Bruce's Restaurant, part 3: Bisexuals, Echoes and Stalkers
by Kate Quinn(WP9) (c) 2004


Cara's face lit up like a house with Christmas lights as she smiled at Miki.
"Thank you so much!" she said. "To be honest, I'm really broke! I was just really jonesing for a Cappuccino!"
Miki smiled. “Well this must be your lucky night then.”
Cara sipped the cappuccino and surveyed the room around her. “This is good, Miki.”
Brendan suddenly cleared his throat.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” he snapped at Miki, who cringed. Cara’s smile faded at that.
Miki collected himself and cleared his throat. “Cara, this is my boyfriend Brendan. Brendan, this is Cara. Oh and Swaine?” He called to the waitress, who turned around from wiping one of the tables and came to the register. “This is Cara Sands. She’ll be working with us tomorrow night. As a cashier/hostess/cappuccino maker.”
Swaine was not beautiful, but her smile made her absolutely radiant. “That’s great!” she said, extending her hand to Cara. “We need new blood around here. Glad to have you aboard, Cara!”
Cara’s eyes lingered on Swaine for a moment before saying, “Great to meet you. Look forward to working with you.”
“Oh, how polite she is!” Brendan said sweetly but with an edge of sarcasm to his voice. “Now if I had this job, I’d be like, ‘byotch, go away, you’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny!’”
Swaine laughed. “Oh, how typical! Just because I don’t wear flannel skirts like the “stereotype” lesbian, I’m insulted for the way I dress! And you, Brendan? Why don’t you wear a little more ‘stylish’ shirts yourself?”
Brendan called her several cuss words and laughed. “Because I’m a car mechanic you fool! I only dress nice when I’m taking Miki to the opera.” He rolled his eyes and turned to Cara. “He just LOVES the opera, you know. Absolutely hideous. We went to see the Pearl Fishers though—that was actually passable. Well—the eye candy was.” Brendan whistled, and Cara actually gasped and let out a cry of ecstasy.
“I saw that too!” she cried. “oh my god, they were so hot! All three of them! The tenor, the baritone--and the soprano!” Cara sighed dreamily.
Swaine looked at her curiously and smiled, as did Miki, but Brendan simply curled his lip a little.
“Are you bi?” Brendan asked her as if he were eating something distasteful.
Cara’s face went unreadable, and she drew herself up. “Actually—yes.”
Swaine groaned. “Don’t mind Brendan, sweetie. He thinks bisexuals are confused homosexuals or heterosexuals. Never mind that that would be so fabulous—to have that much of a variety to choose from! I sometimes wish I were bisexual.” She turned to Miki, who nodded, and blushed furiously. Brendan’s blue eyes flashed dangerously at him.
“Last I checked,” Cara said stiffly, looking straight at Brendan, “the only sexually ‘confused’ people I ever met are people who have a problem with other people’s sexuality. Whether it’s gay, straight, or bisexual.” She ended this statement with a winning smile. “Because when they are uncomfortable with others, they are uncomfortable with themselves.”
“Ahhh, such a profound lass we have!” Brendan chuckled. “She’ll be an asset to the night shift, Miki. Now if you will excuse me, I’ve got to go. I have to get nice and drunk so that tomorrow I can look for a job with a clear head.” He grabbed Miki by the shoulders and gave him a long passionate kiss. Miki was obviously unprepared for it and seemed quite uncomfortable. Brendan was being kind of rough with him, in fact. Cara frowned, watching them. Then, Brendan pushed past Cara, bumping her on purpose, and making her spill her cappuccino a little bit. Within seconds, he was out the door.
Miki suddenly put his face in his hands and began to cry softly.
“I don’t really like him all that much,” Swaine said to Cara. “I tell Miki this all the time. Miki should leave him, really. But he stays for some God-forsaken reason.”
Cara shook her head. “Brendan kind of reminds me of a guy I dated once,” she said. “he seems to be very sure of himself.”
Miki just shook his head and turned away, and headed through the door behind the counter.
“I think Miki is going to use the Screaming Room,” Swaine said. At Cara’s puzzled look, she said, “It’s a room we go to to vent our frustrations. No one hears us because it’s soundproofed, and far in the back. But we can scream, curse, cry, throw things—anything we need to do.”
“Wow,” Cara said softly, “I have never heard of anything like that! That sounds—awesome!”
Swaine turned and called, “Dawn! Can you come up here honey? Miki is in the Room!”
“Okay!” called a beautiful blonde girl who came up to the register. “Hey!” She said to Cara. “I saw you today! You talked to Maeda!”
“Yes, I did,” Cara said. “I didn’t get a really good impression of her until the end. She seems like she’d be a nice enough person, just not fun to work with. Doesn’t like to train people apparently.”
Dawn shuddered. “I worked with Maeda before Miki rescued me,” she said. “See—she really doesn’t train you at all. She throws you into the thick of it and you’re supposed to sink or swim. Well—I don’t do that very well. So Maeda was constantly saying to me, ‘Dawn, stop looking like a deer facing headlights. This is it. This is showtime. GO! CHOP CHOP!’ Maeda is always saying ‘Chop chop.’
“I asked all kinds of questions and Maeda would SCREAM at me saying, ‘why don’t you know that? You’ve done this before! You’ve worked in restaurants before!’ Well,” Dawn laughed, “I had never worked HERE before—every restaurant is different, duh!
Anyway, so I tried and tried, and one time there was this large coffee order; this woman wanted like ten cups of coffee, in separate bags. So I’m doing that, that’s simple enough, when Maeda comes up behind me and says in my ear, ‘Are you labeling them?’ I said, ‘Labeling them?’ She said ‘Yes!’ like I’m some kind of idiot. I just froze. The woman was like, ‘Look, I’m in a hurry!’ So I’m like trying to accommodate her and listen to Maeda at the same time. I say, ‘Label—what’s that?’ Well, I simply didn’t know what she was talking about! Label? All I was doing was putting coffee, the same kind of coffee, in bags for this woman! So Maeda screams at me, ‘SOME OF THEM ARE DECAF, SOME ARE REGULAR!’ And the woman screams, ‘OH MY GOD, THIS FREAK GIRL DIDN’T KNOW THAT? I COME HERE ALL THE TIME!’ And Maeda says, ‘No. Apparently she doesn’t even know what a LABEL is, for Christ’s Sake!’
“So I flipped. I turned around and yelled at Maeda. ‘I KNOW WHAT A LABEL IS, BUT IT WOULD BE NICE IF SOMEONE EXPLAINED ABOUT THE DECAF TO ME!’”
Several people in the room were laughing hysterically and cheering her on. Dawn wasn’t even yelling loudly, but one could imagine what had taken place. Cara just shook her head. She was very happy she had never worked with Maeda.
“Be warned,” Swaine said, her big green eyes wide and serious. “She will stalk you tomorrow. Maeda will want you on her shift and she’ll sit outside your apartment until you answer the door.”
“I’ll just call the police,” Cara said curling her lip. “I’m not impressed with stalkers.”
At that point, Miki came back, his eyes puffy and red, but smiling all the same.
“You seem pretty tough, Cara,” he said. “I admire that. Just don’t underestimate Maeda. The tougher you are, the more persistant she is.”
“She is starting to tick me off,” Cara said, narrowing her eyes. “There was something funny about Bruce too. I couldn’t put my finger on it.”
“Oh, come on!” Dawn guffawed. “You couldn’t figure it out?”
Cara frowned.
“I’m a blonde and even I figured it out,” Dawn laughed. “Bruce and Maeda are sleeping together. Of course Bruce also has a wife, but that doesn’t concern him.” She smirked.
“Ahhhh,” Cara said. “Well—that’s such a restaurant cliché, and everything about this place so far is so un-cliched, I guess it never really occurred to me.” She smiled, as Miki laughed heartily.
“The Screaming Room?” Cara asked him. “I mean—that is phenomenal! Truly amazing!”
“I try,” Miki said shyly.
“Well on that lovely note,” Cara said, “I really must go get some shut-eye. Didn’t sleep much today and I want to be nice and alert for tomorrow.”
“Good thought,” Miki said grinning. “I like alert. Alert is good.”
“Alert is good for drivers too,” Swaine said randomly. “Do you drive, Cara?”
“No,” Cara said. “I use Septa.
“Septoid!” Dawn laughed. “Evil spawn of Satan, I say!”
“It can be,” Cara grinned. “Well all—it was really great meeting you. Thanks again for the cappuccino, Miki.”
“Anytime,” Miki smiled. Cara waved once again and went out the door.
There was a little pause, then Swaine spoke.
“She,” Swaine said, “is cute.”
“She’s mine!” Dawn said, laughing in a mock evil way. “Paws off!”
“Cat fight!” Miki cried. “Screaming room!” Dawn and Swaine pretended to claw each other’s eyes out.
“She and Dawn have more in common, though,” Miki said teasingly to Swaine. “Being that Cara is bi.”
“She’s bi?” Dawn squealed. “Even better! We can—well--hehe!” She blushed.
“You’re sick, Dawn!” Swaine said in mock horror. “Sick!”
“Hey!” Dawn said. “I always say, the more the—“
“Stop, stop!” Miki put his hands over his ears. “No more clichés tonight. There’s too much work to do and I’m starting to get tired of this radio station.” He reached down to the radio under the counter and changed the station to 88.5, WXPN.
“Ahhhh,” Miki sighed as soothing new age music wafted over the room. “THIS is more like it.”
“Hey!” called one of the customers. “Echoes! Cool!”
“I love Echoes!” his female companion said.
“Nothing like a little ‘mood’ music,” Miki said smiling. “Okay, folks. Let’s get back to work, there’s still three more hours of this fun.”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” Swaine said, saluting him.
Miki just snarled and did his Johnny Depp imitation. “Swaine. I’m Captain Jack Sparrow. Savvy?”
Swaine threw a dishrag in his face.

[c]* * * * * * * *[/c]

Cara lay in a fetal position, completely at peace with the world. Her bed was big, but she liked it that way, even though she herself was not a huge person. Her cat Serena lay at her head, purring away in her ear. It was about five-forty-five in the morning.
Suddenly the peace was disturbed. Someone was calling her name.
“CARA!”
The person was female—she sounded almost like she were being murdered. Cara sprung out of bed, wondering if it were someone she knew or just a very bad dream. She was shaking as she pulled on her long sundress and stepped into her shoes. The woman continued to scream her name, banging on the door. The screams were loud and full of agony. Cara took a deep breath and counted to ten before she opened the door.
There, on the landing of her first floor apartment, stood Maeda.
Her eyes were bulging out of her face, which was as white as a sheet. She was literally hyperventilating.
Cara went into automatic pilot, instantly imagining the worst.
“Maeda! What is it? Is it Bruce? Has he had a heart attack or something? Is Miki okay? Did Brendan do something to him?”
Maeda’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits. She literally looked demonic.
“You’re—supposed—to be—at Bruce’s,” she spat through her teeth. “It’s FIVE FORTY FIVE, Cara! We were due to open up at FIVE!”
Cara’s heart sunk. Now it came back to her, the conversation from the night before. So Maeda was stalking her? Obviously. AND, she was in denial.
“I called,” Cara said quietly. “I talked to Bruce as soon as I got home yesterday. I told him Miki hired me for his night shift and that I wouldn’t be doing the day shift.”
Maeda shook her head. “No, no no no no no no,” she said, every word getting more and more intense. “You can’t do that. No. You can’t do that. You signed a contract. You’re on. You don’t just quit.”
Cara frowned. “Bruce said it doesn’t matter, so long as he’s making money.”
“Bruce wouldn’t do that to me,” Maeda said, her eyes going glazed. “you’re lying to me. You’re lying. Now go—get—dressed. You’re coming with me to Bruce’s.”
Cara quickly scooped up Serena who had tried to escape out the door, and held her close while she purred. She looked over the cat’s grey head and glared at Maeda.
“No.”
“Nobody tells me no,” Maeda said through gritted teeth. She literally looked like a psycho. “I don’t get told no. Nobody in their right mind would tell me no.”
“Look, Maeda, I’m sorry it’s left you short a worker, but you survived this long without an extra cashier. Bruce told me you’d be fine for a little longer.”
“BRUCE WOULDN’T DO THIS TO ME!” Maeda screamed. “YOU’RE LYING!” Suddenly, she pushed her way into Cara’s apartment, pushing past Cara, who was still holding onto Serena, who struggled now and hissed at the chaos. Maeda looked around, stalking around the apartment. Cara instantly felt a negative cloud come into the room.
“This place is a MESS,” Maeda said disapprovingly. “Clutter everywhere. You don’t have a boyfriend, do you? I imagine he left you when he found out what a SLOB you were!”
“Get out of my apartment!” Cara shouted, and before she could think of what she was doing, she let go of Serena, and the cat shot out of her arms and ran headlong out the door.
“SERENA!” Cara shouted.
She tore out the door, in search of her cat. Serena was nowhere to be found.
“SERENA!”
“Oh, just leave some food or something!” Maeda shouted. “The stupid cat will come back! Although why it would want to come back to THIS dump, I don’t know! We don’t have time for this, Cara. We have to get to work.”
Cara whirled around and faced Maeda. Her blood was boiling. She felt ready to pounce on Maeda, rip her to shreds. She held herself back with an effort that hurt.
“You made my cat run away,” she snarled. “Serena is an indoor cat. She doesn’t know how to handle the outside!”
“Oh, she doesn’t know how to handle the outside!” Maeda said in a screechy voice, imitating Cara and sneering at her. “Poor wittle Cara lost her kitty witty! Are you gonna CWY NOW?”
“If you don’t get out of my face RIGHT NOW, I will call the police,” Cara said darkly.
“Oh, NOT that old song again!” Maeda groaned. “EVERYONE calls the police on me! I still come back. No one’s locked me up yet!” She grinned, and went and sat down on the single step leading to Cara’s apartment.
“Okay,” she said calmly, smiling at Cara. “You might as well make me some coffee, Cara. Because I’m not going anywhere until you come with me.”
(TO BE CONTINUED)