I went to dinner once at this woman's - Linda's - house.
Linda was a really terrible barrista at the only coffee place within miles, at the time, of where I worked. This coffee place was one of a local chain which was pretty famous for making really excellent and fresh coffee and espresso drinks. Linda made neither. She let the coffee sit all day, AT THE VERY LEAST. It was really really awful. Even 7-11 store coffee was never that bad.....she half assed the espresso drinks or tried to talk you into something else,
"How about an Italian soda?"
"You should try some water with a tea bag in it. Do you have a tea bag? I'm out..."
One time she sold me a "fresh squeezed orange juice" that already had a straw in it and had CLEARLY been, at one time, someone else's.
I could walk to this place from my office. It took ten minutes, tops. It was a nice break.
Linda was really lazy and probably stealing from this place. She intermittantly rang things up, and the prices seemed to come to her in a vision. The shop had a HUGE marquee of drinks and prices that was above her head, no matter where she stood. It was also, apparently, beside the point.
She had a scalp only sparsely occupied by hair. She looked like an adolescent chick; one that had outgrown the cute fuzzy stage and was malingering between feathers and being edible. Or some old man's ball sack.
Did I mention that coffee is the most important meal of the day to me? Also, I'm a huge sucker for bald women. Really. I just FEEL BAD for that much hairless ugly.
Linda was from New York and had yellow snaggle teeth and a harsh accent. She was ...sort of mean, actually. No one ever complained about their shitty coffee or half consumed frozen concentrate orange beverage. We all just sort of went along with her. The numbers dwindled down to an occasional innocent newby and the diehards, like me, desperate for another cup of mid-morning coffee.
Also, I thought she must really need the job because...hopefully she was saving up for a hair transplant.
So one day I'm in there and somehow we get on the topic of food and she tells me that she is Italian (EYEtalian, she says) and can cook the best ...some sort of pasta dish... that anyone has ever tasted,
"The first time I made it, my husband cried," she told me, "It's that good."
"Really?" I say, being polite, and thinking that might not be why he was crying, thinking I'll bet he cries a LOT,
"I love good Italian food."
This was also a lie. I'm pretty ambivalent about Italian food, except pizza, and wine. I like Mexican food better. I actually ABHOR spaghetti. The idea of those long ass cumbersome noodles just pisses me off.
"You should come to my house sometime for dinner and I'll make it." Linda says.
"Yeah!" I agree, hoping she'll hurry and ring up my coffee, or conjure a price, which she does, overcharging me as usual. I tip her, staring into her farm-animal-shit green eyes, waiting for her to take her hand off my coffee so I can leave.
"How about tonight?" she challenges.
"Oh! Uh....hmmm...." I can't think of anything. Not a single excuse that doesn't sound like, "You're bald and your teeth look like they should be sunk into a rat skull."
"Okay!" I say. "Yup. That would work."
She draws me a map on some napkins. Three of them, actually, because she almost makes the map to scale. She does NOT give me her phone number and so I have NO WAY TO BAIL ON THIS THING.
"Bring wine!" she tells me. "Bring a couple bottles."
I eat dinner at Linda's. Just me and Linda, though I had hoped to get a peak at the man who weeps over Costco lasagna, which is what she served, without even commenting on the fact; I could SEE the BOX in her OVERFLOWING garbage,
"The secret is to add your own herbs," she tells me, shaking a humongous jar of dried Oregano over the top, followed by a generous dose of Western Family brand parmesan cheese, the kind that requires no refrigeration.
She does not open my wine. I stare at the bottles, willing it. Finally, I ask,
"Should we open one of the bottles of wine I brought?"
"No. Do you want a beer?" she asks, opening her refrigerator and gesturing in to what looks like a battle between old food and new disease. There is no visible sign of anything resembling a beer. Still,
"Yes. Please. " I say and she ignores.
I didn't want a beer, anyway. I wanted wine. And to be somewhere, anywhere else.
While she had her back to me tossing dishes into her filthy sink, I walked out. I didn't say a word. No 'Thanks' or 'Good Bye'...
I never went back into that coffee shop again. It closed a few months later.
I'll bet anything she was never married. What a fucking weird thing to lie about.
