Barista to Go
by Naghma Husain
Laurel’s boss calls her into his back office. Laurel is unsuspecting, smiling, remembering a joke she just overheard one customer tell another, when her boss fires her. He tells her business is lagging. He tells her he’s letting her go because she was the last hired.
Laurel stares at him. He stares at her nametag.
“I’d be happy to be a reference for you,” he says.
Laurel doesn’t believe that business is lagging. She read a mention in the local magazine about Coffee Crutch’s business booming, about expansions planned. He is firing her because of her size. He has heard the jabs made by her coworkers, and maybe he’s worried that the customers think the same things and they’re leaving for the Starbucks down the street. She wants to yell at him. She wants to tell him that her weight can’t be killing business any more than the giant brown spot on his balding head. She can’t form the words, but even if she could, she’s too sensible. She knows she’ll need the reference.
Laurel doesn’t see her coworkers as she lumbers past them on her way out, although she pictures them already knowing, averting their gazes in embarrassment for her, or maybe staring because they want to see her reaction. Her face burns as she pulls out of the parking lot, the angry blush leaking to her neck, her chest. She wants to scream, but to really do a scream justice she’d have to close her eyes, and she won’t do that while she’s driving.
She drives downtown to stare in the windows of pricey boutiques rather than go home to face her laundry and her goldfish. She stops outside a store called Twiggy. Like almost any other clothing store, this one doesn’t carry anything that will fit her, but she doesn’t care. From outside she watches as the teen salesperson, alone in the store, leans down and blows on the glass jewelry case, then traces something in the fog. When Laurel enters, the girl jumps, embarrassed. She immediately forms a smile; when she gets a look at Laurel, her smile falters in confusion. But she musters a hello and asks if she can help her.
“I’m looking for a dress,” Laurel says.
“Um…”
Laurel spots a dress in red satin. She walks over to it and checks the size. It’s a small. “Do you have this in a large?”
The girl looks so confused, Laurel almost feels sorry for her. She knows she’s thinking that two larges aren’t going to fit Laurel. But the girl goes in the back, returns with the dress, and hangs it in a fitting room. Laurel smiles a thank-you and goes in. She steps one leg into the dress, then the other, then pulls the dress up. It won’t go past her thighs, but she keeps pulling, pulling until the fabric splits. The noise sounds as loud as an espresso machine; the salesgirl must have heard, although it hardly matters because Laurel is too honest to ruin a dress in a store and pretend she didn’t. She collapses onto the bench with her head in her hands, her elbows denting her thighs. At a store like this, she should work a week to afford one of their T-shirts, and now she doesn’t have a job.
“Are you doing all right in there?”
Laurel can feel the salesgirl standing just outside the dressing room door. And for a second she hates her. She tries to stifle her sobs, but she knows the girl can still hear. The price tag dangles around her thigh. She doesn’t have the heart to flip it over to see what she’s done. At least there’s no mirror in the tiny room, no way for her to see herself stuck in the dress, looking like a walrus stuck in a thong.
She fishes out the wad of tissues from her purse and wipes her face. Her purse is made of straw, a style that was in vogue a few years ago, something she could have purchased even at a store like this because they don’t have to make special purses for fat people. She must look ridiculous carrying it—cartoonish, like Yosemite Sam in a dress—and it makes her want to rip the purse in half, too. Laurel pulls the dress off and wriggles back into her Coffee Crutch uniform. The manager didn’t ask for the uniform back, maybe to spare her—or himself—the embarrassment, or maybe because he figures he’ll never again hire anyone big enough to need it.
When she emerges from the dressing room, she sees the girl stationed behind the jewelry case again, a fake smile plastered on her face. The girl is trying to pretend she didn’t hear the rip, didn’t hear Laurel crying. She’s trying to pretend it’s not ridiculous that the dress could fit her. Laurel is grateful the girl doesn’t try to befriend her, doesn’t ask if she’s okay or offer one of her skinny, sympathetic ears.
“How did it work out for you?” the girl says.
“I’ll take it.” Laurel plunks her credit card down on the counter along with the dress. She spots a rack of purses.
“Just a second,” Laurel says, and heads over to it.
She won’t destroy any of the purses. She’ll just choose a cute one that will last for years.
