City Boy

“Kat, who was the kid?” Paula said, coming behind her with a tray of whiskeys.

“A couple of Brits! Can you believe that?!” she exclaimed. “And the woman asked for champagne!”

“Damn, and he was checking you out shamelessly when you walked away! Ugh, you have all the luck.”

“Oh, stop complaining. You have half the regulars in this town drooling over you.”

“Yeah but none of them hot brits who have green eyes and curly hair. And I’ll bet he smells good, too.”

“You’re so sappy. Go serve your table. Patrick tips good if you’re quick,” Katy laughed, heading back to the Brits. She began to mouth the words to the music playing through the building. It was one of her favorites, This is How We Roll by FGL. “Singing out everything on the radio,” she muttered as she reached the table. “Here you go, guys! You’re new in town?”

“Yes, we’ve just moved in to a place outside of town, and we thought we’d check out the area. I will say that it’s much different than we expected.” She offered another smile, and Katy gladly returned it again. They were the nicer side of the upper class, so it seemed.

“Not bad different, I hope!”

“No, just not what we’re used to,” she said. The man glanced up from his iPhone, and then picked up the menu.

“Can I have a burger with everything on it?” he asked. He obviously had a problem… The woman, who Katy assumed was his mother, glared at him. He tossed her a sarcastic smile before looking back at his phone.

“Yep. How’d you want it cook, honey?” Katy asked, smiling. If he was going to be grumpy, she was going to be nice. In fact, his disrespect to his mother made Katy want to tick him off, to see his reaction. His mother frowned, embarrassed.

“Well done,” he mumbled, not looking up from his phone. Katy rolled her eyes, but it just so happened that that was the moment he glanced up at her. “Look, it’s your job to get the food and that’s it. I don’t need your opinion on anything.”

“Honey, I didn’t even speak, but if you want me to, here it is. Out here we treat our Mommas with respect, and that right there was absolutely unacceptable. So if you’re not gonna treat people like human beings, get the hell out of my restaurant,” Katy snapped, pointing her pen at the door. The mother’s mouth curved up into a slight smile, to Katy’s surprise. The man stood up and glared at her, before stomping out the door. She smiled victoriously for the second time that night and took the woman’s order, who apologized profusely for her son’s behavior.

Her name was Anne Styles, and she and her son Harry had just moved from England because of her husband’s medical job. Apparently Harry wasn’t taking it too well, since he’d had to leave all of his closest friends behind. He was angry at his step-father.

“Well, if he need something to do, send him on over. We’ll give him a job, and Perrie’s log-splitting is looking for some new hands too. I’m sure it would be good for him to be busy, you know, take his mind off things.”

“Thank you, Katy. I’ll look into it.” She finished her salad and left. Katy peeked out the door to see Harry swig out of a silver flask, and turn away when Anne approached him. She followed him, pleading with him, but he refused. He just left her standing there, nearly crying, and strolled half-drunk down the street. Anne hung her head and looked back, catching Katy watching from the door. Instead of running off, she chose to comfort the poor woman. She came out the door and put an arm around her shoulders.

“It’ll be ok, Anne. You know what? My friends and I are having a part over at Dark’s Farm tonight. I’ll try and get him to go. Maybe he just needs to loosen up a little bit.” Anne nodded, wiping a tear from her eye.

“I don’t know what else to do. Nothing is getting through to him,” she said quietly.

“I’ll do my best,” Katy encouraged.

Notes

Love to hear feedback! Getting ready to go to my buddie's grad party, though, so I'll be offline until tonight in a while.