Despite the frosty reception I received from the ladies of the Dining Room and Carol’s permanent dislike of me, I did manage to make some allies. Tracy (who I suspected was looking for an extramarital adventure) was very kind to me and consistently put in a good word or two about my abilities on the floor. Then there was Hans, who had been so impressed with my earlier improvisation at his table that he returned for lunch shortly thereafter and specifically asked for “the new little left-handed girl.” Carol couldn’t possibly ignore this.
The next week I was scheduled for my first Fish Fantasy.
The following Friday, Deane and I arrived at work with plenty of time to spare before the dinner shift began. He had assured me it would be a particularly long night and said he wanted to take a shower before it all began. It took us ten minutes to take the two elevators and navigate the series of hallways leading to our locker rooms. When we finally arrived, Deane tapped me lightly on the shoulder and raced by me on his way to the men’s locker room. “See you inside,” he said, his words blurry from too many cups of espresso. I’d had three cups of the stuff myself and I sensed a coffee headache starting at the back of my skull.
Rosemary, a waitress I’d worked a few lunches with, was alone in the women’s locker room. Her preparations always took longer than anyone else’s, and when I walked in she was just beginning her transformation. After greeting me, she changed carefully out of her T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers and stood in a bra and panties for what seemed like an inordinate amount of time. Finally she seemed ready for action and applied a feminine hygiene spray to herself and the locker room in general. Next came panty hose. Then deodorant (also in the form of a spray). She hummed to herself, occasionally interjecting lyrics. “Money for nothin’,” she sang as she donned her white work shirt. And as she put on her tie, she added, “Chicks for free.” My head buzzed with caffeine as I watched, transfixed, the meticulous care Rosemary took with every detail of her uniform.
“Have you seen that video?” she asked me. “It just came out. It’s great. I can’t stop singing the song. Aren’t you going to get dressed?”
“Too much coffee,” I told her. “I can’t move. I’ve got some time anyway.”
She slipped the regulation black 100 percent polyester pinafore-style dress over her head and stood on a bench so that she could see the full body effect in the small locker mirror. I loathed that dress and felt it was designed to make every woman who wore it look as unappealing as possible, but on Rosemary it looked like evening wear.
The last items to come on were her work shoes. The shoes were identical to mine and those of every other waitress in the building. Black, crepe soled, ugly beyond belief, they were sometimes a reason in and of themselves to look for another job. She whipped her long brown hair into a ponytail and doused it with hairspray. Whatever small sections of her body were without scent were then covered with several generous squirts from a perfume bottle. Rosemary’s makeup came last of all because it required the most attention. With the easy skill of a professional, Rosemary proceeded to cover a black eye under careful layers of foundation. She kept a store of such makeup in her locker for good reason. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen her cover a shiner and I’d known her for only a couple of months. By the looks of it, this one had already faded considerably since she received it. Her wounds were an open secret. Everybody knew that they came from her alcoholic husband, but nobody ever discussed them with her.
Rosemary’s makeup was brilliant. She blended her eye-shadow with the colors of her bruises so well that by the time she was finished, they were mere suggestions of abuse. Rosemary had a final ritual she performed before leaving the locker room. She kissed her fingertips lightly and pressed them to a photograph of her two small children, which she kept, along with her array of makeup and sprays, in her locker.
“See you at dinner?” she asked, locking up her cubicle.
“I’ll be in,” I told her.
“You working the Fantasy tonight?”
“Yup, first one. What about you?”
“Card Room. Hey, good luck,” she said and breezed out of the locker room, leaving a myriad of scents in her wake: baby powder, hairspray, gardenia. Rosemary had just turned twenty-one. Two years older than she, I felt immeasurably younger as I watched her leave the room.
I waited a few beats before changing into my own version of Rosemary’s outfit. As she had done, I put my shoes on last, delaying the inevitable. I did not have Rosemary’s long legs and felt I looked like an overgrown schoolgirl in badly fitting clothes.
By the time I made it into the staff room, Deane was already there, showered, shaved, and shined up like a new penny.
“More java?” he asked me as I sat down with my dinner, which consisted of a roll, some butter, and a cup of coffee.
“Can’t find anything that appeals to me over there,” I said, gesturing to the staff buffet.
“Well, I can’t blame you,” Thelma piped up, planting herself at our table. “This”—she held up a forkful of meat dripping with a suspicious sauce—“is supposed to be prime rib. It’s so tough. Prime rib should melt in your mouth.”
“Thelma, do you really think they’re going to give you the good stuff ?” Deane sighed, tucking into his own plate, which looked both symmetrical and color coordinated.
“I’ve been here twenty years,” Thelma grumbled. “Why not?”
Deane shrugged and turned his attention back to me. “Nervous?” he asked.
“A little,” I said.
“What’re you nervous about?” Thelma asked, chewing her tough prime rib.
“She’s working the Fantasy tonight,” Deane answered for me.
“What?” Thelma looked both annoyed and incredulous. “They’re letting you work a Fantasy after two months? I had to be here years before they let me work it.” She swallowed and sized me up. Thelma was possibly the most hostile of all the older waitresses. Her husband was a retired beat cop, and a generous portion of his toughness had transferred to her.
“It’s probably because you’re so young,” she added. “They’re trying to get some young girls in there to mix it up. Foolish, is what it is.”
I studied Thelma’s face. Her skin was a mosaic of lines, every one of which, I assumed, had its own story. She shaved her eyebrows and penciled them in later, complementing the effect with electric-blue eye shadow. Her orange hair was piled precariously high in curls on top of her head, setting off the brick-colored frown of her lips.
“You’re probably right,” I told her. “But here I am.”
“Hmm,” Thelma mused.
Deane rolled his eyes. “C’mon,” he said, “let’s go work the Fantasy.”
The Dining Room was abuzz with fishy excitement. Looking around, I actually thought I was underwater for a minute or two. The best part of the Fish Fantasy, I found out, was that it was a prix fixe buffet. The waiters only had to provide hot towels, open wine and champagne (which came with the meal), and clear plates. Although much busier than an average night, it was actually easier and more profitable. The guests were also a sight to behold: all of Portland’s oldest money dressed in tuxedos and finery, struggling to free lobsters from their shells. The whole thing had an aura of fuzzy unreality. I felt I was crashing a party that clearly I would never be invited to. A few of my customers asked who I was or how I liked working at the club, but most were simply interested in learning where Agnes and Ethel were. Since I was new, I had fewer tables than the other waiters and plenty of opportunity to watch the proceedings from behind the bus station. Belinda (who I noticed was violating both the nail polish and earring codes) was running her narrow behind off. Deane, usually smooth and evenly paced no matter how busy he got, was developing a line of perspiration on his brow. I knew they would both make much more money than I would by the end of the night.
I turned my attention to the buffet, manned by several chefs in starched whites. I recognized all but one, a tall, stocky newcomer who waved his han
ds in flourishes over the food and greeted all the guests. He stood directly in front of a giant salmon carved from ice and it framed him in rather a unique way. I saw him look up and over in my direction, so I averted my eyes. When I looked up again, he was still staring at me. I disappeared behind the bus station and busied myself organizing silverware and turning ice buckets. When it was time for me to reenter the fray to serve coffee to one of my tables, the tall new chef was standing right in front of me, blocking my path. I actually had to crane my neck to look at his face.
“Hi, little girl,” he said.
I suppose I should have been offended at the term he used and the slightly lewd way he offered it up, but I wasn’t. Perhaps it was the giddy atmosphere of the Dining Room or my own feelings of isolation from the festivities. For whatever reason, I was instantly charmed. He introduced himself as Leo and immediately adopted a conspiratorial air, telling me how silly he found the whole concept of a Fish Fantasy. I learned that he was a visiting chef, called in by his good friend Hans, and would be overseeing the menus in the kitchen for a few weeks. Leo didn’t make any attempt to downplay his credits and listed the names of several restaurants and professional societies I had never heard of. It was almost as if he was presenting me with his résumé to see if it met with my approval. In the short time we talked (and it couldn’t have been longer than five minutes), I learned that Leo was originally from New York (something in common, we marveled) and now lived in Colorado. We shared our thoughts on the Dining Room and its patrons and traded facetious quips (still more in common). When we’d gotten through all of this, Leo said, “I’ve been watching you all night.” I was spared having to come up with a rejoinder to this impossible statement because Leo was interrupted by Hans and a very flustered-looking Carol, who was clearly annoyed at who I was talking to. Leo left me to greet more people and unveil another batch of lobsters and sauces.
“Please come and find me before you leave,” he said. “You know where I’ll be.”
I am still not sure what attracted me to Leo. It might have been that he seemed so sure of himself or that he seemed to have a very sharp sense of humor. Perhaps it was that he was much older than I was or that he was obviously successful in his career. Physically, at least, he wasn’t what I would have thought of as my “type.” He was balding, for one thing, heavier than I would have liked, and had a pleasing, rather than handsome, face. Nevertheless, although I was wary, I was intrigued by his obvious attention to me. I really hadn’t had much experience fielding pickup lines or parrying advances from men who weren’t my own age. And then again, some of us are just born with a naïveté that no amount of experience seems to eliminate. I am, without doubt, one of those people. This romantic blindness has allowed me to maintain a certain optimism over the years, but it has also led me to make some very poor decisions.
For whatever reason, though, I did go looking for Leo at the end of my shift and we spoke a little longer. He said he wanted to take me out for dinner and claimed to know the chef at Portland’s best restaurant. I told him I’d think about it and he seemed pleased that I hadn’t agreed right away.
“Good idea,” he said. “I could be an ax murderer, for all you know.”
He had a certain talent with lines like that.
We had our first date soon after. Leo liked to do everything in a big way. He showed up at my apartment with roses and made a show of escorting me, holding doors open and pulling out chairs whenever possible. The restaurant he took me to had a 360-degree view of the city, allowing the lights of Portland and the Willamette River to twinkle erratically through every window. We had a special table reserved for us and the chef came over to talk to Leo, shaking his hand and chatting a bit about the state of the business before going off to prepare our dinners. I admit I was impressed with the display. Leo’s plan for seduction, however, had only just begun. I’m sure that had I been older, he would not have told me the story he shared once our dinners arrived. But he had guessed (with amazing accuracy) at my need to collect the tales of others and fold them into my own experience. What he threw at me next was a guaranteed direct hit.
“I learned to cook in Vietnam,” he told me, and my eyes grew wider. “I was drafted at eighteen, right out of high school. Marines. Spent two and a half years in Da Nang.”
“Did you kill anyone?” I asked, half jokingly.
“Well, if somebody’s shooting at you,” he said, “you don’t wait to feel bullets ripping through your stomach. You tend to shoot back.”
I noticed for the first time that his brown tie did not match his blue jacket. In fact, there was something a little off about his whole outfit.
“You don’t feel bad?” I asked. “Knowing you’ve taken lives? It doesn’t bother you?”
Leo was eating a plate of veal. I noticed that he sliced it into very small portions before placing it carefully into his mouth. “You don’t see them,” he said. “You don’t know who they are. It’s not real. Anyway, if it comes down to a question of my life or someone else’s . . . well, I’m not going to let myself be killed by somebody I don’t even know.”
“Why would you want to put yourself in that position in the first place?”
“I didn’t.” He shrugged. “The government made that decision for me.”
“You could have tried to get out of it,” I said.
“I would have if I’d known what it was going to be like.”
There was a silence between us, punctuated by the sounds of silverware clattering against plates and the ambient hum of conversation.
“Well, how’d you get out, then?” I asked, determined to see the story through to the end. He had me and he knew it.
“It was an injury. They sent me home.”
“So you did get shot?”
“No, I always managed to avoid that.”
“Then what was it?”
“I stepped in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a brilliant device someone dreamed up called a Bouncing Betty. It clicks when you step on it but it doesn’t explode until you take your foot off. They told me I was lucky to have survived. I lay on the side of this road bleeding and unconscious for fifteen hours before anyone got to me.”
“But,” I said tentatively, “you don’t have a limp or anything. Do you?”
“It didn’t exactly hit me in the leg,” he said. I was sure I detected a glint of excitement in his eyes. “More like upper thigh. Very upper. Not the sort of damage that shows.” He watched my expression for a moment as if measuring his next words carefully. “Everything’s in perfect working order,” he said, “but I can’t ever have children.” I gasped a little and he said, “You don’t like this conversation, do you? It bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“I think it’s interesting,” I managed to say.
“We don’t have to talk about it anymore.”
“I don’t mind.”
“You keep staring at my tie. Did I get something on it?” He checked the tie, laughing a little.
“No, it’s nothing. I was just kind of thinking . . . it’s brown and your jacket is blue.”
“I’m color-blind,” Leo said.
He had an answer for everything.
The fact that Leo and I were dating soon became common knowledge in the Dining Room. In the kitchen, at least, it afforded me a unique, if wary, respect. I had broken through the ranks and obtained the unique status of being the top guy’s girlfriend. The other chefs seemed quite in awe of Leo and his culinary abilities and they demonstrated their deference toward him by making my life considerably easier. My dishes always came out first, and I was instantly forgiven if I made a mistake on an order. And after word of our involvement spread, I received none of the ribbing that other servers got routinely, especially that of a sexual nature. Leo himself made no secret of the fact that we were an item. He cooked special meals for me and fed them to me on the side. Since he didn’t work the line, acting more as a supervisor, he couldn’t be accused of giving me preferential treatm
ent, although he clearly was. He rarely called me by name, preferring to greet me always as “little girl.”
As for the waitstaff, they were either oblivious to what must have seemed like an odd pairing or incredulous and vaguely disapproving. My enhanced status in the kitchen, especially, did not sit easily with servers who had been working in the Dining Room for years. Deane thought the whole thing was hysterical and teased me about it relentlessly, often making off-color remarks as he breezed by me in the kitchen. Belinda thought Leo was a dead end. There was something about him, she maintained, that was just not right.
Belinda, however, was more concerned with her own problems than my romantic wanderings. She’d had quite enough of the Dining Room and its politics. Carol had given her a number of pink slips already for various infractions and she was on the verge of being fired. Belinda was very resourceful. Within weeks of my first date with Leo, she was hired at an upscale Italian restaurant in a small, fashionable shopping center. She left the Dining Room without so much as a day’s notice. I missed her sorely.
Waiting; The True Confessions of a Waitress Page 10