*𝒃𝒂𝒅 𝒍𝒖𝒄𝒌 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒎.

dossier.

musings.

                        The meek are supposed to inherit the earth, not the wrath of under-tipped waitresses. Kai doesn’t do confrontation as a general rule. Raised voices leave his heart stuttering ; withering glares make his blood run glacial. In the face of optimism, she spits ; in the face of fury, he wilts.   He’s unable to meet her blazing gaze – bowed head, eyes fixed on the table, cheeks stained pink with humiliation.  “Maybe – maybe he just miscounted…"  It’s a weak defence, made weaker by the uncertain rising in his tone, as if even he doubts his own argument.     "And no – I don’t think you know me ? And I definitely don’t know you. I’d – well, I’d remember you, let’s say that."    In less-heated circumstances, it could read like flirting, I’d remember you, but for Kai it’s the same way he imagines he’d remember a bullet between the eyes. One wouldn’t forget a bullet, and one certainly wouldn’t forget meeting Julia; he wouldn’t dare.

             "I can pay.”   It’s blurted in the lull of her anger, unaware the former has been overtaken by fear and recognition.  “The tip, I mean. I can pay for him – I will pay for him. He must’ve - it must’ve been an honest mistake. I’ll cover it. How much does he normally give you for –”   for letting him stare at your ass uninterrupted.  That’s the truth of it, but he won’t – can’t – say that. To be fair, he doesn’t need to; letting his sentence trail off has said it all by itself.

“ -- miscounted, huh? yeah, i bet! real convenient. ”   julia rolls her eyes: the performance drenched in dramatics, as she indeed tends to be.  what was this guy’s deal, anyway? he certainly takes a different tone with her than most of the men in this town.  what a weirdo, julia quickly (and judgementally) decides.  she wishes he might do something normal: like yell back at her, or start throwing things.  now that, julia might be more accustomed to.   “ oh yeah? tell me about it, stud. ”   she does exactly what he doesn’t want: finding the flirt where he doesn’t intend it.  call it lived experience.  she proceeds to quote grease, which is an entirely normal thing to do mid-confrontation, right?  yeah, and he’s the strange one.  but there is relief, even if mildly.  ok, so she doesn’t know him -- that’s what he reckons.  and julie quickly makes the assumption the man is a bad liar.  but then why does he look so fucking familiar?   “ ...you’re not from new york, or nothin’? ”   julia presses: paranoia the urging tip of a knife. i can pay!  oh, well.  that’s not exactly what she had been expecting.  the waitress crosses her arms, suspiciously.   “ ... is that so? ”   where does he get off doing that?  maybe the guy has money.  maybe he’s trying to hammer out a similar deal of his own.  the idea of him being nice (or afraid, perhaps) doesn’t cross julia’s mind.   “ for staring at my ass, y’mean? ”   she’ll finish the sentence for him.   “ my going rate is twenty-five percent, buddy. at least. ”

    julie’s quick to bag her current place of employment.  very quick.  and very current—- we’re talking PRESENT, baby.   sid laughs.  she laughs,  but would hate it as a boss,  and still she laughs.  there’s this thing about her friend that sid just loves,  and it’s the way she doesn’t try to be funny;  she simply is.  genuinely herself,  all full a’loud mouth,  blunt truth,  wit as sharp as her tongue.  feral women are hard to find in golden,  but sid intends to do so,  eventually.  birds of a feather and all,   as if they could ever be so delicate  &.  small a creature.  they fucking can’t,  obviously.  call it survival instinct.  call it knowing what men will do when you’re delicate,  when you’re small.        “ a strawberry—-? … —i’m fuckin’ obsessed with you, for real, “  sid professes her love,  the sound just oozing with it.  julie’s big heart exists alongside her scary one,  just as her hot holds hands with her cold.  the booth catches her indented fall,  the one that’s got her laying down,  mostly,  but leaning against the wall.  as if this is her home.   she’s seconds away from kicking off her shoes.  sid cups her lips so the retreating waitress hears,  as if this boisterous australian could ever be muffled beneath the quarter-full diner.  “ get yourself something too,  baby!    i miss you! “   translation:  it’s your last hour, lets fuck around.

obsessed, you say?  julia has (historically speaking) had that effect on people.  but from sid it is swaddled with affection that wouldn’t dare sour.  and that feeling, most importantly, is mutual.   “ you got it, doll! ”   julia promises her return: valiant, and bearing gifts.  less of a waitress, now.  more of a friend, fetching another friend something from her kitchen.  better they do it here than in julia’s actual house -- if you can even call it that.  a rundown motel room with a mini fridge hardly classified as a home.  not great for hosting dinner parties.  as if julie could cook in the first place... which she can’t.   “ aw, well! if you insist! ”   devilish, even, she calls back across the diner in response.  translation: you read my mind. and return julia does: a few minutes later, food for two in hand.  she sets the shake and curly fries in front of sid, before placing down a plate of her own topped with a greasy sandwich and fries to match.  julia slipped the apron from off her waist, sliding into the booth opposite the brunette to take a seat.  “ coffee’s behind the counter, if they fuckin’ want it. ”   julia remarked, dressed in zero concern.  she chases the sentiment with a large bite, hand covering her mouth while she chews.  “ tell me about you, doll. how’s the boy? he back in town, yet? ”

    hymns warm a church.   this diner’s version?   profanities.  hardly sung,  but sounding pretty from julie’s lips, at least to sid.   probably less so for the terribly mute man,  blinking in half part hatred,  the rest shock.  in a sleepy town like golden,  the blonde knows how to wake its denizens up,  her shrill alarm teaching them a lesson…  or at least forcing them to hit snooze on their own damn pride.        sid beats julie to the hug,  wrapping her up and not letting her go for at least five seconds.  in which,  she makes that groan that tells julia she’s been missed,  and is loved,  and is cherished.  how long’s it been,  twelve hours?       “ your face is THE pick me up i needed after a day of cunty mums…   and some fucking curly fries;  shit’s more addictive than crack.  “  the sort of dead-pan that would drop her sister’s smile and make her mum stare at her.  but not julie.  never julie.

“ c’mon, i’ll getch’a booth near the window. best seats in the house. ”   julia speaks too loudly (as she so often does) into her old friend’s ear.  except they’re not old friends; not by anyone’s metric other than their own.  ask julia, she’ll tell you she’s known sid her whole life!  because it feels like it, so what’s the difference anyway?   “ d’you ever wanna kill ‘em? i think i’d fuckin’ kill ‘em. or tell ‘em their kids ain’t so fuckin’ special. not sure which is worse. ”   probably the latter, which is why that’s the option julia would take. she leads sid through the diner, rattling and rumbling with the sound of cutlery on plates. she doesn’t blink twice at the joke, instead:   “ probably fuckin’ worse for ya’, too. you should see the oil they fry ‘em in out back. it’d make me sick, if they weren’t so fuckin’ good. ”   she’ll slander her workplace while she’s on the clock! of course she will! julia clears the table, now that sid’s here to take it.   “ wait here baby, i’ll go fix ya’ a plate -- you want a strawberry milkshake, too? ”   julia would happily bend over backwards for her friends, and as it happens?  sid, these days, was just about her only one.

              Having been kept in the dark when it comes to the Jekyll and Hyde tendencies of his friend, Kai has yet to realise that Matt is on his best false behaviour when they’re together. He’s fallen hook, line and sinker for the charming, devoted husband charade, uncovering one piece of an endlessly complicated puzzle and mistaking it for the entirety. One sees what one wants to see, after all, and he’d wanted to see a friend in the Mills patriarch. It’s remarkable, really, the things lonely people will let themselves be blinded by. The cracks are going to show eventually; they’re bound to, but in the watery light of this morning, when diner filter coffee is like a siren song for a sleep-deprived Kai, the thought that Matt Mills might just be a terrible human being doesn’t exist.

         It’s peaceful – or, rather, it would be peaceful, if said peace held. Alas, Matt sets the ball rolling by leaving, and it’s all downhill from there.  Oh c’mon, are you fucking kiddin’ me ?! cuts through the hum of the diner’s idle chatter and scraping of cutlery, which is hardly a good omen in itself, yet it pales in comparison to what follows: the ire of a waitress. Directed at him. Kai glances around as though she cannot possibly be addressing little ol’ him, praying for a miracle, a misunderstanding, even as his heart stutters in his chest.     “Oh – I… I think you’ve got the wrong person ? That man is married.”        Since when has a wedding ring, historically, ever stopped shitty men from being shitty ? Or put an end to their ass-viewing habits, for that matter?           “I doubt he’d… be looking at anyone like that.”

wrong person?  as if julia nixon had ever misplaced a face.  alright... maybe she has.  remember that time she introduced herself four times to the same girl in acting class?  call it an exercise in improvisation.  but men, men she remembered.  especially ones she might need to mace, at some point --- or stick her tongue down their throat (depends on the day).  “ ... married? yeah, that’d be fuckin’ right! aren’t they all! ”  she throws her hands up as if preaching a sermon.  god help them, that’s for certain.  the man being married doesn’t dissuade julia’s intentions towards him nearly as much as the lousy tip does.  “ were you born yesterday, or somethin’? ”  she’ll spit in the face of optimism.  they couldn’t afford the likes of half-full glasses or faithful husbands, where julia was from.  men cheat, or they don’t --- and the latter is usually worse, because it probably means there’s something much more sinister going on.  hell, julia wished her husband had had the mind to cheat on her, maybe it would’ve bought her a little extra me-time. “ listen, pal. your buddy can look wherever he likes, i don’t give a shit! i don’t even fuckin’ blame him! all i’m sayin’ is... ”  she sets her palms on the table, invading his personal space.   “ he better, fuckin’, pay me for it. ”   julia tilts her head to punctuate the sentiment, for dramatic effect (she’s good at that).   but closer now, and really looking at him... the guy looks -- familiar?  panic suddenly drenches her: as if she’s been dunked under the ice.   “ ...do i fuckin’ know you, or something? ”   please no, god no.

julia knows matt by the smell of cheap cologne he rides in on.  matt though, might not have been expecting her.  she usually works the nightshift, but this shitty, bright saturday morning, she’s called into the diner at the crack of dawn (11am, the horror).  let the smudged eyeliner and bottle of ibuprofen that rattles in her purse prove as evidence of the well-spent night beforehand.  the effects of her hangover seem to double when her least favourite (but best tipping) regular strides in.  the dark-haired man who accompanies him isn’t of note, to julia.  she’s much more focused on the sleazy problem that sits beside him.  but luckily for her, the usual leering and crude compliments are put on ice, for the sake of his company.  embarrassed, are we?  clearly.  no sooner had he come in, does matt provide an excuse to leave.  he slams down a meagre pile of cash on his way out, leaving his companion to dine alone.   “ oh c’mon, are you fucking kiddin’ me?! ”   julia complains, loudly.  making her rounds to clear the table, she picks up the scant pile of crumpled dollar bills left behind for her.  a poor excuse for a tip, but especially from matt.  she will direct her ire to the next best thing: whoever this asshole is who came in with him.   “ hey, listen -- tell your buddy, yeah? ... if he’s gonna come in here every day of the week that ends with a ‘y’ and stare at my ass, he better keep paying me like it. ”

“ look, asshole --- ”   oh, here we go.  and it’s certainly not out of the ordinary where julia’s customer service standard is concerned.  one hand finds her hip, the other gestures wildly.   “ how the fuck do you know i gave you the wrong coffee? ”   she did, of course.  but that doesn’t stop her.   “ what can you taste the caffeine or somethin’? gimme a fuckin’ break, buddy. ”  julia notes the diner door swinging open behind her, but doesn’t abandon her campaign just yet.  “ if i say it’s decaf, it’s fuckin’ decaf --- alright? and if it’s not, then ... well, shit! maybe you’re wife’ll come in and thank me that you’re not falling asleep on top of her tonight --- huh? ”   the man provides little rebuttal to that, naturally.  but the customer is a regular who makes a habit of staring at her ass, so julia feels well within her god-given rights.  the figure beside her finally takes shape, as the fog of war clears.  “ siddy! what are you doin’, baby? get the fuck over here! ”   her venom-slicked tone makes a sudden return to sweetness:  like the flick of a switch.  “ c’mon, lemme clear you a table. away from this fuckin’ guy, he’s got a stick up his ass. how are ya, doll? ”