by T. F. Pruden
Though frustrated by the interruptions to work on the pony wall, he qualified the candidates while speaking with them on the telephone. He winnowed through the chaff of the calls to arrive at what he believed the best qualified of them. These he would meet over the first days of the new week.
After near three hours of repetitive questioning he had now arrived at the sixth, and last, of the candidates.
He rose from the bench at the back of the restaurant lounge. Wayne stretched before walking at a slow pace to the arched entrance to the hallway and the foyer where the remaining candidate waited.
He edged closer to exhaustion.
As he struggled toward the end of the long day, he knew despite waning energy he must evaluate the remaining candidate with care. He would treat each of them the same. He forced a lukewarm smile onto his face and drew himself to full height as he entered the foyer.
A young woman sat with her shapely legs crossed on the burgundy vinyl of the upholstered bench. Next to the glass door leading to the hotel lobby she read from a paperback as he walked toward her.
The mass of thick dark curls that fell past her shoulders shone in the waning sunlight streaming through the window to her left. A leather jacket lay folded on the bench at her side. She wore a white shirt with three-quarter length sleeves open at the collar. A gold chain was visible at her throat while a black knee-length skirt, black stockings and black leather pumps completed her ensemble. A single gold ring encrusted with small diamonds was visible on the tiny last finger of each of her salon-tanned hands.
She looked up from the book with an eyebrow raised. She placed it into the black purse at her side.
Wayne at once noticed the blue of her eyes.
They sparkled as bright as the stones in the rings she wore. When she grinned, he noted her perfect teeth were brilliant white. Rising from the bench she stood less than five and a half feet tall despite wearing heels. Her large breasts sat proud above the hourglass curve of her waist.
She was devoid of so much as a hint of avoirdupois.
The unlined and perfect tanned skin of her forehead curved into the dark eyebrows that shaded the remarkable blue eyes. They looked from an ideal width aside a flawless nose, straight and petite, with a gentle upturn at its diminutive tip. Her lips painted with a dark shade of moist and red lipstick were full and shaped by nature into a delicate pout. She smiled as he drew closer and a slight overbite, relieving the overblown perfection of her beauty, revealed itself.
Rather than marring the exquisite pulchritude of her face, it lent a hint of imperfection that rendered her approachable.
Wayne’s weariness though threatening to overwhelm him, faded at the site of the woman. For a moment an urgent need to take her in his arms near overcame him.
The proximity to her beauty both calmed and overwhelmed.
He waited for his breath to return.
Wayne throbbed in sympathetic response to the force of his attraction to her. Only with effort could he tear his eyes away.
He cleared his throat and hurried to locate his composure. He extended a hand for her to shake, embarrassed and surprised by his reaction to the young woman.
“Hello Sara,” he said, hiding his discomfort behind a practiced smile, “I’m Wayne, the fellow you spoke with on the phone.”
“Pleased to meet you!” she replied as she accepted the handshake.
The grip was firm and her smile beamed with awareness she caused the handsome man standing in front of her to fluster.
“The new place looks great!”
“Thank you!” Wayne said, appreciating her notice of the surroundings and regaining control, “come in and I’ll show you around.”
He had yet to release her hand. As he led her down the short hallway to the dining room entrance she allowed him to continue holding it. She noted the veined strength in spite of the gentle grip. When they reached the entrance to the dining room, he extended the other arm in a sweeping motion as though unveiling a painting before her.
The unabashed pride he held for the old place was at once apparent.
“This is the dining room of ‘Rene’s at the Marlene’, at least it soon will be,” he said with an uncertain smile, “how do you like the space?”
Sarah Lampley looked with the experienced eyes of a well-trained professional at the large dining room. It neared completion of a renovation and lay empty in front of her. She added the number of seats and noted the kitchen at the end of the room while considering the new décor in silence. Trained at the Perkin’s chain while still a high school part-timer, she was now a veteran professional with almost five years of industry experience.
Despite the poor location of the restaurant itself the dining room in front of her benefitted a great deal from the renovations. Sarah could see the layout provided an easy division of labor for service and good access to the kitchen. With the hostess station, coat check, and lounge all located external to the dining room a sense of intimacy would be provided to customers enjoying dinner here.
Experience told her this would translate into strong sales and excellent tips.
“I’m impressed,” she spoke in the voice of a veteran, “it’s an intimate layout that provides natural sectioning for service and quick access to the kitchen. I can’t wait to start work here.”
“How many servers do you think we’ll need to handle the house?” Wayne asked, impressed by her response and forgetting he still held her hand.
“We’ll handle the place with two if the other one is as good as me,” Sarah replied without embarrassment, “three if you want more time spent with your diners or the other two are weak.”
“How should the sections be broken down?” Wayne asked, aware of her soft hand resting warm in his.
“In halves for two servers,” she replied, fighting the urge to squeeze the calloused fingers holding her, “in thirds with the center tables being one section and the booths divided equally for three.”
“You think four servers would be too many?” he asked, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around her.
“Unless you want staff standing around bitching about their miserable tips,” she answered with a grin on her face, “and I doubt you want that.”
“So you’re saying best is two or three in that case?” he asked, a smile playing on his lips and still holding her hand.
“Two.” she spoke with a definite voice, “I like to be busy when I’m working and ten dining tables is an easy handle. It’s not like they’re going to be eating breakfast or lunch and will be in a hurry, they’re coming here to have dinner and will want to take their time.”
“I see,” Wayne replied, “but what about turnaround times? You don’t think an extra set of hands might get them out quicker so we can get an extra turn out of our tables?”
“That extra set of hands will cost you more time unless your kitchen is equipped to handle it,” she said in response.
Her tone betrayed a growing confidence as she realized he tested her and the interview was ongoing.
“You’ve got a small kitchen back there and you’re probably going to have to push it pretty hard just to get two turns out of it if you’re full in here,” she said, “that’s a hundred and sixty full services and if you’re aiming for more you’re going to need another location.”
Wayne laughed aloud, appreciating the accuracy of the evaluation she delivered. Despite the beauty her brains were best not underestimated. In spite of his lust he realized he wanted her working beside him.
“So when can you start?” he asked, “in the event I might want to hire you to come work here I mean.”
“I’ll need to give a weeks’ notice,” she replied, “and you know you want me here.”
“I do,” he said, smiling down at her and now aware he still held her hand, “but that doesn’t mean I’m going to hire you.”
“You can let go of my hand anytime,” she said with the playful tone in her voice, “I’m not going to run away.”
He laughed again, embarrassed and relieved yet not wanting to release the tiny hand.
“Sorry about that!” he said, with a blush rising in his cheeks, “I forgot I was holding you captive.”
“That’s alright,” she said with her voice losing the playful tone, “I don’t think I’ll mind being kept here.”
“I just hope we’ll be successful enough to keep you.” Wayne’s answer was serious, “You know we’re new, and it’s not the best location. Are you sure you’re ready to quit and come over here if I offer you the job?”
“As long as I’m head waitress and you’re my boss,” she spoke in a deliberate voice now, fixing him with the mesmerizing brilliance of her smile, “I don’t want to be answering to anyone but you, not even a hostess.”
“In that case I guess you’d better give your notice,” he replied.
A mix of lust and relief flooded through him as he stared into the blue of her eyes.
“I suppose you should attend the interviews here tomorrow afternoon so you can help me pick the rest of our staff, eh?”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said.
Sarah squeezed his calloused fingers before she extracted her hand from his and extended it for him to shake.
“Don’t you think you ought to let me see the resumes of the girls you interviewed before me now you’ve welcomed me to your team?”
He smiled at her again, thrilled at the squeeze and surprised by the immediate comfort he felt in her company.
Wayne hoped his first hire would prove his best. Her gift of gab impressed him. Without hesitation he accepted the small hand and shook it. He looked with wonder and lust at the beautiful young woman standing before him.
He had made the right choice, of that Wayne was near convinced.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rene sat in a booth next to the window in the truck stop restaurant.
He drew on the filtered cigarette he enjoyed after eating a heavy breakfast. The cook who prepared the delicious and cholesterol laden spread now cleaned the expansive grill in sight of the restaurants’ patrons. It sat behind the counter and across the aisle from where he waited for her to join him.
The cook would meet with him at the soon approaching end of her shift.
The truck stop sat at the corner of Deacon Road and Highway One only three miles from the Lemieux Trucking yard. Since moving his company into the leased premises a decade earlier, he had been a regular customer.
The woman he now waited for took over as breakfast cook at the restaurant two years earlier. As he came to appreciate her culinary talents, he established a friendship with the elderly woman.
At the end of her shift today he would discuss an opportunity with her. Rene watched her sweat while scrubbing the still hot grill and barking orders to the surrounding staff. He appreciated again that she was the cook he wanted running the breakfast service at his new restaurant.
He remained as committed to launching the service as when he first hatched the idea.
Rene by now realized he was ignorant of what might be required to bring the poorly thought out plan to fruition. He decided his friend the truck stop breakfast cook Doris Walker, an industry veteran in her early sixties, would be a likely candidate to take on the task. If she proved unwilling to do it he hoped she would advise him about the specifics of launching the planned service.
He thus decided to offer her the position of breakfast cook at ‘Rene’s at the Marlene’.
Rene hoped she would provide him with the guidance and experience he lacked to make it a success. As he arrived at the end of the cigarette, he retrieved another from the package in front of him and lit it with the remains of the dying butt. Rene stubbed the old one into the plastic ashtray waiting in the center of the yellow Formica tabletop. He drew on the new cigarette held between his nicotine-stained fingers.
Rene watched as Doris, having finished cleaning the grill, loosened the apron from around her waist. She turned to walk from behind the counter into the staff and storage rooms next to it to change into street clothes. He smiled as he watched her leave the dining room.
She would soon join him and he could then do what he did best; sell her the idea of working for him.
Doris Walker stood in front of the half height locker and removed the bacon and onion scented apron and the tight hair net. She tossed both into the vertical laundry basket standing three feet to her right against the wall. With a yawn she withdrew a plastic brush from the cloth purse waiting inside the locker and ran it through the curls of her grey streaked hair. She kept it short to make the heat of the grill less onerous.
An attractive and vivacious woman in her youth, she had worked at the Hi-Way Truck-Stop Restaurant for two years and been a breakfast cook for twenty eight.
Doris looked forward to living long enough to qualify for the old age pension. On the day she retired she had promised herself she would never again stare into the heat of a breakfast grill.
Despite her truck driving husband Roy’s protests she planned not to cook another morning meal after that.
She woke at sixty to find she spent her entire adult life employed in restaurants. From her earliest working days post High School she waitressed. A dining room manager moved her into the kitchen.
He discovered her able to fry eggs ‘over easy’ when a hung-over breakfast cook failed to arrive for the morning shift. In her mid-thirties Doris by then had already grown tired of the come-ons and unwelcome touches that accompanied life as a waitress. Despite an utter lack of interest in flipping eggs she appreciated not having to make herself up to go to work.
She also appreciated no longer having to shill for tips.
Though her husband had first worried at the loss of the daily cash income he soon appreciated his wife’s improved disposition. As her experience grew her income rose, and tip pooling relieved the worst pain of the financial loss.
She no more intended to make the heat of the kitchen her life’s work than she had the restaurant business. The years passed and she and Roy raised four children on the wages her cooking and his driving provided. She was grateful, always, for it. Her qualification date for the government old age pension was now only two years away. They had paid off their little house in the village of Oak Bluff. Doris and Roy counted down the remaining months until the sweet days of retirement would be upon them.
They laughed like teenagers as they lay in their bed together.
Doris smiled as she thought of Roy.
Her first love and High School sweetheart was a year older than his wife. He now worked through his first years of pension eligibility so they could retire together. In only two years they would spend their days doing exactly as they wanted.
Even she noticed her curmudgeon’s attitude lighten as the date drew closer. It was apparent enough that her staff, who lived in fear of inciting her legendary wrath and served her with deference, now called her ‘Auntie Doris’ to her face.
When she enjoyed the moniker and the affection accompanying it she was at first surprised. As the retirement date inched closer, she came to accept it as a sign of respect. Her years of stubborn commitment to a strict discipline earned it.
She pulled the wool jacket out of the locker. After retrieving her purse she closed the metal door.
Rene Lemieux waited to see her, and she wondered what the renowned womanizer and successful trucking company owner might want. With a tired sigh she turned away from the locker and walked back into the restaurant.
She at once spied Rene and moved to seat herself across from him in the booth where he waited.
“Allo, Allo, mon amie Doris,” he spoke in a conspirators voice, “‘ow are you ‘dis morn’ang, eh?”
“I’m in good shape in spite of my years you devil,” Doris replied with a smile, “and what’s on your mind this morning that you need to keep me away from my afternoon nap?”
Rene was at once charmed by the older woman. Some lingering twinkle seemed to emanate from within her.
It made her seem decades younger than her appearance declared. She yet retained a reflection of youthful exuberance, and it pleased him to engage in gentle bouts of adolescent repartee with the cook.
“I ‘ave come to presen’ an opportunity to you mon amie,” he answered her, keeping his voice low to avoid being overheard, “an’ I am wonder’ang if ‘dis is ‘da place to tell you about it, eh?”
“No reason to be careful here,” Doris said, an eyebrow raised and her interest now piqued, “I’m the only manager on duty until lunchtime.”
“In ‘dat case I w’eel spill ma’ beans,” Rene replied.
He smiled with genuine appreciation to the woman seated across from him and readied his pitch.
“An’ ‘ere’s ‘oping ‘dat you like what I ‘ave brought for you to consider, eh? Tabernac!”
Doris grinned at him and nodded with patient indulgence.
She liked the young Frenchman and looked forward to hearing his sales job. Even though she wasn’t interested in anything he might sell as she had no experience in the trucking business. In the event he might offer up an opportunity that would appeal to her husband she was willing to give up a little of her nap time. She would soon discover if Rene was peddling something that might profit her darling Roy.
“Let me grab a coffee before you do,” she answered, and slid out of the booth to retrieve a cup from behind the counter.
Doris returned with a pot in her hand and filled Rene’s cup and her own. She replaced it on the warming heater beside the coffeemaker. A moment later she stirred cream and sugar into the steaming mug.
A look of pleasant if only half serious interest occupied her face.
“Go ahead,” she spoke after taking a drink.
She placed her cup on the saucer in front of her.
“I ‘ave purchased an eighty seat restaurant,” he spoke in a low voice, “which is skedule’ to open in a couple more weeks.”
“That’s big news Rene!” Doris said with honest surprise.
“Tabernac you are tell’ang me mon amie!” Rene replied with his accent heavy, “an’ now ‘dat I ‘ave been convince’ to make ‘da inves’men’ I am wit’out ‘da trusted ‘elp ‘dat I am need’ang to make it work!”