Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Melanie felt incredibly depressed when she walked into the restaurant she had worked in for almost a year which was filled with the tantalizing and mouth watering aroma of food and baked goods. She walked into the locker room after forcing herself to appear cheery as she exchanged light polite greetings with the kind, pudgy cook and swiping the small bottle of orange juice that sat beside her.

Just as she was done putting on the restaurant’s uniform that was mandatory for all their servers, she heard footsteps coming into the room behind her and once she heard the noisy smacking of chewing gum, she could already identify who had walked in behind her.

“Look at you coming in to work at whatever time suits you”, Tara Mills, the mean only other waitress in the restaurant said.

“Good morning to you too, Tara. I told Paul a few days ago that I would be coming in a little late today because I had something important to attend to and he didn’t seem to have a problem with it. I thought he had informed you about the new arrangement”. Paul Hammond was the portly, perverted old manager of the restaurant that leered at the girls, staring down their shirts whenever they bent over slightly, initiating unnecessary physical contact for no reason and was once caught peeking at them while they were changing. He was one of the main reasons why Melanie was so adamant about finding a new job.

“He didn’t say anything to me about you taking time off from work and leaving me to handle all the orders all on my own without any help. And even if he did, you didn’t think it would be reasonable and fair of you to inform me about it yourself beforehand?”

Melanie sighed. She really wasn’t in the mood to engage Tara in passive aggressive arguments and comebacks. “Fine. You’re right. I probably should have said something regarding that. Sorry”.

Tara rolled her eyes and folded her hands, looking around the room an her lips curved into a mocking smile when her eyes spotted the open lock in from of Melanie and the clothes hanging outside on it’s door.

“My! Did you go out looking for better employment prospects? Or did you go out on a date with someone important? You’re clothes look quite fancy”, She said with a giggle.

“It’s just a plan shirt and skirt, Tara”, Melanie said, groaning inwardly as she turned to her.

“It’s cute though”, Tara replied. “Where’d you get it?”.

Now, it was Melanie’s turn to roll her eyes. “Tara, look, I’m really not in the mood for all of this right now. Besides, if we’re both in here then Brent is the only one taking care of everything out there. I should go help him out”.

Tara took a long look at Melanie who was stuffing her things into things into the small locker with red rimmed eyes and scoffed.

“What? Did your boyfriend dump you or something? Or you didn’t get the posh little new job you applied for? Or what, you had a falling out with that weird friend of yours?".

Melanie turned to her with a displeased expression, making her voice sound as calm as she possibly could trying her best not to have a loud outburst that she would regret later. “What is your problem, Tara? I already told you to leave me alone already. Is that really so hard for you to do or are you just being deliberately obtuse? You’re not a child, you must have learnt social skills somewhere and I’m sure it should be quite obvious that when someone says they’re not in the mood for an bullshit, they actually really aren’t”.

She watched with a but of pleasure as Tara's face fell and quickly turned into a scowl. She slammed shut the door of her locker as hard as she could, making the other girl jolt slightly and then strode out if the room leaving her stunned.

*********

As she wiped he table clean, Melanie wondered where everything in her life had gone wrong, how everything had come to be as difficult as it currently was for her and her ailing grandmother who was the only family member she had left. Growing up, her parents hadn’t exactly been wealthy but they had been well-off enough that they didn’t really have anything much to bother about when it came to financial or material things. Being her parents ‘only child, she had bee brought up with as much love as her parents could give and she got all that she wanted without exaggerated fuss and although the parents weren’t at home with their daughter as much as they wanted to be, they still found time to pamper her and take her out to fun places to play with her friends.

That was until an arsonist who was later caught and arrested destroyed her mother’s boutique that was filled with expensive luxury items and new goods that had yet to be unpacked that she had gotten on credit basis to pay the cost back after she was done selling the goods. That was when they had their first debt and her father who was now the only and primary breadwinner in the family had to work twice as hard to pay off the loan he got from the bank to settle the cost after the wholesalers kept asking for their payment while her mother sat at home all day depressed.

Everything seemed like it was still going to be fine since the had almost settled the debt they owed the bank when two years after the arson incident, her father was laid off from work because the company he worked was restructuring their staff and recalculating the expenditure they made yearly on staff salary. That must have been when everything went to hell. They begun to experience financial crisis and they still hadn’t completely paid off the bank loan. Soon after, the couple began to squabble and quarrel over every little thing, taking out their frustrations on each other and blaming themselves for the misfortune they were going through. Very soon, the small arguments turned into vicious ones and afterwards physical altercations that once required Child Protection Services to pay them many visits threatening to take their only child away from them. Melanie had been taken away once to an orphanage to spend sometime when her parents got into such a big fight that she had tried to intervene at ten years old and had gotten herself injured. They took her back home with them after a couple of weeks but that didn’t change the fact that her father was a drunk now and her mother cried herself to sleep every night thinking about how wonderful their lives had been before and Melanie had stood in front of her door many times but never dared to go in.

One day, her mother just packed up her things and left the house, giving Melanie a wide smile and promising that she would be back very soon but she knew that she wasn’t coming back. No one took so many clothes and bags and all that they owned for a small trip. Her father had left her too not so long after but at least he had the decency to tell her that she probably wouldn’t see him again for a long while and took her over to his mother’s place to stay, leaving her at the door with some money and two bags filled with groceries.

“Miss? Are you alright, miss?”.