One quarter of a Boston cream-pie sat in a box on the kitchen counter. Someone had eaten all the frosting off the top, though. Madison decided last night, that it was her 30th birthday so fuck it, she was eating cake.
She sat across the line of the small studio apartment, where the kitchen turned into a cramped living room. Filling out a slightly shabby green recliner, her mountainous stomach rose and fell with each breath, deep she was in an alcoholic slumber.
Her laptop on the coffee table still played through a season of MTV reality show, a cigarette still burned in the crowded ashtray, next to a purple, plastic bong. The walls of the apartment exuded a smoky musk. The digital clock on the stereo in the media cabinet read 4:00 AM, then 6:00.
At 7:30 AM, Madison’s cell-phone alarm went off where she left it on the apartment’s small, dingy balcony. Well insulated in both sleep, and a thick woolen blanket she had donned, half awake in the early morning hours, Madison slept soundly through her wake-up call.
Drifting through a vague dream, Madison was laying on a white sand beach, the whole of it, for only herself and some hot guy she had fucked her freshman year. He was a total dreamboat. Tan skin covered his limber, toned features, with a full head of sun bleached hair and pearly smile to match. She, herself, was in the prime of her physique, a skimpy black two-piece hugging her slender curves. Her hair raven hair was wet with seawater, and flecks of sand peppered her perfect skin, resembling the surface of a café-au-lait. As they moved toward each other, under the tropic-sun, about to join in passionate embrace, when a loud knocking sound distracted Madison, jolting her into an unwilling wakefulness.
Frankie was frustrated. This was the fifth time in three weeks, that Madison had gone MIA, and Josh, their manager, had sent her a few blocks to Madison’s apartment to try and fetch her. One more round of knocking and that was it, if Madison wanted to get fired, that wasn’t Frankie’s problem.
What on earth was up with that girl? When they first started work together at the restaurant, Frankie had found Madison to be fairly chill. They had even gone out for drinks after shift a few times, or smoked a joint in the parking lot.
Madison had certainly had her issues back then, always drinking Frankie under the table, and it was almost like she thought the rest of them didn’t notice her snacking off of customer’s plates and eating all the go-backs. Frankie found it funny, originally, and she empathized with Madison and her evident weight problem, but Christ, She had gotten even fatter!
Reaching out a closed hand to leave a final rapping upon the door, Frankie’s fist made only two knocks, before the door opened inwards, and there was Madison, bleary-eyed and fitting the doorway tightly. She mumbled something like “just a second,” and lumbered off again into the darkened dwelling. Frankie supposed she could step in for a moment, take a load off, and smoke a cigarette or something. Late as it was, a couple more minutes would hardly matter.
Frankie could only describe Madison’s apartment as “dank,” and not in the new meaning of the word, which is “good.” She meant like a dungeon. The windows were all drawn, and very little outside light found its way in through the blinds. She also noticed an empty handle of cheap vodka on the kitchen counter, standing beside smudged tumbler and forest of empty cans of Miller Lite. No wonder Madison had such trouble waking up.
It took far longer than “just a second” for Madison to collect herself and head off to work with Frankie. By the time they arrived at the restaurant, after the short walk, Madison was winded, sweaty, and a bit rumpled, her dark hair a tousle from the wind. She did not know it, but she would now tip the scales at over 300 pounds, meaning she had more than doubled her weight in the decade since her first days in university.
Clumsily fumbling around with the apron strings behind her back, Madison’s massive belly dominated her appearance, as usual. It kept on peeking out from beneath her too-small work polo. “Damn it,” she cursed under her breath as her sausage-fingers struggled to tie the strings above her bulging posterior. There just wasn’t enough slack in the line. How was this possible, the apron had fit yesterday?
Not until she glanced in Madison’s direction and saw that her apron’s nametag read “Frankie,” did she realize that Madison was attempting to put on her smaller apron, and that she herself was wearing Madison’s, which now seemed comically oversized on her smaller frame. Would Frankie need to babysit Madison all day? Perhaps a bit cruelly, she let her co-worker squirm with the incompatible garment for a few extra moments, before alerting her of the problem.
Broken into a visible sweat, Madison accepted the apron wordlessly, from Frankie. It was 2:30 PM and time for her to begin the shift, more than three hours late. It was then that Josh, the manager walked into the back room, looking quite irate.
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