Will Musgrove- Fiction

The Marshmallow Story

To stick it to management, I clocked in wearing a navy plaid three-piece with a matching tie instead of my normal T-shirt and apron. I’d bought a Goodwill suit because Bob had betrayed me by accepting a promotion, had claimed diners at this fine establishment expected a busboy not to be covered in bleach stains. Rich coming from a guy who used to repair the splotches on his uniform with a Sharpie. 

After waving hi to the cooks, I walked out to clear the first table of the lunch rush, hoping a guest would mistake me for a blind date or a loaded businessman here to buy the joint so I could tell Bob later, “I knew people would think I was too good for this place.” 

“Pfft, nice duds,” Jerry mocked as he collected a drink order from the bar. “By the way, Robert wants to see you in his office before you start.”

Jerry was a waiter, and like most waiters, he was a prick. Bob used to be a waiter too, but he was one of the anomalies. He didn’t become a prick until he made manager. Before that, he’d been a dreamer like me, spending shifts talking about all the stuff we could accomplish in life. Since we were already middle-aged and still living with our parents, everybody called us bullshitters for saying we might open our own restaurant or go to medical school or whatever.

I’d thought it didn’t matter because we believed us, thought, Why rush when you can be anything? Then Bob went and took the manager gig. And once you move forward, the world solidifies around you like cooling gelatin, and you can no longer speak in dreams. Instead, they’re slowly forgotten as you wipe the crust out of your eyes. 

Straightening my tie, I made my way to Bob’s office, his four unimaginative walls, his dinky kingdom located at the back of the restaurant. He waved me in from behind his desk. A motivational poster on the wall declared that attitude was the only thing stopping you, and I fought the urge to call him a hypocrite. Dressed in his manager-issued button-down and khakis, he took in my outfit and shook his head. Waiter Bob would have laughed. 

“Think I pull it off, Bob?”

“I don’t want to do this, but one of the waiters said he saw you the other day stealing a box of patties out of the walk-in. I’m going to have to let you go, man.”

The cheap suit no longer felt like a joke I was in on. Underneath it, I was a gigantic bleach stain. Faded and immovable.

“Look at you, trapped behind that desk. We’re better than this place, Bob.”

He just stared at me, so I left. I went through the kitchen and out into the dining room. There Jerry carried a flaming s’mores dessert to a table, and I remembered the marshmallow story. But it wasn’t bullshit. I’d actually been in that experiment as a kid. I’d resisted temptation and hadn’t eaten the marshmallow in front of me, waiting for the researcher to come back with my reward, an extra marshmallow. 

Waiters zoomed around me, and I stood there, still waiting, imagining the fluffy sweetness stuck to the roof of my empty mouth. 

Will Musgrove is a writer and journalist from Northwest Iowa. He received an MFA from Minnesota State University, Mankato. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Florida Review, Wigleaf, Southern Indiana Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Forge, Passages North, Tampa Review, and elsewhere. Connect on Bluesky at @willmusgrove.bsky.social or at williammusgrove.com.