My
22
Co-worker, Carmen
Christie Perkins
We sit on wet cement with freshly-lit Camels between our painted fingertips. I listen to her raspy words, watching her massage her sweat-soaked sock feet. “I work here forty hours a week and then at Morty’s Muffins in the early mornings.” I nod but say nothing to this coarse-haired woman in her stained IHOP uniform. We smell of pancakes, sticky sick sweet syrup, and black bitter coffee. “Sometimes I don’t see my kids for days at a time, but I leave them leftover waffles in the fridge. They like the chocolate chip ones best, but I don’t never eat ’em after fifteen years eating them here. My Maria has a boyfriend who I haven’t ever met and Eddy’s failing school.” She cuts her mocha brown eyes to mine and gives me a wrinkled smile: “Girl,” she says, “listen to me good. Don’t have kids, stay in school, and eat an apple a day so that you don’t get fat.” She laughs, and we go in to finish up our shifts, to start the closing duties. My shift ends in an hour and I’m glad, because hers goes till close.