Seethe

She’s bent over at the waist, her head half under a high-top, while she scans between the legs of the chairs with the flashlight on her phone. The indignity of it all, how far she’s fallen. If you put in the effort to be better, things are supposed to get better—like cosmic karma or some shit like that. But instead, she’s pandering to rude guests and a child-manager, who put her on blast in the work group chat, like everyone doesn’t know who closed last night. Like everyone doesn’t know who she’s signaling out. 

Hey, team, let’s make sure you’re sweeping thoroughly at the end of the night. 

Fuck that bitch.

And for what? What did she find on the ground that was so egregious that it warranted a post in the group chat? A couple of napkins? Maybe a stray chip? She’s the one who took the whole weekend off, missing three consecutive five-thousand-dollar shifts. Then she slides in on Monday like some sort of hot shot to call out the weary weekend crew, who maybe, just maybe, are a little too fried to be operating at their peak capacity.

Fuck her.

There’s a laugh from behind her, and still hunched over, she looks over her shoulder. “What the hell are you doing over there, Amy?” It’s Karl, a kitchen lead, and her best friend, standing at the swinging door to the kitchen, propped open with his foot.

“Oh, just making sure the fucking floors are fucking spotless.”

His forehead crumples and his lips pinch, as he walks through the dining room to her. “What happened.” She unloads on him, all the rage, that little pip-squeak thinking she knows best, that she has the right to just willy-nilly call people out, when everyone knows she doesn’t do jack-shit. The amount of times that Amy has covered her ass, like that time she left all the trashcans out and unemptied, or the time she didn’t turn off any of the TVs, or how about the time that she just forgot to lock the front doors. Amy didn’t make any posts about it. Just pulled her aside the next time she saw her. Gently told her to be sure she doing a walk through at the end of the night.

And what does she get for it? The bitch finds one fucking napkin, and jumps on the opportunity to display her dominance, to proverbially piss all over the one person who’s been covering her dumb ass.

What a joke. 

“Woo-saw,” Karl says, rubbing her shoulder, in a gentle pinching massage. “You need me to take you to a meeting tonight?” No, she says, she’s too tired for that tonight. And she’s been doing good; she doesn’t think she needs a meeting. It’s just too much to handle right now, because she’s so tired. But she’ll feel better tomorrow, and yes, if she doesn’t feel better tomorrow, she promises to go to a meeting. 

She finished the court mandated anger management meetings a few months ago. Twice a week for six months, she had to sit around in a circle and listen to people seethe about their wives and bosses and next-door neighbors, all while some slightly less angry person tells you to count to ten when you start seeing red. 

Amy always wondered if people actually saw red when they got angry like her, because she didn’t. It was more like a flash of lightning across her eyes, a fluorescent yellow that crackled across her vision. The electricity of sheer rage, coursing through her body. 

But somehow, despite her previous skepticism, counting to ten did work, and understanding that even if you can’t control the situation, you can control your response, and for whatever reason, the meetings did work, and she hadn’t had an outburst in almost eight months. She was holding down a job, albeit a shit one, but a job nonetheless, and was she really going to throw it all away, because some nineteen-year-old punk kid needs to piss on her at work? 

She’s just a child after all; what does she really know about the real world?

Amy stands up and switches the light on her phone off. She is hungry and knew that only compiled her anger. Someone in one of those meetings used the example of Elijah telling God that he was so angry he wanted to die, and God told him to eat something and take a nap, and when Elijah woke up, he felt better. The group leader said that was a perfect example of how to check your emotions. If your anger feels like too much, just eat something and sleep. You’re probably just tired or hungry. Or both. Which she was. There’s some mac ‘n’ cheese in the back that hadn’t been put away yet, and she scoops a healthy serving into a to-go container, spooning it into her mouth, while leaning against the sink where Karl was doing dishes. 

“You’re trash,” he chides. “That shit’s old and disgusting.”

“What? You gonna go fire me up some filet mignon?” Specks of food flew out of her mouth, and he laughs.

She isn’t hungry anymore when she takes the drawers to the back to count, but she is still tired, and electricity still tingled at the rims of her eyes. She scrubs at them with the backs of her knuckles, but to no avail, because when she sits at the desk, there was a sticky note on the keyboard. 

Be sure to record total tips for the day for payroll. Thanks! XOXO

And who the fuck is this for? 

Being a tipped-out employee herself, Amy never messes up tips. The sparks returned with a new fervor, setting her hair on a static edge, as her skull erupts in a series of pulsing tingles. 

Who the fuck does she think she is?

She has to count the drawers twice, because she keeps losing count with the coins, and then the bills were a whole other ordeal, flying through them so quickly that some are sticking together. She even rips a twenty, tearing it from one hand with the other too fast. She takes a couple of breaths before lining up the edges and repairing it with a strip of tape. She continues to count her breathing, as she opens the filing cabinet next to the safe to get an envelope, but her breathing stops all together, when she spots the employee files in the same drawer. 

No, she won’t. She doesn’t do things like that anymore. And she’s still just tired. The bitch isn’t worth destroying all the stability she’d built over the past several months. All because of a sticky note and a stupid post online. 

She slams the file cabinet drawer shut, a metallic clank echoing through the office. But it spoke to what type of person she was, Amy thinks, as she slides the deposit slip with the money into the envelope, a controlling know-it-all that would do good to be taken down a few pegs. She puts the envelope in the safe.

And she won’t act on it; it would just make her feel better to know that she could. But no, she won’t do anything with the information. 

“You about done?” Karl asks too loudly from the doorway. 

Amy jumps at the interruption. “Yeah, but I have to do one more thing,” she says. “I’ll meet you by the car.” 

It’s just a couple minutes longer before she sets the alarm and meets him outside, giddy. 

“You’re in a good mood now.” He flashes her a smile, walking around to the passenger side of the car. 

She folds the piece of paper she’s holding in half and half again before sliding it into her pocket. “Kay-sera-sera, I guess.” 

After dropping him off, she fully intends to go home, but at a stoplight, she pulls out the piece of paper and stares at it. It was an apartment in the same complex where she used to live back when she was making good money, back before her life imploded and she was lucky to get the job that she had. And why did a child like her get to be manager, inexperienced and controlling, gluttonous with the power that had been erroneously given her. Someone needed to give her a reality check. Take her down a peg or two. And Amy would, but the right way. She’d post every slip up in the group chat, making sure to document the date in said post so that there could be no mistaking who it was she was referring to. What would the bitch do then? Amy had been at this game long enough that there was no way she could get one up on her. 

Amy pulls her car to the curb and shut it off, gazing out the window to the apartment across the street, ground floor, door facing the street. She’d gone into autopilot somewhere along the drive, and didn’t realize where she was heading until she was pulling into the complex, but, she figured, might as well take a look while she’s here.

The engine has barely cooled before she sees her stumbling up the sidewalk in stilettos, her chicken legs sticking out from a pleather mini skirt that hugged her fake ass. She sways, crossing one foot too far over the other with each step, her purse swinging like a pendulum in front of her. Amy waits for her to fall. That would have been enough to satisfy her for tonight—to just peel away with her headfirst in the bushes. But somehow, against all odds, she manages to stay up right, leaning against the short railing of the two steps up to her door, as she struggles to slide the key into the lock. When she finally gets it, she cascades through the door, catching the edge of the door with a hand to slam it shut behind her. Only, the door doesn’t slam, and it doesn’t shut all the way, a thin strip of light emanating out onto the doorstep.

Well, that’s not safe, Amy thinks, figuring she’ll just pull it closed for her real quick and leave, because if she got murdered tonight, Amy would have to work for a month straight to cover her shifts. 

But when she stands on the doorstep, her hand on the knob, listening to the shallow breathing of the drunk girl inside. The flicker of rage sparks to life. Maybe nothing had actually quelled it. And standing right where she is, like she had just a year previous, but at a different door, she pulls it closed. 

There’s a lipstick in her pocket that she uses for touch-ups during long shifts. She rolls it all the way up, holding it, floating an inch away from the dirt speckled white door. If she could prove to herself that she could stop after this one time, then she truly was making progress with the meetings, she thinks, right before smashing the crimson red down, dragging it in swooping arcs to form the letters B-I-T-C-H.