Thomas glanced at Sadie, his eyes dropping to her bloodstained apron. He looked faintly disgusted. "My apologies. Let's get you to the car, Madam."
He helped Beatrice up. She didn't lean on him as heavily as she had leaned on Sadie. Pride, Sadie figured.
As they walked toward the door, Beatrice stopped. She turned back to look at the waitress standing by the empty booth.
"Goodbye, Sadie," she said.
"Watch your step, Beatrice," Sadie replied, crossing her arms over her chest to ward off the chill coming through the open door.
The heavy glass door swung shut. The black car idled for a moment, then glided away into the rain, leaving the street as empty and bleak as it had been before.
Sadie stood there for a long moment. The silence of the diner rushed back, heavy and oppressive. The trucker snored. The fryer in the back hissed. She looked at the empty red vinyl booth: there was a faint smear of blood on the table and the half-empty mug of terrible coffee.
Sadie grabbed a bleach rag from her apron. She walked over, sprayed the table down, and wiped it clean. She had ten minutes left on her shift, and her rent was still due.
Sleep didn't repair Sadie; it merely paused the decay.
Her alarm went off at 4:30 a.m.—a jagged, synthetic blare that felt like a physical strike against her skull. She didn't hit snooze; hitting snooze was a luxury for people who didn't take the bus.
She rolled off the mattress, her feet hitting the cold, warped floorboards of her studio apartment. The air in the room was stale, carrying the faint, permanent scent of mildew and the neighbor's chain-smoking habit. Sadie stumbled to the bathroom, pulling the string to turn on the single naked bulb. The light was harsh, yellow, and unforgiving. She avoided the mirror; she didn't need to see the dark circles bruised into the skin under her eyes, or the way her cheekbones were starting to look too sharp.
She turned the shower handle. The pipes groaned a deep, rattling protest before spitting out water that hovered stubbornly at lukewarm. She stepped under the spray, shivering, grabbing a bar of harsh, generic soap.
Her mind drifted back to the old woman: Beatrice. Sadie had spent twenty minutes the night before scrubbing the diner's spare apron in her tiny kitchen sink. She had used Dawn dish soap and a stiff-bristled brush, attacking the rusty brown stains of Beatrice's blood with a frantic, exhausted energy. The apron was uniform issue; if Frank, the manager, saw the blood, he'd dock her pay for a replacement. A new apron cost $15. $15 was three days of bus fare.
Rich people, Sadie thought, aggressively lathering her hair. They bleed on you, and you're the one who pays for it.