Another Broken Girl

Chapter 19

Ali's POV

Hunter and his family helped me clean up the apartment and it isn't half bad. The white paint really does help. I even bought new sheets for the bed so I can sleep on it. Laura had a vacuum kind of machine for the carpet but it soaps too so now my carpet looks nice and clean. The bathroom is much, much better now and so is the kitchen.

I'm happy the kitchen is clean, but I don't really use it. I been so busy at my waitress job that I don't have enough time to whip up anything for myself. I usually get some leftovers from work, like baked goods that wasn't sold.

Turns out that my job keeps me so busy that I don't think I need a second job. I don't really mind anyways. The people here is really nice and I love serving people who come here. There's a couple regulars here that even ask for me to be their waitress.

"Ali, order's up!" Randy, our chief, said giving me plates out his little window from the kitchen.

I pick up the plates and put them on a tray while getting some napkins. I'm serving a regular today which always warms me up.

"Mom, I'm hungry." I hear little Clyde say from his table.

"Our food will be coming up soon." Cindy, Clyde's mom, says.

"I got you're food ready right here." I say kindly smiling at Clyde.

"Sorry we've been getting busy around here." I apologize to them.

"It's alright, Ali." Clinton, the husband of Cindy, says.

I love this family. They are so kind and Clyde is just so sweet. Plus all of their names start with a C.

"Ali!" Clyde yells out for me as I was about to walk back to get my next order.

"Yes?" I ask walking back towards him bending down so we're face-to-face.

"My school is having a concert in a couple months" he says swinging his feet, "I was wondering if you wanted to come."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world." I say smiling brightly at him.

"Really!" Clyde asks happily.

"Really." I say feeling warm inside from how happy he is.

"Thank you Ali." Cindy mouths to me. I smile and nod.

For the rest of the day I was running all over the place. It really was very busy. I served mostly new people today and a few who've been here before once or twice. I even had to take over some of someone else's section for a while including handling my own.

"You're a pretty good at this." Becca says as we both fill cups of sodas for customers

"Were you a waitress before?" she asks.

"Something like that." I answer referring to my bartender job. I would be flooded with people asking for drinks all the time. It was easier with food orders and drinks that didn't need mixing of any sort.

There were three other waitresses. Grace, Ashely and Tracey. They are all very nice and helped me a lot on my first day.

"Ali!" I hear a little voice say as I'm giving customers their drinks. I look up to see Clyde at the door.

"Excuse me one second." I say to them then head towards Clyde with the tray still in my hands.

"What is it?" I ask him while smiling. It was impossible not to smile when he's around.

"Here's a flyer for my concert I hope you can make it!" Clyde says walking out the door. I look down at the flyer and safely put it in my pocket. I guess I'm going to ask my boss to let me off early once the day comes.

"I'm terribly sorry for that here's your drinks." I say going back to the table.

I think this place will need a second location soon. If it's this popular they can make twice as much money they are making now and I would get a bigger paycheck.

Once the last customer leaves I plop down onto one of the booths. It was one tiring day.

"We made it!" Tracey exclaims sitting in the same booth as me. Tracey is quiet most of the time but she is really good at human interaction which explains why she's a waitress.

"I'm so tired!" Ashely whines sitting next to Tracey. Ashely is a very big whiner. And a very curious girl.

"You said it." Becca says sitting next to me. Becca is the prankster kind of type.

"Stop you're complaining." Grace says standing over by us. "Get cleaning these tables." Grace says handing all of us rags to clean the tables. Grace is a very mature women.

Tracey, Ashely, and Becca are 18 and Grace is 20. Which leaves me to be the youngest once again.

"Why are you working Ali?" Tracey asks me after we cleaned all of the tables.

"To pay my rent, duh." I say laying my head on the newly cleaned table.

"You live alone?" Tracey asks.

"Yeah." I sigh.

"Aren't you 17?" Becca asks me joining our conversation.

"You're point is?" I ask moving my head towards them with my head still on the table.

"Why are you living alone?" Ashely asks also joining us.

"Because," I trail off, "I do." Wow Ali. Is that all you have to say? Just as Tracey was going to say something Grace comes over to us.

"Stop pestering her. Let's go." Grace says getting her purse.

I am the last one to leave the locker room where we keep all our stuff in when we were working. I sat in there for a while just thinking of how I'm living now. I guess it's not that bad anymore. I have this good job that pays decent for a while now and my apartment isn't a dump anymore. I guess things are going my way now.

As I'm about to leave I hear a sink turn on. I go into the kitchen to see the tall messy haired boy still cleaning the dishes that were used today.

"Need help there?" I ask taking steps towards him. He turns around and smiles.

"Yeah, that would be great." Hunter says soaping the dishes.

"I'm leaving love birds." Randy says leaving the kitchen and putting on his hat he wore every day.

"Bye Randy!" I call out to him in a teasingly sweet voice.

"Yeah whatever." he says waving his hand at us. We both let out small laughs and get back to cleaning the dishes.

There were two sinks so I took the other one and took half of the dishes Hunter had to clean. It was hard getting some of the stains off of the plates, but after a while we finally finish cleaning them. I guess this is why Hunter doesn't mind cleaning.

"Let's go?" I ask putting the last plate away.

"Yeah." he says messing with his hair.

We walk in silence. It's already late so all the lamp posts are on. The street lights are so pretty to me. The shops light up their own lights also and all of it together it just looks so nice.

"Thanks for helping me with my apartment." I say.

"You already said that." he said chuckling.

"I'm just really thankful." I smile.