Waiting; The True Confessions of a Waitress

by Ginsberg, Debra

  In effect, the uniform was the costume for the night. What waiters and waitresses did with that costume and the body within it became a form of subliminal advertising. And as frightening as it seems, this kind of advertising really works. For example, if I was tired and wanted the table to leave, I’d try this one: “Would you like dessert or coffee?” and subtly shake my head no as I said it. At least seven times out of ten, the customer would say, “No, I don’t think so. Just the check.” Nodding helps in the reverse situation as well: “Would you like to see the wine list?” nod, nod. “Why, yes,” the customer would say, “I think we will.”

  But now I’ve really gotten off the topic.

  The night waiters and waitresses march through the kitchen on their way to the dining room and shout greetings at the kitchen staff before they go outside to polish silverware, straighten tablecloths, and argue with management over the station they’ve gotten for the evening. The busboys straggle in, pick at the leftover staff meal, and sigh heavily before checking to see which servers they’ve been assigned to for the night.

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  The two hostesses also arrive at this time. The first to enter is Maggie. Not constrained by any dress code, the waifish Maggie is wearing spike heels, fishnet stockings, and a clingy black mesh dress. Her hair, done up in a complicated chignon, begs to be released in a fit of passion, which, in fact, is likely to happen tonight because Maggie, not yet twenty and already married to someone she can’t stand, is having a red-hot affair with Mario. Maggie heads over to Mario, who sends her a smouldering look over the salmon. The two whisper for a moment and then she strides out to her podium, where she will reign over the reservation book for the next six hours.

  “Porca miseria,” Mario says to himself as he watches her retreating back. Mario is completely besotted with Maggie and can’t stand not being able to show his feelings. The general consensus is that he’s going to blow up at some point soon. The hope is that he won’t be in possession of one of his many knives when this happens.

  The second hostess to arrive is Kathy, bigger, louder, and much less graceful than Maggie. Kathy is dressed in a frumpy sweater, a too-tight skirt, and pantyhouse that have already started to run. She looks as if she’s going to work in an office. Unlike the hush that greeted Maggie’s arrival, Kathy is hailed with catcalls and whistles, all of which she seems to enjoy.

  “Hi, guys,” she says, smiling, and heads immediately to the office, shutting the door behind her. Stefano, noting Kathy’s arrival, leaves the tiramisu sitting near the sink and follows her into the office.

  By five o’clock, the entire crew is present and on the clock. In all, there are over thirty staff members working, ten of whom are servers.

  In the dining room, the late sunlight streams through the windows, creating a mini heat wave inside the restaurant. In the display kitchen, sauces are steaming, mushrooms are simmering, and rabbits are turning over a large open fire. Fire, in fact, is everywhere: there are two wood-burning ovens, a mesquite grill, and fifteen gas burners all going full blast. The smells of garlic, onion, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil waft through the air. At the bar, a healthy happy-hour crowd has gathered and the alcohol is flowing, creating another kind of warmth. One of the bartenders flirts with the cocktail waitress while the other sets up martinis.

  “Go stand in the sun and turn around,” he tells her. “I want to see if you’re wearing thong panties.”

  “You’re a dog,” the cocktail waitress says, but she complies with his request anyway.

  In another corner of the restaurant, a clot of waiters and waitresses have formed around the computer, where they place their orders. Because the space in which they’ve gathered is so small, their bodies touch, bump, and rub against each other. David stands behind Sarah and puts his hands on her hips as she attempts to enter the order for Table Seven. He sniffs her neck. “Mmm,” he says, “I like your perfume, honey.”

  “I don’t have time for this, David,” Sarah says. “Hands off.”

  “Come on, baby,” David says and starts rocking her back and forth.

  “David, I’m busy!” Sarah snaps. “And anyway, weren’t you gay last time I checked?”

  “No, honey,” David says without releasing her hips, “I’m bisexual. I sleep with gay men and straight men.”

  “Can we save the sweet talk for another time?” interjects Frank, another waiter. “I’ve got a party of six I need to put in here.”

  “No sweet talk,” David says and gestures toward Sarah. “She’s saving herself for Gino.”

  “Shut up,” Sarah says. “Go make trouble somewhere else, David.” Frank and David exchange a meaningful look. Sarah completes her order and stomps off just as Gino arrives at the computer.

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  “Go talk to your girlfriend,” David says to Gino. “She’s in a bad mood tonight.”

  “What are you talking about?” Gino says and nervously spins his wedding ring around on his finger.

  A thick line of diners gathers at the podium. Sheeplike, everyone in town wants to eat at exactly the same time. Within a matter of twenty minutes, the restaurant is full. Waiters and waitresses run an endless maze, which goes from the table to the bar to the pantry to the kitchen and back to the table again. The pace escalates along with the noise, which is now a low roar made up of conversation, clinking, sizzling, and Italian pop music. Both managers have emerged and stroll through the dining room, greeting customers and putting out various fires, which come in the guise of questions and demands. For example:

  “Why is the kitchen so slow?”

  “Can you delete this steak from my check because I meant to order a lasagna?”

  “My busboy spilled water on Table Six and they want to see a manager.”

  “Can I leave first tonight?”

  “I can’t find any forks/spoons/knives/plates. . . . Yes, I’ve looked everywhere.”

  Vito, the elder of the two managers, is somewhere between Julius Caesar and Tony Bennett in looks and demeanor. Charming and sly as the proverbial fox, he has the ability to inspire trust from men and lust from women. He has already worked his way through affairs with one waitress, one cocktail waitress, and a hostess. The restaurant, in effect, is his henhouse to guard.

  The younger manager is Giancarlo, recently reincarnated from a position as a waiter. Although Giancarlo aspires to receive the same respect as Vito, his lame efforts as a waiter are too fresh in the recent memories of the staff to inspire much of anything except a low-grade contempt.

  It’s getting hotter on the floor. Several waiters and waitresses have begun to perspire and have the shiny look commonly found in print ads for cologne and underwear. Intermingled now with the smells of food are the various scents worn by the staff and the ambient fragrances worn by the customers.

  At the grill, Frank and Sarah wrestle over an order of calamari.

  “This is my order,” Sarah says. “See, here’s my ticket.” She holds up a shredded piece of paper that has been soaking in a plate of red sauce next to the squid.

  “No, my love, it’s definitely mine,” Frank says. “I’ve been waiting twenty minutes for this piece-of-shit order.” As he speaks, Frank dips his hand into the calamari and shovels a few hot pieces into his mouth.

  “You’re a pig,” Sarah says, “and it’s still mine.” She turns to the bemused grill cook, who has been watching the proceedings with great amusement, and says, “Whose order is this?” To inflame Sarah further, the grill cook shrugs and raises his eyebrows. “Look at the ticket,” he says.

  “It’s mine, isn’t it?” says Frank. “I’m taking it.” Two more pieces of squid disappear into his mouth.

  “No, pinche puto,” says the grill cook. “You take it, Sarah.”

  “Couldn’t you have said that before he ate half of it?” Sarah says, making an instant enemy out of the grill cook, and marches off with the rapidly cooling calamari.

  Mario comes out from the back of the kitchen and stands
at the line, expediting the orders as they come up. Maggie breezes by him with menus and customers once, twice, three times. Finally he grabs her arm as she walks back to the podium and whispers something in her ear. While he has his head turned, several cooks nod and wink at each other. Moments later, in the middle of the dinner rush, both Maggie and Mario disappear for several minutes. As if on cue, Vito immediately takes Maggie’s place at the door and assists with the seating.

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  Gino and Sarah are standing at the pantry, waiting for salads. “What did you tell him?” Sarah asks Gino.

  “Nothing,” says Gino.

  “Then why did he say I was saving myself for you?”

  “I don’t know,” Gino says. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

  “It matters to me,” Sarah says angrily.

  “Sshh,” Gino says. “Are you going to make a scene now?”

  “Would it matter if I did?”

  “What’s wrong with you tonight?” Gino says, wounded. “Do you have your period or something?”

  “Lord, help me,” Sarah sighs and then adds, “Is this my spinach salad? I needed one with no onions.”

  “You want no onion?” the pantry girl snaps and dives into the salad bare-handed. She grabs a fistful of onions off the plate and flings them in the trash. “There, no onion!”

  “I hate this place,” Sarah says, collecting the battered salad and marching off to her table.

  In a dim section of the restaurant, another waitress, Tina, is setting a table with her busboy, Jesus. The two of them lift the tablecloth high so it waves like a white sheet in the breeze and set it tenderly down on the table. She strokes his hand as he lays the forks on the linen. If they weren’t wearing uniforms, they would appear to be a couple making up a matrimonial bed. Jesus has recently become the love of Tina’s life. There are, however, a few problems. For one, Tina receives no end of derision from her coworkers (“A busboy! Can you believe it!”) and her situation is considered laughable. For another, Jesus is married with five children.

  Sarah is standing close by at one of her own tables, watching the byplay between Tina and Jesus with dismay. Jesus is also her busboy for the night, but distracted by Tina, he hasn’t managed to come anywhere near her section. While she calculates how long it will take for Tina and Jesus to finish their romantic moment, Sarah takes an order from her party.

  “I want the steak,” her customer says.

  “How would you like it cooked?” Sarah responds.

  “I’d like it between medium rare and medium.”

  “I don’t think there is anything between medium rare and medium,” Sarah says.

  “Well, that’s how I want it,” the customer says.

  “OK,” Sarah says and writes “medium rare” on her order pad. “Would you care for a salad or appetizer to start?”

  “No, but I want a side of spaghetti instead of the potatoes.”

  Sarah launches into a monologue she’s delivered many times before about how the restaurant doesn’t offer substitutions of pasta, but if the customer wishes to purchase a half order of pasta, she’ll be happy to bring it along with the meal, or he can get a whole order of pasta and she’ll be happy to split it with the others at the table. Sarah has given this speech so many times before that without any interruption in her narrative, she’s able to look over at the line and see that two of her orders are up, across the aisle to see that another table has been sat, and over her shoulder to see that Gino is walking toward her with two plates of scampi.

  “Voglio fare l’amore con te,” Gino says as he goes by and Sarah doesn’t even flinch.

  “What did he just say to you?” the customer wants to know.

  “He was just telling me that my food is ready,” Sarah says, blushing.

  “Do you speak Italian?” the customer asks, having now forgotten about his order.

  “A little,” Sarah says.

  “Really?” the customer says. “So where are you from? Are you Italian?”

  At his table, Gino can hear the interchange and laughs as he delivers the scampi.

  Maggie has returned to the podium. Her hair is down and a little wild. She also has a generous dusting of flour across her

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  backside. Kathy notices and brushes it off, prompting a little cheer from the bartender, who has been watching the proceedings with great amusement.

  “Need any help with that?” he asks.

  In the kitchen, David is taking a minibreak and helping himself to the leftover tiramisu. He eats piggishly, leaning forward so that globs of marscapone cheese and rum-soaked ladyfingers fall onto the floor instead of his jacket. Mario emerges, flushed and sweaty, from the dry storage room, where a burst sack of flour is visible, and berates David.

  “Hey, stronzo, che cazzo fai?” Mario demands.

  “It was just sitting here,” David says, his words muffled by the cake. “Why can’t I eat it?”

  “Fuck you, that’s why,” says Mario.

  “Ooh, baby,” David says.

  Sarah, Tina, and Gino enter the kitchen together and line up at the bread station. Gino grabs the bread knife first and tells Sarah, “Let me do this for you. How many people?”

  “I don’t need your help,” Sarah says.

  “Per favore, fiorellina. Don’t be mad.”

  “Little flower?” Mario interrupts. “Why you call her that? Save that for your wife.”

  “My wife?” Gino says, dropping the bread knife and backing up. “Che cazzo dice? Maybe I should save it for somebody else’s wife.”

  “I’m outta here,” Sarah says and marches out of the kitchen without her bread.

  “And I thought I had problems,” Tina says to herself.

  “Tina, come here, baby,” says David. “I’ve got something for you.” He begins feeding Tina bits of tiramisu, which she licks off his fingers with slow exaggerated motions. Disgusted, Mario leaves the kitchen and goes back to his post on the line.

  For a very brief moment, the kitchen is all but deserted. The dishwashers carry on behind their cage, but mostly drunk or drugged (requisite conditions for the job they perform) see nothing, hear nothing, and say very little. It is within this pocket of calm that Kathy and Stefano walk into the kitchen from opposite ends, look around, and walk out the back door. Not content to settle for a place as public as the dry storage room or the linen closet (where Tina and Jesus will shortly be frantically kissing and grabbing at each other), Kathy and Stefano climb a ladder that leads to the roof. It’s dark, after all, and hell, nobody’s going to accidentally walk in there. Kathy and Stefano don’t last very long on the roof. Later, Kathy will complain to Maggie that Stefano is too quick on the draw. Stefano, in turn, will complain to Vito that Kathy’s breasts “hang down like two rotten pears.”

  As the night lengthens and moonlight replaces sunshine as the source of sparkle on the ocean, the restaurant grows even busier. A seemingly endless parade of parties seeking nourishment streams through the door, across the floor, and over to table after table. There’s a raucous birthday party under way in one of the restaurant’s private dining rooms. The group is made up entirely of women and the entertainment is a male stripper who has brought his own music and who, for a grand finale, sets his G-string on fire.

  “I’m hot tonight!” he exclaims, and the women shriek with laughter and too much white zinfandel. Every time their waiter, Frank, appears at the door with food, water, or wine, the women offer him increasing amounts of money to strip as well. But Frank has five other tables and asks if he can, perhaps, join the party later?

  The waiters and waitresses have begun to tire of the constant movement and start bumping into each other with increasing frequency. This leads to several arguments:

  “Stop touching me. You’ve been touching me all night.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t want to touch you. I’d have better luck touching myself, thank you.”

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&nbs
p; “You’re in my space.”

  “Because you’re taking too long putting that order in. What, are you writing a novel or something?”

  Gino yells at Sarah that he saw her touch Frank’s ass. “What do I want with Frank’s ass?” Sarah says.

  At her table, Tina prepares to take a wine order. Although she appears to listen intently to her customer’s questions, Tina is fixated on the vision of Jesus clearing plates from a table opposite hers. Her eyes become a little glassy as she watches him stack several dishes on one arm.

  “So, which one is your favorite?” her customer says. “I’ve had the cabernet before, but I’ve never tried this sangiovese.”

  Jesus meets Tina’s gaze and the two exchange a passionate glance.

  “The sangiovese is very, very good,” Tina says dreamily.

  “Wow,” the customer responds, “you must really like that wine. We’ll have it.”

  Across the way, Jesus stacks one too many plates on his arm while trying to keep his eyes on Tina and the lot goes crashing to the floor, creating an explosion of broken china and angel hair pasta.

  “Job opening!” cries the bartender in the brief silence that follows the crash and all his bar patrons laugh uproariously into their drinks.

  At the pantry, Gino is arguing with the pantry girl over a half-melted dish of ice cream. “I can’t take this out,” he tells her in Italian. “It’s disgusting.”

  “You’re too slow,” she answers in Spanish. “It’s been sitting there for ten minutes. It wasn’t melted when I put it up.”

  “Please, my love, make me another one. Please,” he begs in Spanish.

  “Forget it,” she says and puts up another dish of ice cream for Frank. Very casually, Gino places Frank’s ice cream on a liner plate and walks off with it. Frank appears at the pantry moments