Gray

Gray

Another disgusting winter day, just what I needed to start the week, Kat thought to herself as she marched along that wretched pathway to work in a huff. Why she continued to live here is beyond her. She hated the cold wind flying through the gray skies and she hated the slush that had turned beautiful white mountains of snow into gray landmines of muck. She hated the never-ending abundance of reckless drivers zooming by in a blur, never missing a puddle.

There hadn’t been a single day that she could recall where she hadn’t been splashed.

Grumbling as she slammed the dull gray door to Al’s Bistro behind her, Kat trudged down towards the metal gray lockers and began to furiously stuff her belongings into the ridiculously tiny compartment. Her co-worker Tracy, bless her heart, bounced in with an enthusiastic “Hello!” and a gleaming grin to match, only to have Kat grunt in response. But Tracy’s grin never faltered as she slid down to the bench beside her.

“So, I know I’m supposed to close tonight-”

“No.”

“But Kat!” 

The girl in question couldn’t help but snort at the way Tracy dragged out each letter of her name. Tracy Peterson might annoy her to pieces, but she also served as Kat’s source of entertainment for the majority of her day… not that she’d ever let her know.

“You don’t even know what-”

“You need me to close for you tonight and the answer is no, Beatrice.” Kat didn’t need to look up from tying her shoes to know that a furious frown had overtaken Little Miss Sunshine’s face.

“You still don’t know the reason!” Tracy pointed out, causing Kat to sigh as she finally looked up.

“You are absolutely impossible, you know that right?” 

Tracy brightened instantly. “That’s Kat-speak for yes!” Kat rolled her eyes as she tied her hair back, nodding for Tracy to elaborate, despite her better judgement. “It’s Ben’s birthday today and I was going surprise him tonight with a party-”

“Which is why you need to leave early,” Kat finished for her as she put on her drabby gray apron. 

“Exactly!”

Kat tapped her chin as though she were taking Tracy’s dilemma into consideration, cheerfully declaring, “My answer is still no!” before heading out to the kitchen.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me, Katherine!” Tracy yelled, rushing after her in an instant. 

Once she finally reached the kitchen, Tracy couldn’t help but wince at the sight before her - Kat, using every bit of strength that she possessed into chopping a single mint leaf with a butcher’s knife.

“Hey Kat,” Tracy called out to her, “maybe let me finish up the rest of the prep, okay?” Kat stabbed the knife into the cutting board in response and Tracy thanked her lucky stars that none of the new hires had arrived yet. 

“I hope you know that this means you’re closing,” Tracy added, provoking Kat to immediately turn to her.

“Tracy-”

“I opened for you last week!”

“Because I had exams!” Kat insisted, only to have Tracy blink back at her. Kat let out a tired sigh. “Tracy, you’re asking me to close because it’s your boyfriend’s birthday.” The unspoken ‘yes, and?’ that emitted from Tracy’s scrunched-up face left Kat wanting to throttle her. 

“How do you not see that our reasons are completely different?” Tracy widened her eyes at Kat’s flustered outburst and Kat thought that was the end of that… But then Tracy got that glint in her eyes that always set off an alarm in Kat’s head, screeching at her to run for the hills.

“Oh, Kat!”

“What the heck is happening?” Kat muttered, overcome with a sudden desire to lie down.

“Poor little Kat!” Tracy threw an arm over her shoulder and Kat wished with all her heart for a meteor to take one of them out right then and there. “I’m sure you’ll understand when you’re older-”

“I’m older than you!”

“-and you finally find someone to love the way I love my Ben.”

“Okay, I’d like my knife back now.”

“Tell me, sweet child, have you tried Tinder?”

“Oh my god, will you please shut up if I agree to close tonight?!” Kat shrieked.

“Of course I will!” Tracy took her arm off Kat’s shoulder while twirling the butcher knife around with her other hand, gliding around the kitchen to finally get started on today’s prep. 

Kat glared at Tracy, snarling. “I’m putting you on bathroom duty.”

“For the rest of the week?” Tracy stopped to ask.

“For the rest of the month,” Kat retorted with a snigger.

Tracy let out a knowing hum as if to say ‘now that sounds more like the Kat I know’. Kat stared at Tracy like a code she couldn’t crack, tilting her head to the side as she wondered, “All this for her boyfriend’s birthday? She must really like him.” Kat froze when she saw Tracy pause mid-chop, cursing herself for letting her inside voice out.

But Tracy simply smiled as she said, “I’m pretty sure I said I love him.”

From then their day went by as usual - with Kat trying her best not to strangle each and every single god-awful customer that stepped through their door and Tracy trying her best to convince Kat that violence is never the answer. Kat tried not to think about what Tracy had said earlier, but she couldn’t get the other girl’s words out of her head. She was so lost that she failed to notice a chair that some horrid customer had forgotten to push in. 

Her ratty gray tennis shoes squeaked as she fell onto the cold gray tiles of the restaurant, just as she was about to greet their newest customer - a girl with bright, fiery red hair. To Kat’s surprise, the redhead was by her side in a flash.

“Are you alright...” she glanced over at her nametag, “Kat?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Kat claimed as she hoisted herself up, although not with as much ease as she would have liked. The other girl sent an unimpressed glance her way, the same one that she’d seen Tracy use when she finds Kat studying during her lunch break rather than eating. 

“Okay, maybe I’m not fine,” Kat admitted.

The girl before her simply shook her head as she said, “Here,” grabbing a hold of Kat’s hand and guiding her over to the nearest chair, “sit down.” Kat reluctantly complied, although repeatedly telling the other girl that she should be getting back to work.

“I’m your only customer right now,” she pointed out, grabbing a chair of her own, “so I think that you can afford to sit down for five minutes.”

Kat sighed in defeat. “Who the heck is this pushy towards a stranger?”

“It’s part of my charm,” she chimed in without missing a beat. 

Not again, Kat thought to herself, somehow resisting the urge to smack herself upside the head. “That was supposed to be my inside voice,” she explained, suddenly invested in the dingy gray walls that she’d always hated to look at.

“Well, Kat, the pushy stranger does have a name.” Said pushy stranger’s glossy pink lips gleamed as she continued, “I’m Dani, nice to meet you.” Kat stared at her as though she might sprout wings and take flight at any given moment, prompting Dani to add, “See, I already know your name and now you know mine, which means that we are no longer strangers.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works.”

“I’m pretty sure it is.”

Kat let a giggle escape despite herself, cursing herself for having no self-control as usual. “Okay, Dani, since you won’t let me do my job, I’ll just have to get creative.” 

Plucking the closest menu that she could get her hands on, Kat dropped the ancient piece of cheap lamination on Dani’s lap with what Tracy had so lovingly branded as her ‘psycho Kat smirk’, only to earn an utterly unphased eyebrow wiggle in return. Dani picked up the menu, pursing her lips as she examined the barely legible words in front of her, her eyes continuously flickering back to Kat who simply pointed back to the menu like the giant hypocrite she was. 

Kat couldn’t help but stare at Dani. From the bracelets that hugged her left wrist - all in different shades of orange and purple and an ever so familiar blinding white that separated the two - trailing down to the glittery blue nails that matched her eyes and then back to those lips she couldn’t take her eyes off even if she wanted to. Dani’s warm, inviting smile stirred a giddiness inside of her that she hadn’t felt since she finally got to ride the big kids rollercoaster when she was ten. It was fear and excitement all tied together with a pretty bow of joy that Kat hadn’t untied again until today. 

But alas, an awfully familiar jingle pulled Kat out of her Dani-induced trance. Kat nearly whined as she remarked, “I guess it’s time for me to get back to work.” 

Although dreading the idea of heading over to the family of ten that had just stepped through the door, Kat finally got up, only to be stopped by Dani. 

“Hold on, just- here,” she stuttered amidst grabbing Kat’s pen out of her pocket before she could blink, furiously scribbling something down on a napkin. Dani suddenly felt her cheeks heat up under Kat’s curious gaze, shoving the napkin into her hands before she spoke. “I just started my residency over at the local hospital, so if it turns out that you actually did hurt yourself, give me a call! I mean you totally don’t have to… but you probably should.”

Oh how the tables have turned, Kat thought to herself as she shook her head. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind, Dr. Dani,” she teased, glad to see Dani’s smile back on her face. Kat finally began to make her way to the customers that were ready to fry her with their laser eyes, but spun around a mere second later to add, “And if you feel like you want to end your day with weeks old lasagna and me after a twelve-hour shift, I’ll be more than happy to keep the place open.” With that, Kat finally got back to doing her job, even going as far as to greet customers politely because she knew that twelve hours later, she and Dani would have all the time in the world. 

Kat groaned the second she walked back into the kitchen a few minutes later. Being met with that annoyingly knowing look that Tracy always gets before proving her wrong would do that to anyone.

“Don’t even.” 

Tracy beamed at Kat’s pathetic attempt at a threat. “Aren’t you glad I’m making you close tonight?”

Kat couldn’t help but roll her eyes, albeit fondly. “How much did you hear?”

“Every second. From you calling her a pushy stranger right up to Dr. Dani.”

“I’m never gonna live this down,” Kat sighed, trying to maneuver her way around the tiny kitchen in an effort to escape Tracy’s onslaught of assumptions.

Tracy simply took that as her cue to continue following Kat. “I can’t believe you giggled! Like a cutesy ‘I think I just met the one’ kind of giggle. And here I thought you had no game.”

Kat whirled around with a gasp. “I’ve always had game!” 

“No,” Tracy snorted, “you only had game because the hot doctor-to-be unabashedly flirted with you. She left without even ordering anything!”

Kat widened her eyes, jerking her head towards the abnormally large gray door with drab walls to match except…

“Hey Tracy, has that door always been so… yellow?”

Kat didn’t need to glance back at her the younger girl to know that she was being stared at as though she grew another head. “Ever since I can remember, which we both know is far too long.”

“And that wall? It’s always been orange?”

“Since the very first day that Al’s opened!” 

“Huh,” is all Kat managed to get out before a smile finally adorned her face, the first real smile that she ever had.

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