Smart Mouth Waitress by Dalya Moon Read Free Book Online Page B

bacon-flecked hash browns are not for you, that your hunger eventually gives up.
    When you sit down for a meal, you have to choo-choo that first spoon or forkful of food into your mouth as if you're a little baby, until your tongue can learn that's good , sending the signal to your brain to turn on the hungry feeling for real.
    I poured a big handful of cinnamon hearts into my palm and gobbled them before they stuck to my sweaty hand.
    “You can make a whole new first impression on him tonight,” Courtney said cheerfully.
    “I'll still be me,” I said, pouting. “Unless I can borrow something of yours to wear?”
    “Something he's never seen you in, sure.”
    “Wait, no,” I said. “All your dresses would be mega short on me.”
    “Exactly.” She grinned and nodded.
    “Marc hates me, though. I'm not one of those idiot girls who likes a guy who hates her. I have good self esteem! My mother and father raised me to make healthy decisions. Or so they say.”
    “Tonight's not even a date,” she said. “It's just a thing . Honestly, he's cute, but you can get anyone you want. You have to go tonight because you're the one who got invited and I really want to go.”
    I finally clued in to why she was so excited. “Right, because it's art people. And you can talk to them about your monsters.”
    “My sculptures . They're not all monsters .”
    “I like how they have big bodies, but tiny hands. They seem really angry about the hands.” I counted through my stack of tips again, just to be sure. Surprisingly, I'd made more money than I'd ever gotten on a Tuesday. “Fine, I'll go tonight, but I'm going to lurk in the corner like a weirdo, and if anyone talks to me, I'll say I don't speak English. And I'll say it perfectly, with no accent, like this: I'm sorry, I do not speak English. ”
    Courtney batted her false eyelashes. “Do you still want to come to my house for makeover madness?”
    “Are you kidding? Did I just grow a dick?” I patted my crotch. “Nope, I'm a girl. Of course I'll come over for a makeover.”

    When I got to Courtney's family's house that night, I was surprised when a girl who was not Asian opened the heavy wooden front door.
    I turned to make sure I was at the right place. I'd just passed through a pair of lion statues on brick columns, set within a fence of cinder blocks. The house, with no front-yard landscaping except a patch of grass, was a boxy 1970s Vancouver Special, with a low-pitched roof and a narrow balcony above the front door. In other words, it looked exactly like every other house in that particular neighborhood.
    “I'm Britain,” she chirped.
    I reached my hand out and introduced myself.
    Britain had apple cheeks—round and red—and short brown hair, more pixie than butch. In my head, I'd imagined her as a female Austin Powers, but she was actually pretty, and tall. And model-thin.
    Her gaze traveled slowly down, down my body, up again, then down once more, her expression becoming increasingly more sneering. Maybe that was how her face always looked, but she was giving me serious attitude, and I hadn't even given her a dose of my personality.
    “You're not how I imagined,” she said.
    “Same.”
    “Come on in,” she said, waving me in like she owned the place, which only made me despise her more. I'd been best friends with Courtney for years. If anyone should have been granting people entry, it should have been me.
    “I have my own key,” I said.
    She looked at me the way one would look at a small child with a snot trail connecting nostril and mouth. “A key for what?” she asked chirpily.
    “Never mind.” I pushed past her and ran up the steps yelling, “Ha-ro! Court! I'm here.”
    I found Courtney in her walk-in closet, swallowed up in her massive clothing collection. The thing about Courtney's wardrobe is it spans nearly a decade and includes things like the chunky-knit sweater Courtney wore for school photo day when she was twelve. The sweater still fits.