Always the Real Deal.
Kate Zeyger

No one comes to the restaurant; not even on the weekends. I take the Wednesday afternoon shifts, which is fine ‘cause I only have classes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. I sit criss-crossed on one of the booth tables while I twist my tongue around my mouth, trying to get popcorn kernels out of my teeth. The popcorn is stale and flavorless. My mouth is so dry and the popcorn is so bland I’d drink a cup of butter right now.  I started getting high before my shifts about a month ago; I would be bored out of my mind otherwise. In the decades this place has been alive, I’ve only seen a handful of people come in. Who knows, maybe this used to be a spot for people to hang out. Or better yet, a place that actually served food that people would want to eat. But unless someone proves me wrong and actually shows up today, I don’t give a shit about being “all there.”

​

Florence comes through the front door, letting a gust of cold air cascade into the restaurant. She’s the waitress during my shifts, and my work best friend. I probably would’ve quit already if it weren’t for her, and the minimum wage salary that pays for practically nothing. She smokes her cigarette outside a few times every shift, even in the winters. She decided not to go to college, and is working here just to get some money while she works on her passion for making jewelry. I think she’ll make it big in the world, but I’m biased. 

​

And as for her not going to college, good for her. No school is probably better than going to Greater Hartford Community College. I’m a sophomore at GHCC, which is the ugly brown blister with rotting darker brown streaks in a random suburb outside of Hartford. At night, the pure white lights of the lobby shine onto an empty parking lot of a chain restaurant no one has the stomach or desire to go to. That’s where I work. 

​

The phone on the hostess’ podium, where I’d be if I worked at a place that had customers, rings. I jump at the rare sound, brush my hands together to rid them of popcorn crumbs, then hoist myself off the table. By the third ring, I manage to pick up the phone. 

​

“Ninety-Nine Restaurant, where it’s always the real deal. HowcahIhellyou-” 

​

“Hi!” chirps the woman on the other line. I swear she breaks the sound barrier. “Can I make a reservation for six tonight at seven, seven thirty?”

​

“You don’t have to. It won’t be busy.” Dude, I whisper under my breath, who makes a reservation for this place?

​

“Can I still just put in my name?” 

​

I give in, not in the mood for a fight.  I’m not a waitress so I don’t have to deal with six people tonight, but I might help Florence out a bit. 

​

Time moves at an excruciatingly slow pace to get to seven. Seven-fifteen rolls around, and I fight the urge to close my eyes. If I close them, who knows when I’ll open them again. Florence is on her phone across the restaurant, scrolling through something, when the door swings open. Six smiling adults jabber away as they walk forward in a clump, approaching the hostess table. I seat them far away from the booth I claimed for this shift, give them a bowl of our finest table popcorn, and let Florence work her magic. 

​

It’s so weird to hear noise here. Their distant chatter and laughs make the restaurant a completely different place. It’s not dead anymore. That thought reminds me that I’m actually an employee, who maybe should help my friend take care of actual customers. 

​

“Can I get you guys anything?” I ask, trying out a customer-service grin. I fear I may have overdone it, but the group looks at me blankly. I pray she says they’re all set, but I see her mouth beginning to formulate a request.

​

“Yes, actually. Can we get a bunch of napkins, some ketchup, grated cheese, and… anything else?” the woman asks her entourage. “Oh, and more drinks. Two iced teas, no lemon. A sprite. And three more waters.” I sigh. 

​

I’m so glad people don’t regularly show up here.

​

“Great, I’ll be right back with that.” I repeat napkins, ketchup, iced teas, sprite, water, in my head like a maniac as I head to the kitchen. I remember most of it, other than the grated cheese I forgot about as soon as it was said. My performance is still worthy of a pat on the back, I did a pretty good job.

​

Once the group leaves and my shift is over, I say goodbye to Florence, who hovers over the table in disgust as she cleans crumbs and dirty napkins off the table. I can tell she was also glad the restaurant was mostly empty. I throw on my puffy coat and get ready to walk down the street to my house. Two high schoolers giggle on the sidewalk, passing glances at the mass of concrete behind me where I take my classes. The lights of the restaurant sign flicker onto their disgusted faces.

​

“God, if I lived here I’d kill myself,” one chuckles. The other nods aggressively and they scatter off. I make a weird face to myself as I wrap my coat tighter around my chest, then increase my walking speed as I turn the corner of my street. Yeah, my neighborhood isn’t pretty, but it’s still annoying hearing someone who isn’t from here trash the place you grew up. Specifically, two high school aged girls dressed in yoga pants and white converse who I just get the feeling would have bullied me in school. I don’t even know why I’m defending this place. I choose to ignore them and just make my way home so I can go to bed in order to wake up for class tomorrow. 

​

I grab my seat in an old-school desk somewhere in the middle of the classroom. The room itself is enough to make someone miserable. It’s dark, with the light only coming from the strip of windows lining the very top of the wall. The desks around me fill in with students I really do not talk to. I know some of their names, but I get the feeling they all just come here to leave. 

​

A man in a dress shirt and tie, carrying a briefcase with a bright yellow sticker that says, “Geology ROCKS!” enters the room, sitting in front of the chalkboard at the front. Doctor Glenn Meyers, my professor, loves what he teaches and honestly, his presence lights up the room. I respect him more than anybody else. He’s the Lord of the Rocks: he knows everything there is to know about geology, and still chooses to teach what some might find the most boring topic on Earth in what I find the most boring place on Earth. 

​

Today we talk about moon rocks. Some theories say that the moon used to be a part of Earth. The surface of the moon is scattered with remains of a long history of flowing lava. It’s been tortured for longer than humans can even fathom. 

​

“The crust of the moon was created by the lighter materials and minerals floating outwards towards the surface.” Glenn goes over the specifics of this thought, and how gravity affects the rock formations differently in space than it would here on Earth. I think about how light I’d be if I walked on the moon. Would I also float to the surface? I would love to hold a part of space in my hands. I look into the hint of sky in the small window above me, trying to find the moon in the daylight. I have a superstition that days where I can spot the moon in the sky during the daytime I feel luckier. I’ve been looking up at the same sky my whole life, the moon a consistent friend that never leaves its place. When I need it, it’s up there in the sky. It will never go away. That’s really comforting, even if it’s so far away from me I can’t hold it. 

​

#

​

Back when the little white TV on the shelf was my best friend, I felt the same kind of comfort.  I guess I can’t really judge my mom for leaving a child at home all that time. She really didn’t have a choice, and I think I was pretty responsible. She raised me alone, and I didn’t ask questions. I never knew my dad, and my grandparents were always really cold towards her. When mom went to work for the day, Chuck from the Discovery Channel was my babysitter. She would come home from the office and I’d yell “pallet, pallet!” while making a hammer motion with my seven year old hands. 

​

“Did you mean mallet? How do you know that word?” While my friends were on a Lego and Moon Shoes craze, all I wanted was something I could use to hit rocks in the backyard. I’d go throw pebbles at larger pebbles in the driveway and pretend that there was a rare gemstone or crystal inside. One girl at my school actually talked to me: a shy redhead named Darlene. We had a playdate one day, where I showed her my collection of treasures I kept in a pile near the big oak tree out in the front of the house. It contained cubes of salt sprinkled in preparation for upcoming snowstorms, which I deemed to be crystal quartz, as well as peppery stones I found lying around the beach when we went on vacation the summer before. One time, I had thrown one so hard at the ground I actually got it to crack open. 

​

“Look, Darlene!” She hovered over the rock I was holding in my hand in pure confusion.

​

“It looks like the table in our kitchen.” She wasn’t sure what about the rock was so special to me that I wanted to bring it to show-and-tell.

​

“Look at all the little rocks inside it. It’s a co-lo-mo-ment.” I tried to regurgitate the word conglomerate that I heard Chuck mention in the 4pm show. 

​

“The inside of the rock is just as boring as the outside of the rock,” she giggled. She came over all the time from then on to hear about the new rocks I found. I appreciated how she didn’t really care, but she always listened. 

​

#

​

The days have all jumbled together, so I hardly remembered Friday had rolled around. Once class gets out, I meet Darlene outside the main entrance of GHCC. She goes to an architecture school in the city, but meets me here on Fridays to hang out at my place. We’ve had this routine since high school, and while we’ve kind of grown apart, we still do it for the sake of tradition. Her dream is to go to Europe and build the next big concert venue. She has an idea for an indoor/outdoor arena that can house multiple stages in one venue. As an architecture student, she nearly pukes in her mouth having to look at the eyesore I go to school in. One day she’ll go overseas and do big things in the world. I’m expecting her to fade from my life then; we barely talk as it is. I used to say we get along like rocks and buildings, whatever that meant. The best buildings are made with a foundation of rock, and we go together the same. 

​

“Oh shit, I totally forgot! I told the Ninety-Nine I’d pick up a shift in an hour,” I blurt as we begin walking. I made Darlene walk all the way over here just to send her away. 

​

“It’s okay, we can just hang out till then. Actually, I brought these.” She pulls a bag full of gummy edibles out of her backpack. She takes two in her hand, and extends one to me. In high school, her sister Abigail was our supplier. The drugs would do their damage on me, and I would sit on a dirty couch in their basement, twirling Abigail’s red locks with my finger. Her hair became an interest point for me the four years I was stoned. Now, Darlene and I sit on a dirty bench waiting for them to kick in, then we part ways at the restaurant. Her house is only a ten minute walk from mine, and a fifteen minute walk from the restaurant. 

​

I sit in a booth at the restaurant, actually in the seat this time, and look up at the ceiling. It has brown blemishes and indents that remind me of sandstone. It is probably just water damage, but I can’t help but trace every little speck in every tile with my eyes. I remember what we learned about the moon. I wonder if on another planet, geologists go on field trips to their moon. They would study craters, and maybe they’d have special tools that drill better without gravity. Then they would go back to their own planet, where the buildings are made out of rocks that Earth people cannot even fathom. Or maybe they’re different from humans, and they can touch lava with their bare hands. Maybe they even make buildings out of lava. My skin gets hot and I begin to fan my face with my hands. I don’t think anyone’s visited the restaurant tonight. Time moves forward and backward in an alternate realm, but eventually I can go home. My head clears by the time I reach my bed, and while I have the fight of my life trying to resist the sweet urge to shut my eyes, I remember I have words to be writing for class. I sigh in relief as I close the tab for my essay, but get hung up on a blank Google page. The search box stares me down, so I cave in and type “geologist job application”. I don’t know what I want to be. I’ve just always figured something for someone who studies the Earth would swoop me out of here and drag me to something good. 

​

#

​

Normally, I don’t work two days in a row, but I’ve been picking up a lot of shifts lately to waste my time. Outside of work, I end up just sitting on my bed going down a spiral of niche videos on YouTube, which to be honest, I also do at work. But I’m being a good worker today, standing behind the hostess’ podium where I get paid minimum wage to be. I feel like standing anyways, so I play around with the tablet, color-coding the map of tables based solely on what “vibe” they give me. I see the red light before I hear the sound, so the phone ringing this time doesn’t scare me too bad. The only feeling I have towards the phone is disgust. Disgust that someone probably wants to eat the food from the restaurant, and disgust over this phone itself. It’s a gray commercial landline that probably has not been cleaned for thirty or forty years, that’s been pressed upon the ears of sweaty, popcorn-stained, likely high, underpaid workers. I pick it up.

​

“Ninety-nine Restaurant, where it’s always the-”

​

“Is Franklin there?!” a woman shouts. I pull the phone far from my ear. I can hear her all the way over here, no need to get the germs on me. 

​

“Nope, I think you have the wrong number,” I respond. While I don’t know the kitchen staff too well, I know there’s no one by the name of Franklin. 

​

“No, I don’t! He’s not answering his cell phone. Tell him he needs to come pick up his brother from basketball.” 

​

“I’m sorry ma’am, there’s nobody here right now by the name of Franklin. The only people in the restaurant right now are the staff—” Florence shuffles behind me and rips the phone from my hand.

​

“Mom, I told you not to call my work,” she mutters into the mic as I furrow my brows in confusion. She angrily whispers a few unintelligible thoughts to the woman. “Fine, give me like twenty minutes.” She throws the phone down into its stand.

​

“Was that your mom? Why was she calling you Franklin?” I blurt out, unprompted. The corner of Florence’s lip twitches slightly, and she breaks eye contact. She walks away; I shouldn’t have pressed the matter. It dawns on me that I just interrupted a really difficult moment, and Florence is probably more upset that I witnessed it than anything her mom said. 

​

“Can you cover for me for a while?” she pleads. I agree, letting her off the hook for the afternoon. 

​

If I had to craft a list of Statistically Who Gives People The Most Trauma, moms would be number one, so I get it.  Just by nature, the things they say burn into your brain like a punch to the face. Sasha, I’m going out for the evening, eat…whatever’s left in the fridge. Sasha, can you not be here tomorrow night? No it’s not like that. Well, I just don’t want him to meet you yet. Sasha, I know you love that stone of yours but do not put it on the kitchen table. 

​

It’s the little things that are ingrained in my memory. 

​

#

​

This is unimpressive. I stare at the essay on Sedimentary Rocks in my hands. The prompt was simple: pick a type of rock. Research it. Write a report. Technically, I did that. There are most definitely words on the page. I’ll do fine grade-wise; Doctor Meyers loves my work and appreciates how much of a rock-nerd I am. I’m not worried about that, but I am frustrated with myself. It’s not like I crammed this essay last night because I was out on the town, partying with my innumerable close friends. Truth be told, I have been overwhelmed with the overarching push and pull of the world trying to get me out of the school, out of the town, out of my mind. I wish I had the ache to pray out my window and grab onto a star that will take me to the better me. Darlene has this ache, her star will bring her to the aspiring European architect inside of her. Even my mom had a star, but hers dropped her early. On top of me. My star must be caught in a cloud of space dust. 

​

The smell of chalk and paper brings me back to Earth. I blink a couple of times to rid my eyes of post-zoning out glaze, then place my papers onto Doctor Meyers’ desk. 

​

“Thanks, Sasha.” He doesn’t even look up from his book.

​

“Hey, um. I was just wondering, do you know of any internship opportunities, or jobs, or something I could do?” I begin to turn away, already in anticipation of a ‘no’. Just getting the question to pass my lips was as far as I planned out. 

​

“Have you heard of ECS?”

​

I shake my head in guilt. I should have done research on what the job market even looks like before I asked him. 

​

“The Ecosystem-Something-Service? I think they do an internship over the summer for field workers. I had a student last semester that took one up, and he really loved it. I can see if I can get more information on it, and maybe have him reach out to you if that’s something you’re interested in. The only thing is you might have to go up to Coventry.”

​

“Yeah that sounds interesting, I would give it a shot.” I thank him, then frantically pull up any information I can find about ECS on my phone. 

​

#

​

It’s May 5th, the day on my calendar I circled twice with a sharpie on the calendar that hangs above my desk. I’m supposed to hear back today if I got the internship or not. A field researcher, I sing to myself. That’s not sitting in a dark restaurant waiting for the walls to suddenly become interesting. This would be a real job; I’d be out there, with chisels and hammers and rock picks. It’d be the adult version of what I used to do in my backyard. Who knew that would actually become something? 

​

By 5:40pm, I can’t take it anymore. I’ve accepted rejection. They would have emailed me by now if they wanted to hire me. I’m just going to forget about it and go on about my day; if they email me they email me, if they don’t, they don’t. Mom’s been asking me to get groceries for days now, so I should probably get on top of that. I drive our gray Toyota Camry to the Star Market about 10 minutes away. My mission is to find all fifteen items my mom had requested, but I’m gonna add a few things for myself she didn’t, naturally. I reach for the good brand of wheat bread with the seeds that my mom likes, then cross it off on my list.

​

“Oh my god, Sasha, is that you?” a gritty voice behind me squeals. I turn around to see a dirty-blonde girl with way too much makeup, her hair tightened into a “messy bun” with a scrunchie. 

​

“Hi, Becca.” I respond monotone. Becca went to high school with me, though we never talked. She was popular with other people, and I stayed out of it. I don’t think anyone was stereotypically popular, considering the people that I would say are in that group didn’t even like each other. I don’t know if I would even call them popular. I guess they just had so much drama that they were the designated best clique. I didn’t care for any of them, really. I always felt they would never get out of here. By the looks of it, I was right. 

​

“I haven’t seen you in ages! How have you been?” Her cheerful voice irritates me. She didn’t talk to me then, why is she talking to me now?

​

“Good, good. How ‘bout you?” I’ll be nice, not excited like she seems to be, but at least civil. 

​

“Great! I’m working in real estate. What are you up to?” 

​

Of course she’s in real estate. Sometimes I feel like people lie about that. It’s such a lame answer, I’ve always felt real estate was a scam. But how did she get a job already? Did she not go to school?

​

“Oh, I’m in school for geology.” My automated response. 

​

“Ooo how fun! Where do you go?” I wish I knew how to get out of this conversation.

​

“GLCC.” She raises an eyebrow at me, and I’m unsure if she is judging me for going to a community college, or if she genuinely doesn’t know what it is. “Well, hey, I have to go, but it was nice seeing you.” I rush out of the conversation. It’s unlikely I’ll run into her again, and if I do I’ll try harder to avoid her. 

​

“Oh, alright. Bye!” She continues her shopping and I notice a ring on her fourth finger. She got married? Some people just rush through life, I guess. 

​

I hear the swoosh sound I set as my notification for emails, then whip my phone out. 

​

Subject: ECS Internship. This is it! I feel my heart pounding in my fingers as I go to open my phone. I take a deep breath in the bread aisle of the Star Market. If I get it, great. If I don’t, it’s okay. 

 

Subject: ECS Internship

Dear Ms. Sasha Corelli,

Thank you for your interest in the Field Researcher internship for the Summer 2022 Immersion Program. We’ve received your application, and would like to offer you a spot on our team. Attached, you will find a document that goes further in depth into what this position entails, along with a form to fill if you choose to accept. 

Congratulations,

Ecosystem Consulting Service of Connecticut

 

Well, that’s that. I got it! 

​

I take a moment to celebrate, gripping the shopping cart handle in my hands and shaking it side to side. I then text Mom and Darlene the good news, and go back to the email to open the document. I find the word unpaid scattered throughout, sugar coated with the Hands-On Ecology Experience I’m sure to get. That’s fine by me, though. I don’t need to get paid. I just need to go somewhere. I commit the email to memory. It looks surprisingly automated, and I can’t help but wonder if they accepted me because they didn’t get any other applicants. No, I think. I can’t let myself invalidate my own happiness. I’m going to be a Field Researcher. A real geologist doing on-site work. I grab a blue can of chickpeas with cartoon stars on it, and grip onto it.