Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh Page A

backyard and headed for the woods.

T he job was eleven to seven, Tuesday to Saturday. You bused your own tables and got minimum wage, plus tips. Not that tips were very frequent or very good, the waitress warned Birdie. Students were the worst: they complained that the soup was too salty or the malted didn’t have enough chocolate syrup, then paid with exact change.
    The waitress, Fay Burkitt, had worked at the luncheonette for six years. She seemed amused when Birdie came in and asked about the job. The Help Wanted sign had been hanging in the window for months; she’d forgotten it was there. “Sure,” said Fay Burkitt. “Why not?” She took Birdie to the rear of the store to see the manager, Mr. Loomis.
    He was a portly, round-faced man. A few lank strands of black hair lay across his glistening scalp. His lips moved as he scanned her application. “You forgot to put your phone number,” he observed.
    Birdie smiled. She’d left it off on purpose; she couldn’t risk having her new employer find the phone disconnected.
    “I feel so silly,” she said. “I just recently moved and I can’t remember the number. Not off the top of my head.”
    Loomis smiled back. There was a large gap between his front teeth. “We got to have your phone number.”
    “Let me see. I think this is right.” She recited the number slowly, reversing the last two digits.
    Loomis wrote the number down. “See,” he said. “Nothing to it. All you needed was a little encouragement.”
    Birdie smiled again.
    “Tell Fay to get you your uniform.” He filed the application in a cabinet beside his desk. “We’ll see you on Tuesday, Vivian.”
    Birdie flinched. She hadn’t expected him to use her first name.
    “See you then,” she said.
    Fay took Birdie into the back room and handed her a brown uniform on a hanger. A name, “Rose,” was embroidered over the chest pocket. Rose was the last waitress, Fay explained; she and Birdie were about the same size. “She had a nice figure, like you,” said Fay. “Not so big in the bust, but you’re lucky.”
    Birdie flushed. Through the plastic bag she could see stains on the collar and the bodice.
    “Try white vinegar,” Fay advised. “That’s what I do. Some of them won’t come out no matter what, but you won’t know until you try.”
    Birdie took the uniform and crossed the street to the bank. In her pocketbook was the forty dollars Mr. Loomis had advanced against her salary.
     
    T HE ALARM rang every morning at nine. Each time Birdie awoke in a panic. She got up and toasted three slices of bread, one for each of them; it was the only thing she could choke down soearly in the morning. She dressed the children and took them across the street to the Semples’. Then she took the bus to work.
    The first morning she arrived five minutes early, carrying her uniform on a hanger. That morning in her bedroom she’d looked at herself in the uniform and burst into tears. A waitress: the whole world would know she was a waitress. She found herself unable to walk out the door until she’d changed back into her own clothes.
    The store was already open; at the register a young mother bought disposable diapers. Birdie slipped into the ladies’ room and unbuttoned her blouse. The uniform was tight across her chest; it stopped two inches above her knees. She checked her reflection in the mirror, the name embroidered over the chest pocket. Rose, she thought. I’m not me. I’m Rose. She buttoned her own skirt and blouse over the hanger, then walked to the front of the store, to the luncheonette.
    Fay Burkitt was already there, smoking a cigarette at the counter.
    “Right on time,” she observed. She eyed the hanger in Birdie’s hand. “Oh, honey. Why don’t you just wear it to work?”
    Birdie flushed. “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking.”
    Fay shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
    She showed Birdie the coffeemaker, the box of paper place mats, how to clip the sheets from her order pad to the