Brooklyn Girls by Gemma Burgess Read Free Book Online

sitting with their two kids and finishing up their pizzas. The little boy, who must be about three or four, is telling a story.
    “And then, Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom, there was this dog, and the dog was sniffing”—he’s so excited he can hardly get the words out—“and then he pooped !” He squeaks and falls off his seat giggling. I laugh and bend down to help him up.
    “Oh, thank you,” chorus the parents. They’re both dressed in impeccable Brooklyn chic. I’m pretty sure his jeans cost more than I’ll make tonight and her jacket definitely does.
    “Gabe, no poop stories at the dinner table,” says the mother, fighting to keep a straight face.
    “I can’t believe you just used the phrase ‘poop stories,’” says the father in a low voice.
    The dad turns to the little girl. “Pia, honey, no iPad while we’re eating.” She frowns and ignores him.
    “Is your name Pia?” I say to the little girl, who is older than Gabe and has two little pigtails that look like she tied them herself. She nods shyly. “That’s my name, too! We’re like twins. Would you like to see the dessert menu?” I drop my voice to make it sound like a big secret. She nods again and puts the iPad away. I love kids. For six to eight minutes at a time.
    “Oh, boy! Dessert!” squeals Gabe.
    “Thank you.” The mother smiles as I clear the table and hand them the kids’ dessert menus. She can’t be much older than thirty, I think with a jolt. That means she probably gave birth when she was about twenty-three. That’s next year. Holy shit, I’m running out of time to be a young mom.
    “Table five,” hisses Angelo as I take the dirty plates to the kitchen. “More breadsticks.”
    “Thank you, new girl!” exclaims one of the men at table five, a paunchy guy with a strong Brooklyn accent, just like Vic’s.
    “No more bread for you,” snaps the woman next to him. “Angelo! Easy on the carbs for this one!”
    “I just do what I’m told,” calls Angelo, whizzing past us without stopping.
    “That’s because he remembers me saving him from Conor Barry’s fist back in the fifth grade!”
    Half the tables in here tonight seem to have known Angelo, Ricky, and Vinnie for their whole lives. Brooklyn is the world’s biggest village. Perry Como’s “Papa Loves Mambo” comes over the music system, and I fight the urge to sing along.
    I smile at table five. “Are you ready to order?”
    “We’ll have the sausages and peppers, the chicken romano, the double garlic spaghetti, a big white pizza for the kids—don’t worry, Ricky will know what I mean. Keep the garlic bread coming, and tell Vinnie: extra sage and onion salt.”
    “You got it,” I say. Ordering off-menu in a tiny trattoria. Ballsy.
    “I want juice!” screams the freckled kid next to him.
    “Last time you had juice you started drooling and humping the table,” says Carb Guy. “No.”
    “He’s sugar sensitive!” exclaims his wife.
    “He’s a sugar junkie,” says Carb Guy.
    I struggle not to laugh (waitressing is the best people-watching, ever) and write everything down. I smile at them all as I repeat it, and they smile back. I head to the kitchen to hand in their order with a goofy grin still stuck on my face. I never expected to love waitressing so much. It’s sort of like paid socializing.
    “Miss! Excuse me, miss?” I turn around and see a table waving at me frantically. They’re not in my section, but their waitress, Bianca, has disappeared. I hurry over with a smile.
    Two men, two women, all somewhere in their forties, wearing T-shirts and too-short shorts. They’re surrounded by shopping bags that they’ve tied together with a shoelace—in case someone steals one, I guess? Tourists, without question, staying at a local hotel to avoid the expense of staying in Manhattan. Immediately I steel myself. There’ve been four or five similar tourist-filled tables over the past few days, and each time, they treat me like a second-class citizen. I’ll