Star Bright

Maria weaved through the booths and walked to table five, balancing four plates on her arms and hands. Sometimes she wondered why she took this job in the first place. But she didn’t have much of a choice, that and the fact there wasn’t much in the small town of Jacksonville Mississippi to do. There also weren’t many job options for a twenty three year old girl who without a college education, with a five year old son and a dead beat boyfriend. It was a good thing her mother worked as a seamstress, or they would be struggling more than they already were.

“Two burgers with fries, a veggie salad and an omelette with toast,” Maria repeated their order with a smile as she set the plates down on the table.

She placed the veggie salad in front of the girl silently congratulating her on her efforts to lose weight. She was so round and hefty, at first Maria didn’t think she would fit in the booth, but somehow she managed. She placed the omelette and the burgers in front of the three guys sharing her table.

“Would you like anything else?” she asked with a pasted smile that her manager had insisted she needed to have on at all times.

“You got our orders wrong!” the girl barked at Maria with a lethal gaze. Her freckled forehead was creased in three deep Vs and her chubby cheeks looked even bigger with her lips in a scowl.

Maria looked at her with equally hostile eyes. It had been a long day already, with many obnoxious and perverted customers. There was very little polite left in her and chubster was pushing it.

sorry. Which one?”

annoy her. For some incomprehensible stupid reason, customers thought it was fun to make waitresses run around like hamsters on a wheel under the guise of good customer service. She was about

in her

the girl

at her from under his long brown hair. Then she turned to the one with the salad. His clothes fitted tightly on his small frame. He looked like a pubescent girl tossing the salad around on his plate. He needed

your meal.” She turned around and walked away, shaking

leave the front buttons open to show off more cleavage than necessary. Their green aprons were only an inch longer than their shorts. This was

She got desperate and when she got desperate she came up with the craziest ideas. She lied to her parents and said she was pregnant, and since Maria was close to six months pregnant at the time they didn’t doubt it. They blamed Maria for corrupting their daughter. Maria put up with it though the accusations annoyed her. She wanted her friend to get what she wanted, and since Maria was happy at the time, she didn’t see why her friend shouldn’t be also. Jane married Tom a month later. Her parents didn’t want the embarrassment of having a pregnant daughter in their house. A few weeks

her long thick black hair.

we have families to support.” She squeezed Maria’s hand and went back to filling glasses from the soda machine. “Twenty more minutes till our shift ends, suck it up.” She pulled her long blonde hair into a