her tray. Hiring like they were planning something.
That simmered inside her all night. The army was planning something, the evil was stirring, and what had she done? Sling cola for years and let Duster sit here being Lucky. Nothing, nothing. Hey old man Wess, who was the real moron here, if she couldn't get anything done?
She made crap tips that night. Absolute crap and she knew she deserved it, she just couldn't see past all the grit and steam.
It didn't get any better once the music died, once Lucky and the guys left the stage and the grunting crowds thinned. It didn't get any better wiping their tables and going to fetch the mop bucket; there was that crack she made in the broom closet plaster. Kumatora hadn't done anything worse than this one whack on one wall, damnit, she hissed, damnit.
That bad a night, Violet?
If it had been anything but Millie's flannel voice, Kumatora would have punched the source of it. She scraped damp bangs out of her face. She just hated this place, was all, she muttered.
A pause. The light vanished, the door croaked shut and there was just a wisp of air between them.
She didn't think Violet seemed happy here, Millie said.
She shouldn't be here, Kumatora said, she had things to do, she couldn't waste any more time while--
Too close. She almost blurted it, here in a hiding-crevice. Kumatora was showing through again; the makeup couldn't hide her forever.
Sorry, she said heavy. She couldn't tell Millie. She couldn't tell anyone because any face could be the enemy's, Kumatora knew that even before the geezer told her.
Another soft pause. It was alright, Millie said. But while they were in the honesty closet, she really did wish she could help Violet, with anything, anything at all.
Something good was going to arrive here. Kumatora knew because she was flushed hot all over; she only got like that when her world was about to spin onto its head. She never got to let loose anymore, never got to be the wild wolf child and never got to burn anything. All she had was a broom closet and this moment, and Millie waiting here beside her like no one else mattered. Cool fingers found hers, lacing in like a question.
Kumatora didn't have any idea how to do this. She leaned toward Millie with her heart clawing out of her chest, and in the round-hipped dark, Millie helped her figure out how to kiss a girl.
She wondered about terminology for a bit -- and thought of the Magypsies twittering delight, because she missed them hard sometimes -- and Kumatora decided Millie was her friend. There didn't need to be sappy words tacked on here. They just hauled ass carrying out orders together; they touched up each other's nails on lazy afternoons; they let the fever creep farther in. That didn't mean hanging around in the closet, thankfully. Just sinking into Millie's fluffy bedspread and making it more satisfying to peel off the night's sweat-damp uniform. Just finding somebody to relax with and forget, for a few minutes, which name was her real one.
Everything caught up with Kumatora, the day she glanced out the front doors and saw someone small and blond and familiar between the idiot bouncers. She could only hope her giggling came out right; it sounded worn in her own ears. It was time to leave.
She gave Duster the explanation she'd been biting back for years; he didn't quite believe it, the deliberation on his face said, but he was going to trust in it and that was close enough. Kumatora was chalk-coated in makeup for the last time. She saw Lucas's miracle Stone-Sheet-Clippers throws and didn't see much of anything afterward, although her knuckles' stinging was enough of a hint.
Millie was working someone else's shift, as a warm-hearted favour. It figured, Kumatora thought while hurrying to Millie's room, that she got a chance like this. She forbade herself to call it chickening out. It was better this way.
She took one of Millie's spare order pads, and scrawled thanks on it. She hesitated, and added for everything underneath. Then she signed as Violet before she could wonder what her name was supposed to be and left, just turned on her heel and was never going to be in Millie's room again, and would eventually forget the taste of her skin. Kumatora didn't get to keep people that close. Violet could at least pretend.
She stared at her boots, waiting for Duster, listening to the wind whip lonely around the clifftop. Eyes on the goal now, her thoughts chanted. No more screwing around. She couldn't tell anymore if she hated Titiboo and what the hell was wrong with her if she couldn't decide that.
Warm empathy nudged her mind. Oh yeah, she thought, looking up at wide-eyed Lucas, he can sense stuff now, too. He'd grown since Kumatora saw him last, and not just in the skinny-limbed sort of way.
Don't worry about it, kiddo, Kumatora said. She'd deal.
Lucas nodded. He petted Boney's neck and said she could still go say goodbye, if she wanted. They didn't mind waiting.
Nah, she said, it was fine. Kumatora was terrible at goodbyes, anyway; when she tried to put words together, all it did was make her heart hurt.
When the four of them left Club Titiboo, sticking tight together like that destiny stuff knotted around them, Kumatora didn't look back. There wouldn't have been anything to see, anyway, except maybe a light shining yellow from a friend's window.
The world rushed in to meet them. It all ended up in the Empire Pork Building, the whole history of everything and everyone packed in together, waiting. Kumatora caught sight of waitress colours and wondered if she was recognizable, she the plain wolf child, not a princess at all. She'd hacked off her hair since seeing Millie, she'd fought and bled and set the island on fire, and who knew how much of that showed.
Millie smiled at Kumatora. Then she was gone, into the crowds as thick as chaos.
In the world afterward, Kumatora promised herself she'd do what she wanted. Live well. Laugh with people. She took Duster's hand in hers, one day, just because she wanted to watch realization crawl across his face, and then she asked him if he'd seen Millie lately.
He thought a moment. Millie, her waitress friend?
Yeah, Kumatora said, she'd just been thinking about the old times.
Duster settled his fingers with hers, laced sure together. He hadn't seen her, he said. He hadn't seen a lot of people since the new world. Maybe Millie's home was in another time.
Summers, then. If the world knew what was good for it, Millie was in Summers, soaking up that sun she said she liked and working somewhere that didn't suck. Maybe she'd think of her old friend Violet sometimes and smile, just wide enough for her dimples to show.
Maybe Kumatora didn't get to keep people very often, she decided while thinking and holding that day. But she was damn lucky while she had them.