Chapter Twenty-One
Letty stood before the large mirror in the public restroom, nervously checking her makeup and fidgeting with her outfit. She actually loved this suit, and was quite unreasonably proud of herself for how she'd found and acquired it: normally.
A couple of weeks after her arrival, Christian had surprised her by handing her a check for five thousand dollars. When she blinked up at him, astonished, he grinned. "That's your clothing allowance. For the next year."
"Five thousand? Cool!" Visions of haute couture were visibly dancing before her eyes. She was itching to dump these pathetic charity clothes.
Christian laughed at her as he turned and sat down in his chair. "That's not going to go as far as you think it is, girl. It's got to last you an entire year – and you have to buy not only all your clothes - including maternity clothes, by the way - but all your baby's clothes, as well – and whatever furniture you're going to acquire for them, too."
"Says who?"
"Says the guy who just wrote you that check. Letty... you need to learn how the other half lives – or at least, how they spend money, and manage it. That is... if you are serious about stopping your shoplifting."
He'd nailed her, and they both knew it. She took a deep breath. "Yeah," she replied, quiet but determined. "I am." Then she gave him her biggest, most winning smile. "You're an asshole."
"I've been called that before. Now, are you ready to go shopping?"
The original plan had been to open a checking account with a debit card with the check, but since she hadn't yet acquired replacement ID's, Christian simply took the check back and cashed it himself, handing Letty the stacks of hundreds and fifties with a smirk. "Don't spend it all in one place!"
"Yes, Dad!"
So it began. Christian introduced her to discount stores, and outlet malls – but only for their really big sales – and even thrift shops (secondhand stores). Slowly, Letty adjusted her attitude towards clothes shopping, from lightly grazing from a wide selection of great stuff, deciding which pieces she would stuff into her bag, to methodically hunting through mountains of trash, looking for the rare, occasional bits of beauty or usefulness. Even the thrift shops became fun, and the two of them started going regularly, searching out the outrageous, hilarious, sketchy, dubious, and just plain ridiculous items and showing them off to each other.
The day she had found this outfit, a two-piece navy suit with a mid-length skirt and cropped short-sleeved bolero jacket in one of their favorite thrift shops, she couldn't believe her eyes. She quickly put them on in the changing rooms and modeled them for Christian. He stopped, stared, and then gave her a huge, satisfied grin. "Congratulations. You just graduated." She stuck out her tongue at him, and went to change back, pleased all out of proportion. He helped her find a plain white silk tank top and wispy multi-color scarf to go with it, and then they picked out some costume jewelry – and a decent pair of shoes – at a discount store to finish the look.
A woman came out of one of the stalls and walked up to the sink next to Letty, and they caught each other's eyes in the mirror. Letty grimaced at the woman's side-eye for her nervous twitching. "Job interview," she said apologetically – and the woman's demeanor changed instantly.
"Oh! Good luck!" she said sincerely.
Letty blew out her breath in an exasperated puff, and turned to face her. "How do I look?" she asked, a little desperately. She hadn't been this nervous since... she didn't know when.
The woman looked her up and down closely. "Turn around! Now smile!" As Letty dragged out her biggest, friendliest smile and plastered it on, she got an answering smile in return. "Perfect! You look great! Now, take a deep breath... Good. You got this. Now go get 'em!"
Pumped up by the pep talk, Letty gave her fleeting friend one last smile, thanking her sincerely. Then she marched herself out of the restroom, out through the mall doors, across the parking lot into the Red Lobster restaurant, and up to the hostess, asking to see the manager.
"Is something wrong?" the girl asked, a little worried.
"No," Letty laughed. "I'm here about the bartender position."
The hostess gave a relieved laugh, and asked her to wait while she went to fetch the manager. A minute later, a tall, lanky man with short dark hair came walking out to her, holding out his hand with a smile. As she shook it, though, a puzzled look crossed his face. "Letty, isn't it?" he asked.
She didn't recognize him at all, and showed it. He leaned over a bit and lowered his voice. "Richard. From the meeting the other night?"
Christian's AA group "Oh." Letty cleared her throat. "Never mind, then," she added as gracefully as she could, and started to turn away.
"Why?" Now he was really confused.
Well, she owed him an explanation, anyway. "I was going to apply for the bartender's job."
"So why not?" He did understand, though. He dropped his voice even further, and pointed out, "I'm here."
That brought her up short. "Yes, you are."
"I think you'd be surprised how many bartenders in the US are alcoholics – recovering or not. I don't judge."
Well, this was new. Maybe she had a chance after all. She sure didn't want to go back to waitressing, but this was the only other thing she could think of that wouldn't require serious training first. She was still struggling to envision herself actually doing any of the careers listed in the community college course catalogue, and so could not bring herself to actually register – yet. This, she had decided, would be a good way to ease herself into the idea of doing something productive for the rest of her life.
He saw her hesitation. "Still want the job?" Deciding abruptly, she nodded firmly, and he turned, smiling, and waved her towards the back. "Then come back to the office and let's talk."
An hour later, she walked out with a huge grin, an official Red Lobster apron, and an employee's handbook. Orientation would be the following Tuesday morning. It was only part-time to begin with, but there were prospects, especially with a big, national company like Red Lobster. Richard's only concern was her ability to stand for long periods of time – since he already knew she was pregnant, from her admission at the AA meeting. She assured him that it had never been a problem with her previous pregnancy – and it really hadn't – but if that or any other difficulties cropped up, she would raise the flag immediately, in hopes an equitable solution could be found. She couldn't help but like the man, though: his ready smile and friendly demeanor reminded her vaguely of Javier, when he was being deliberately likeable. She quashed the comparison ruthlessly the moment she recognized it.
The only reason the interview had taken a full hour was that she had to fill out an application – although Richard had told her to skip the Previous Employment section.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "I take it I'm not the first... ahh, less-than-perfect applicant you've hired."
He gave her a speculative look. "Well, perfection is in the eye of the hiring manager... but you're right. I believe in fresh starts and second chances – lord knows I've needed them myself. I never hold someone's past against them – only their present behavior."
Letty nodded, with a look of rueful understanding. "So don't fuck up," she summed up, and Richard agreed.
"Don't fuck up."
"I won't," she said fervently, her voice low and earnest. "I won't let you down. I need this." He nodded back, understanding all too well.
Getting hired on her first foray called for a celebration – and Letty knew exactly what that entailed this time. She'd planned it out, and had asked Richard to make sure it met the company standards. It did. Walking back into the mall, she made her way to the tattoo shop in the corner that she had scoped out earlier.
"How much for a small tat – just three simple capital letters?"
"How big?" asked the tattoo artist, a big burly man with a bushy red beard, and not a single square inch of un-inked flesh visible below his chin.
"Just big enough that I can still read it in ten years. Right here, on my wrist." Letty held out her right hand, palm up, and drew a horizontal line across the inside of her wrist with her other index finger.
"Gothic letters?"
She laughed. "I can never read them," she confessed, and suddenly the till-now-taciturn man grinned back.
"Neither can I," he confessed in return, "and I write them."
They settled on a size and price, and she told him the letters she wanted: SCS. "Somebody's initials?" he asked.
"No. They stand for Straight, Clean, and Sober."
He raised an eyebrow, and nodded. "Good goals."
"I need the reminder occasionally," she admitted.
As there were no other customers in the shop, she could get right in. He sat her down in the chair, picked up an ink pen, and carefully wrote the letters on her wrist for her approval. Looking at them for a moment, she held her hand out for him – and then snatched it back. "Wait a minute. No..."
He was looking at her dubiously – had she changed her mind completely? She hadn't looked like such a flake. But that wasn't what she was after.
"No. Not across like that. Turn them ninety degrees, and run them down along the scar, here. Like this." She pointed to the mark running lengthwise down her wrist – the scar left over from her last suicide attempt. He knew what it was from.
"They won't hide the scar," he began, but she shook her head.
"No, not hiding it. Like they're... holding it together."
"Like stitches?" She nodded, and he grinned. "Oh, that's beautiful. I like it." Quickly washing the first letters off, he re-drew them above and below the scar, leaving a tiny gap like the mentioned stitches. He also drew the letters themselves with each leg short and straight, with a tiny gap between, looking like they were embroidered.
"That's it," was her verdict this time. "Do it." Placing her arm on the table, she let him get to work, flipping through her new employee's handbook to distract herself from the pain.
A short time later, she was inspecting her new ink. He'd even added some very light shadowing for a slight Three-D effect, and tiny pairs of vertical "stitches" in between the letters. She smiled hugely at him. "That is absolutely perfect. Thank you."
"What about the other wrist? It have a scar, too?" he suggested.
Letty thought a minute, looking at her left wrist with its own scar. "Yeah," she said finally. "Do that one, too. But not the same letters." She told him the new letters, but would not elaborate what they stood for.
"I can guess," he said with wry certainty, but she shook her head.
"You'd be wrong. It's not the obvious." Saying no more, she bent her head back over her handbook.