3. Alienpalooza
The kitchen was hot, even though the dinner shift was just beginning. Jessie Springfield wound her long straw-colored hair into a knot, tucked in the split ends and stuck a pencil through it. She paused at the sink and popped a tiny cube of ice in her mouth, then wiped perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand. She was cute, with a slightly snubbed, freckled nose and full lower lip—the kind of girl that other girls liked because she was never completely put together.
“Yessie,” the line cook called, “order up.”
She turned and smiled at Javi. He grinned back, his front silver tooth gleaming in the light of the heat lamps. As usual, he had tied a white napkin like a headband over his forehead, which made his warm brown eyes stand out—Jessie thought he was extremely hot. He reached over the aluminum shelf, the muscles in his forearm dazzling her briefly, and handed her a coffee cup stuffed with garlicky scampi swimming in melted butter sauce—buerre blanc, she had recently learned. Then he winked at her, his neck already shiny with sweat, and she carried her snack to the back door so Basil, the head chef, wouldn’t catch her eating something so expensive. Javi always slipped her something delicious when she first came on, but she was careful to not let the other waiters know.
She had learned a lot about restaurant culture at her last job, Mack’s Diner, where she had worked the 5-to-11 am breakfast shift. There, she discovered that successful servers have quick reactions, darting around with each movement efficiently planned. But hard as she tried, she just couldn’t get with it; her brain simply took a bit longer to process information. The veteran waitresses at Mack’s had no patience for her. They made her wait on the worst customers, like the decrepit grouches from the nearby “senior community.” She’d even seen Geri, the raspy-voiced server with strange orange hair, lift tips from her tables a few times. Jessie was pretty sure they didn’t like her for being slow, and despised her for her youth. Herman, Mack’s owner, was nice though. His great-grandfather had opened the diner in 1906, and it had stayed in the family since. He had given her a job in the middle of her ill-fated freshman year, even though her only experience was working at a Dunkin Donuts back home in Ashland. Okay, she had begged, but as grateful as she was at first to have a job, those crabby old waitresses had really brought her down.
The hotel kitchen’s back door looked out over Broadway and the Town Square beyond. The Square was a huge expanse of green lawn ringed by massive oaks. Four giant Douglas Firs stood sentry at the corners; it was trees like those that built the town, literally and figuratively. Jessie leaned against the wooden doorway. It was solid, built in 1893. The hotel had turned seedy in recent decades—housing transients, drug addicts and impoverished elderly—then it closed altogether after a meth-cooking fire in one of the rooms. But after two years, the Pitzer Family swooped in with a truckload of money to refurbish the building to its original splendor, and more.
The Pitzers, two brothers and a sister originally from Seattle, were famous in the Pacific Northwest for taking over venerable but dilapidated structures for cheap and turning them into tourist attractions. In Salem, they revamped the old state poor farm into a sort of destination spa with a restaurant, movie theater and sleeping quarters. The establishment grew most of its own vegetables, made wine and brewed beer for the customers. Jessie hadn’t been there, but she heard it was fun, though it still had kind of a grim poor-farm vibe. One of the best things about the Pitzers was that they employed artists to refurbish period art and create new stuff with a twist. That Salem poor farm dining room was famous for a huge kitschy mosaic of the state capitol building made out of dry macaroni, spray-painted gold.
When the Pitzers advertised for help at the historic Woodhill Hotel, Jessie had nearly burned a hole in the application filling it out so fast. After a couple weeks of training, the hotel opened with a gala celebration where guests were asked to wear turn-of-the-century garb. It seemed like the whole town turned out for the ice cream social in Town Square where an old-timey brass band played in the bandstand and a barbershop quartet roamed the hotel hallways. Yvonne Pitzer, working temporarily as the dining room manager until the crew was on its feet, had noticed Jessie sneering at her own reflection in one of the hotel lobby’s ornate mirrors.
“Don’t like the lace cap?” Yvonne had asked.
Jessie shrugged. In her frilly white apron, she looked like a little child next to Yvonne’s sophisticated pinstripe suit and perfectly cut, prematurely gray hair. Jessie was sometimes surprised by how thin and insubstantial she looked. No wonder people never took her seriously.
“It’s kind of corny, huh?” Yvonne checked out the long black skirt she had made Jessie wear.
“Yeah,” Jessie answered. It reminded her of her mother, an American Lit. professor who lived and breathed corn. “It’s totally Huck Finnish.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
Jessie wished she could explain it. “I just got force-fed this stuff when I was a kid.” She shook her head. “Americana sucks.”
Yvonne hooted. “Well, that’s ironic. Americana is providing your paycheck.”
Jessie blushed and looked down. Yvonne chuckled. “Don’t worry. We’ll have some events that are more twenty-first century for young missy‘s pleasure.”
“Thank you, m’lady.” Jessie had curtsied and rushed off. That was the kind of woman she wanted to be! Someone grounded in the real world, doing real things with real people. Turning neglected buildings into cool places. Not like her mother and her precious ideas.
In her first few weeks at the hotel, Jessie had found an easy way to make up for her slowness. She simply smiled—and it worked because she was genuine. She truly liked service work. Customers could tell she was thoughtful and kind, taking a moment to brighten their day. They thanked her and overtipped her. Her co-workers thought she was sweet, if slightly dim—she always did more than her share of sidework. Most of her fellow servers were young, unlike at Mack’s. Jessie, at 18, was the youngest of them all.
Still gazing out the kitchen’s screen door, Jessie watched two people dressed in shiny purple cloaks and rainbow Afro wigs walk arm-in-arm down the sidewalk. The hotel was hosting a big alien invasion celebration that night. According to local legend, in the summer of 1957 a U.F.O. had crashed right outside of town, on Lost Mountain in the Coast Range. There were some blurry photographs hanging near the hotel elevator. Jessie laughed and waved at the aliens. Finally, some Americana that didn’t make her cringe.
“Yessie,” Javi called. She left the doorway and returned to the line, toasting him with her empty cup before placing it in a bus tray by the dishwasher. The waiter station was filling up with other servers: Amber, Troy, Brianna and Claudia. They all wore spotless black-and-whites. Jessie glanced down at the gray edges of her cuffs. She needed to use some bleach, she needed an iron, she needed a new white shirt. In the meantime, she rolled up her sleeves and hoped Yvonne wouldn’t say anything.
“Do you want to hear the especials?”
The servers half-turned to Javi as they continued their set-up tasks of filling tartar sauce sides and making coffee and folding napkins into three-dimensional triangular shapes. Jessie stood by the whiteboard, a marker ready.
“We have braised rabbit with a marionberry sauce for $18.75,” Javi announced. “King salmon filet with a hazelnut crust for $20.00. The pasta is angelhair with plum tomatoes and pinenuts. The soup is cream of sorrel. And we have a Space Prawn appetizer for $8.99.”
“Dude. What the hell is a space prawn?” Troy asked, flipping his blond dreds out of his eyes.
“It’s for the aliens,” Javi answered. “I put the crunchy coconut on it.”
“You mean they’re the Pacific Rim Prawns from the lunch menu?” Amber asked.
Javi nodded.
“Do they come with the jalo-pineapple chutney?”
“Yeah,” Javi stirred something in a big pot.
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“Hey Jessie,” Brianna walked up behind her. “I think braised is with an s, not a z.” Jessie grabbed a dirty napkin out of the bin to use as an eraser. Every time she wrote out the specials she spelled something wrong. She thought back to her fourth grade spelling bee. Chief. C-H-E-I-F. She could still see her mother shaking her head in the audience. But her parents had talked about the event for years after: “Remember the time Jessica made it all the way to the fifth round in the spelling bee?” There had been like six rounds. They were like that, latching on to her pathetic victories and trying to turn her into some scholar or artist or athlete. She couldn’t blame them; the kid of two college professors should have some sort of talent or gift.
Brianna was still right behind her, nearly a head taller with broad swimmer’s shoulders. “Hang on, Jessie, your hair is freaking out.” Jessie stood while Brianna tucked an errant strand back into her tangled knot. “There.” She squeezed Jessie’s arm before smoothing her own sculpted brown do. “When are you moving into Amber’s?”
“Next week,” Amber, an anorexically skinny redhead, called across the kitchen, “But I think she should stay with me now, don’t you?” Jessie had been living in room 12 at the Twin Fir Motel since the dorms closed. It was within walking distance of work and had free HBO, which was particularly exciting because she wasn’t allowed to watch television growing up. But the room smelled like disinfectant, the window wouldn’t open, the bedspread was crusty and a woman with four noisy little kids lived next door. Still, it was fun living in a motel; she had never stayed in one before. Their interminable family vacations were “educational” car tours—presidents’ birthplaces, covered bridges, authors’ graves—where they stayed in supposedly charming bed & breakfasts. Jessie always seemed to end up sleeping on a dog-hair-covered cot.
The Twin Fir was all right, but even though she ate well at work, living on her own was spendy. She paid a weekly rate of $120. Amber had a two-bedroom apartment with her sister, whose National Guard unit was recently deployed. When she heard Jessie needed a place to live, Amber invited her to move in when her sister shipped out; her rent would be only $250 a month.
In the past year, Jessie had often felt like she was bobbing down the river of life, no raft, barely keeping her head above water. And just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, someone would pull her out; give her a tow. Herman. Yvonne. Amber.
Yvonne walked in with a small cardboard box. “Here, crew, put these on.” She handed out flexible glowstick necklaces in various bright colors. Claudia, a NOU student who would drive anywhere—even San Francisco if necessary—to attend a rave, squealed and grabbed a handful.
“Whoa. Put them on where?” asked Troy.
Yvonne laughed and placed a glowing red stick on her head like a crown, turning her cropped hair pink. “Figure it out, dude.”
Troy wound a green one through his locks. “Sweet!”
“Yessie,” Javi called. “Will you take these up to the roof?” He held up a large flat pan of Space Prawns. She took it from him and swung out the door. The dining room was still empty, tablecloths gleaming white in the early summer evening sun that slanted through the long windows. The lobby, however, was full of aliens arriving for the party. After the cocktail reception, there were several activities from which to choose: a poetry slam with a U.F.O. theme, a screening of The Day the Earth Stood Still, a lecture and slide show from the college’s astronomy professor, or a U.F.O. coloring contest. Then the whole thing culminated in a big rooftop buffet ball with live music and a costume competition.
The outfits were impressive. There was a lot of silver lamé, aluminum foil and metallic make-up. Others went Martian green. Quite a few used kitchen tools as accessories; she saw several strainer hats and one very uncomfortable looking wire-whisk tail. Some people were inspired by the movies. She saw a Wookie with a sad costume made out of what looked like an old van carpet; an elderly woman with an Alien monster popping out of her chest was more successful.
There were too many aliens waiting for the elevators, so Jessie decided to take the stairs. The thing about the three-story hotel was that it wasn’t exactly logical in its design. There were stairways that led to nowhere; hallways that curved and ended abruptly. Of course there was a ghost in residence; a rumor often exploited by the Pitzers. Jessie knew it was a marketing ploy—a totally Huck Finnish one at that—but there were still times when she felt spooked in the hotel when she was walking by herself in a secluded spot. And she often became confused, sort of lost, though she had never had a great sense of direction.
She carried the big aluminum pan up to the second floor, then had to walk to the other end of the building to get to the stairway to the third. Halfway down the deserted hallway, she thought she heard someone call her name. “Jessica!” She whirled around and saw no one. It had sounded like her mother. Weird. She would much rather confront a ghost than her mom. She hadn’t even called her parents since school ended and she moved into the motel—now they were haunting her. One evening the week before, while she stood eating at the hotel kitchen door, she could have sworn she saw her dad driving his gray Camry slowly down Broadway, looking at all the high-school stoners sitting in the square. She hadn’t called them because she knew they would use their evil powers of persuasion to get her back to Ashland. Did other people have this much trouble getting out from under their parents?
She paused at the bottom of the next staircase, resting the pan on the newel post, and gobbled down a few of the crunchy fried prawns. She had gained about 15 pounds since she started working in restaurants, which was a good thing since she had lost about 20 during her first six months of college.
“Jessica!” She jumped, then turned around to see E.T. coming toward her. “Jesus Christ,” E.T. said when it reached her, then took off its head. It was Herman, her former boss at Mack’s. “I’ve been chasing you for five minutes.” He was dressed in a black tuxedo with a short cape, sort of like E.T. starring in Phantom of the Opera.
“You look awesome,” Jessie exclaimed, awkwardly hugging him without spilling the prawns. “I didn’t know you were into this kind of stuff.”
“Are you serious, child?” Herman mopped his brow with a white handkerchief. His dyed black hair was matted down from the full-head mask and, to Jessie, he looked weird without his trademark horned-rimmed glasses. “I will go to the ends of the universe for a costume contest. Those Pitzers are the best thing to happen to Woodhill, even though they’re stealing my business—not to mention my favorite waitress.”
“This is a fun place to work.”
“I can only imagine.” He dragged his three green E.T. fingers through his damp hair. “Listen, sweetie, your mother called a few times. She’s frantic. She thinks you’re dead or you’ve joined a cult or something.”
Jessie sighed. “Aw, man. Did you tell them I’m working here?”
“Of course not.” Herman eyed the Space Prawns and she held the pan out for him. “It’s none of my business if you’re on the lam from the fam.”
“It’s not like that,” she said. “Well, not exactly. I meant to call them, I just don’t have a phone right now.”
Herman shrugged as he swallowed a mouthful of shrimp. “Tell it to Dr. Phil,” he said. “These are delicious, by the way. Not too tough.”
It was just like her mother to hunt her down even though she had informed them at spring break, repeatedly, that she planned to stay in Woodhill for the summer. She loved the town despite her dismal experience at NOU. The first time she had told her parents she didn’t want to go to college, way back when she was a high school junior, they looked at her like she had decided to try cannibalism. Then her mother started in on her about options and the importance of education and life-long learning and responsibility. Her dad had simply shaken his head sadly. After months of arguing, Jessie finally agreed to try it for a year.
Her roommat
e in Sitka Hall, Tiffini, was up to her ass in the Campus Crusade for Christ. She was a local girl who had been born again after her older brother was incinerated in some hideous prom night car wreck. Every time Jessie was indecisive about something—which class to take, what topic to write about, how many Red Vines to eat—Tiffani would say “Ask yourself: What would Jesus do?“
At Christmas, Jessie’s mom had read her grade report—all Cs—and nodded, smiling her tight little smile. “Well, this is just fine, dear,“ she had said. “You’ll just have to apply yourself a little more.”
“Face it, Mom,” Jessie had replied, “I’m completely average.” She still cringed when she remembered how her parents had hired an admissions consultant to help her get accepted by a good school. They had focused on second-tier private Liberal Arts colleges in the Portland area: Linfield, Lewis & Clark, Willamette. It hadn’t worked because of her low grades and SAT scores. She ended up at a second-tier state school in the toolies. But she knew her mother couldn’t complain because she taught at Southern Oregon, another second-tier state school in the toolies.
After struggling through half of winter term, Jessie was so depressed she had to do something. It wasn’t that classes were that hard, she just wasn’t interested. Who cared about the omniscient voice in Middlemarch or Newton’s second law? She felt she was wasting time doing nothing. So she got herself a job at Mack’s. And even though the bitter waitresses were difficult, she liked many of the people who hung out in the diner. Real people with real jobs doing real things.
In the middle of spring term, she had cut class more and more. Then she finally stopped going altogether. As guilty as she felt, it was a tremendous relief when she realized she had dropped out. She hadn’t spoken to her parents in weeks; they must have finally received her final grades—or nongrades. But she had stuck with her promise to try it for a year and that year was up.
She followed Herman up the stairs and emerged on the roof, where about 50 people had already gathered to sip wine or microbrew or a weird fluorescent green alien punch and gaze at the Willamette Valley vistas. The sun was still pretty high, and the aliens looked out of place in the harsh light. She imagined that later, the scene would look more like the bizarre Star Wars bar. Yvonne said the crew could attend the dance after the dining room closed, provided they changed out of their uniforms.
Next to her, Herman busted out in song, something he was prone to doing when the mood struck him. When Jessie worked at the diner, it was weirder when Herman wasn’t singing. All the aliens turned to look as he sang “Moon River” in his rich baritone, their odd faces reflecting a range of reactions from embarrassment to bemusement to delight.
Jessie set the pan on the buffet table and stood a moment as Herman finished his number. It was bound to be a busy night for her; she’d make some serious tips. She planned to come up later when the twinkle lights mirrored the stars and the air cooled her skin. She would drink a little wine out of a coffee cup, eat Space Prawns until she was full, maybe slow dance with Javi as the aliens whirled around them. What would her co-workers think? Yvonne? Rumor was Javi was an illegal with fake papers. That he had a wife and kids back in Mexico, but he’d never mentioned them to her. He seemed much too young to be married—and so much stronger than those wussie college boys. She imagined resting her head on his shoulder, eyes closed, smelling the sweat on his neck.
As she trudged back downstairs with a tray of dirty glasses, the thought of calling her parents nagged at her. What would it take to convince them that she didn’t want to live in some fantasy book world? What was wrong with living in the present? She told herself yet again that the next day, for sure, if she remembered, she would try to call them.
A herd of tall, pony-tailed high school girls in skintight glow-in-the-dark rubber suits scampered up the stairway, all carrying huge rubber alien heads with slit eyes. Jessie recognized Brianna’s sister, who was on the WHS girls basketball team. She paused on the staircase landing to let them pass, pressed against the window. “Hello you freaky aliens,” she called.
One alien stopped and pointed to Jessie’s foot. “Your shoe’s untied,“ she said, squatting. “I’ll get it.”
Jessie smiled. “Thanks.”
“You bet.“ The girl stood, smiled back and continued on, her ponytail swinging.
Jessie turned around and looked out the window at the Willamette glittering in the sun. She did not want to go to Ashland. She did not want to go back to school. She was taking care of herself for the first time ever. She asked herself: What would Huck Finn do? Huck Finn never let any parents stop him. He sailed on down that river with N-word Jim and never looked back. Fuck you, Mom! she thought, Huck you, Mom! She continued downstairs with a lighter step, rehearsing the words she would say to her parents: I live here now. I live in Woodhill.