by Holly Rayner
She had been outside long enough that a few of her tables were beginning to become impatient, but even as the late dinner crowd—notoriously the most demanding and frustrating patrons of the evening—filled her tables, Riley felt as though she was walking on air.
It was much easier to keep her polite server-smile on her face as a sweat-shiny, overweight man in a bad suit demanded to be given extra hollandaise without paying the surcharge, knowing that in two weeks’ time she wouldn’t be working at the restaurant anymore—at least not for several months. The budget for a film like the final Galaxy Wars movie would be such that even with a small part, she would be able to pay her bills the entire time without having to take a single shift. She would put in her notice as soon as possible—two weeks would be just enough time to be polite.
Riley shook her head to herself as she turned to go back onto the floor another time, thinking of the joy she would feel when she was finally able to call her mom and tell her that she had a part in a major blockbuster film.
Jill gave her another scowl as Riley paused at one of the tables to make polite conversation with a patron; normally the older woman approved of the servers connecting with patrons, since that tended to result in higher checks at the end of the night—but it was so busy that Riley knew Jill was more focused on the two or three tables waiting for her than the one table she was talking to.
I could walk out right now, Riley thought absently, picturing the looks on everyone’s faces. With a guaranteed part offered to her on a major film, she had enough security that she didn’t even need the few shifts between that night and when she started filming. It would serve them right, too; Riley thought about the times when she’d gotten raked over for being a minute late or on the rare occasions that she’d messed up an order and had to make a correction.
Riley decided against the little act of spite just as quickly as it occurred to her; it wouldn’t be fair to stretch the remaining members of staff any thinner than they already were. Even if the management at the restaurant treated her like trash from time to time, Riley couldn’t bring herself to do something that would ruin the whole evening for everyone.
Finally, the dining room began to clear out and the servers on duty started on side work as unobtrusively as possible while the last patrons finished their meals. Riley considered waiting until she’d gotten home to type up a letter of resignation, but when the last of the customers left and the doors were locked, she decided that there was no time like the present. Besides, if I wait until tomorrow, they might try and claim that I have to work out a full two weeks from my next shift.
Riley saw Jill retreating to the office and, making up her mind quickly, followed the older woman back.
“Can I have a word, Jill?”
“How’s your side work going?” Jill asked, looking at Riley skeptically.
“I’ll get it done in a minute,” Riley assured her. “But I wanted to tell you that I need to put in my two weeks’ notice.”
Jill’s eyes widened. “I know I gave you an earful earlier, Riley, but tonight was a tough one,” Jill said quickly.
“Oh, no, it’s not that,” Riley said, smiling slightly. “I get that it was a busy night and normally I never would have even taken the call, much less taken more than a couple of minutes.”
“So what’s the story?”
Riley shrugged, blushing slightly without knowing why. “I’ve been offered—well, it’s a more secure, full-time opportunity,” Riley said, remembering that she wasn’t allowed to provide any details—no matter how much she might like to tell the icy front-of-house manager that she was quitting for a role in Galaxy Wars 3. “And the job starts in two weeks, so…”
To Riley’s shock, Jill’s cool demeanor dissolved even further, and the older woman looked genuinely saddened.
“Well, if you’ve found a better opportunity then obviously you need to take that,” Jill said, nodding. “I’m glad you’re able to give me notice.”
“You’ve been good to me here,” Riley said, smiling. “I thought it would only be fair to give you the chance to get someone new hired and at least partially trained before I go.”
“I appreciate it,” Jill said, smiling slightly. Riley’s shock at the emotional display from her supervisor deepened as the older woman moved to hug her. She was so surprised that for a moment all she could do was stand there and accept the embrace; a second later, however, she wrapped her arms around the older woman’s shoulders to return the hug. “And of course, if things don’t work out at your new job…”
“I will reapply and hope you haven’t hired someone better than me,” Riley finished, smiling at Jill.
The manager nodded and hesitated for just a moment before turning to continue her trek back to the office.
“Get back to your side work already,” she called gruffly over her shoulder, and Riley moved to obey, smiling to herself.
FOUR
Riley had thought that the two weeks between getting the call and the first day of filming would drag; instead, as she got ready for her last shift at the restaurant, she stared at herself in the mirror for a moment and tried to understand how the days could have gone by so quickly.
She pulled on her uniform and swept her hair back into the low, smooth bun she preferred to keep it in at work, reviewing the script section she had spent the previous evening memorizing. Her part in the film was tiny, but Riley knew that there were opportunities in any big production to grab a few extra minutes in front of the camera, and that was especially true in a film where a large chunk of the cast would be in special effects makeup. If some of the extras couldn’t be on set on a particular day, or if something came up, Riley hoped she would be in a position to offer herself as a replacement.
Riley looked around her room, taking a deep breath as she tried to collect her thoughts. How weird is it that I actually feel a little sad about this being my last shift?
Riley smiled to herself. She’d done all of her laundry over the course of the last few days; she didn’t want to have to worry about anything other than getting to and from the set for at least the first few weeks of shooting.
Some of her friends had organized a get-together after the dinner shift, to celebrate Riley’s new job, and although it was a Sunday night and she had to be on set early in the morning for makeup, Riley had gone along with the plan.
“Maybe if I lay my clothes out now, I’ll be able to get enough sleep and still show up tomorrow morning looking professional,” Riley mused out loud.
She pulled an outfit out of her dresser and set it aside on the chair in her bedroom; even though she’d be put in costume once she arrived, along with having hair and makeup done, she wanted to arrive looking clean, sharp and ready to work.
When she had no further excuse to dally, Riley hurried down to her car. Pulling out of her assigned parking spot, she thought ahead to her last shift. Since it was a Sunday night, Riley thought it would likely be at least a little bit on the slow side, but it was hard to be sure until the shift actually started. For the most part, Sunday nights didn’t attract too many patrons, but there were rare occasions when people would flood through the doors. At least, she thought as she got on the freeway towards the restaurant, even if it was busy, the night would end earlier than a Friday or Saturday, as the kitchen closed at ten-thirty on Sundays.
The drive to work went faster than usual, and almost before Riley could mentally prepare herself for the shift, she was pulling into the employee parking lot. She climbed out from the driver’s seat and checked to make sure her uniform was still spotless, her shoes clean, everything as it should be. It was going to be her last shift and she wanted to make a grand exit, and that meant being absolutely on point, since she had already decided against flouncing out in a huff.
Riley had expected that maybe her coworkers would say goodbye to her at some point during her shift; but she hadn’t believed that anyone, apart from maybe one or two of the staff at Le Roi would actually miss her very m
uch, or notice her departure in any real, substantive way. At first, as she strode through the employee entrance and hurried to clock in for her shift, Riley’s conclusion seemed to be valid; everyone was busy on side work in preparation for the dinner rush to come, and no one even mentioned that it was her last shift.
For once, everyone who was scheduled for the shift came in, and as Riley began to focus on her work, the restaurant seemed to be running like a well-oiled machine. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if on my last night here, five people called out and a fire started in the kitchen and everything that could go wrong did? Riley smiled to herself as she rolled silverware, shaking her head at the thought. It was definitely for the best that everyone—from the hostesses to the bus boys, the wait staff to the bar to the kitchen staff—was in, and apparently completely focused on their work. Riley had been torn as to whether she wanted to talk about leaving or not—if everyone was too busy to ask about her new job, or comment on her departure, then it would make it easier for her.
“Hey,” one of her coworkers, Sarah said as the hostesses began seating the earliest arrivals. “Isn’t it your last night?”
“Yep,” Riley replied, smiling.
“I would’ve thought you’d skip—I mean after all, it’s not like they can fire you.”
“I figured I’d do the right thing,” Riley said with a shrug.
“You’re a better woman than I am.”
Riley turned away to approach the table that one of the hostesses had seated in her section.
The first arrivals heralded the pace of the night: busy, but without the kind of frenetic pace that came with a staffing shortage or a long wait at the door. The shift seemed to fly by as Riley trotted between the tables in her section, the bar and the service hatch. Sarah’s comment was the first anyone made about her departure from the restaurant; but by the time half the shift had flown past, at least six other people on the floor with her had said something to Riley about the fact that she was leaving.
“Please tell me that you’re going to make time to party it up tonight,” one of the hostesses said, pausing on her way back to the stand.
“Oh absolutely,” Riley said, grinning.
“Good! There’s no point in getting a better job if you’re just going to be boring about it.”
Riley laughed and went to the bar to pick up drinks for one of her tables.
“You’re starting your new gig tomorrow? What is it?”
Riley rolled her eyes at the bartender, smiling even more genuinely than usual.
“It’s a film gig, but I can’t say more than that,” she told him, wagging her finger.
For most of her time at Le Roi, Riley had suspected that Jill, the front-of-house manager, and Gilbert, the cranky head chef, had little love in their hearts for her, and that that rest of the staff there were indifferent to her at best. As more and more of her coworkers took a moment or two to wish her luck, or to say that they would miss her, however, Riley alternated between feeling overjoyed and almost feeling guilty that she was leaving them behind. At least Jill isn’t letting me down, Riley thought as she hugged yet another coworker who’d stopped her at the service hatch to wish her good luck in her future career. Jill’s icy reserve had broken only the once, and since Riley had given her notice, Jill had acted the same way that she had the entire time that Riley had known her.
As the shift began to wind down, Riley realized that she hadn’t seen her manager at all since she’d come in. That was strange, even if Jill did tend to spend more time than usual in the office on a Sunday night, preparing payroll reports and tweaking the schedule for the next week. Just when she was beginning to think that Jill was avoiding her—and avoiding any tearful goodbyes—Peter, the head bartender, got her attention with a wave of his hand.
“Hey, Townsend!”
Riley paused on her way to the service hatch to check on the status of her orders; there were still a handful of tables seated in her section, in spite of the fact that it was nine forty-five, and Riley wanted to get the patrons out of the restaurant as quickly as she could.
“What’s up?”
“Jill wants to see you in her office,” Peter said, giving her a quick grin before turning his attention back onto the customer in front of him.
Riley frowned for a moment, confused at what Jill could want with her; she hadn’t done anything to earn a chewing-out, and she had already signed the paperwork to have her last check mailed to her so she wouldn’t have to come in just to pick it up.
Riley darted into the hallway separating the front of house from the back of house and turned left at the fork, heading for Jill’s office. Riley dusted herself off, checking to make sure her apron was on properly and clean, and then knocked at the closed office door.
“Come in!”
Riley opened the door and saw a huge bouquet of yellow and orange roses on Jill’s desk. The older woman looked up from the computer screen and beamed.
“I was really hoping you wouldn’t have any need to come see me until this got delivered,” she said, gesturing to the bouquet.
“That’s—is that for me?” Riley asked, her mouth open in shock.
Jill nodded, standing quickly. “That, and this,” she said, extending an envelope towards Riley.
Riley stared at the bouquet for a moment longer before accepting the envelope; her name was written on it in Jill’s distinctive scrawl, and Riley felt her eyes tingle and prickle as she tore it open. It was only a card declaring “We’ll Miss You”, but the gesture touched Riley’s heart. She opened it to see that everyone at the restaurant had signed it. Jill must have bought it earlier in the week, because Riley recognized names and signatures from people who weren’t working that night.
Riley shook her head, smiling in amazement as she read the brief messages of support and affection. You’ve always had a good head on your shoulders, girl; keep that and you’ll keep going higher and higher. Riley’s eyes widened in surprise at the message, attached to the signature of the head chef; she had always thought the man hated her, based on the way he shouted obscenities whenever she put in a complicated order or asked for a modification.
“This is amazing,” Riley said, shaking her head again. She sniffed and looked up to see Jill watching her, still smiling with a faint trace of sadness in her eyes.
“Well, we’re all family here—even if we do get on each other’s nerves from time to time. Especially because of that, in fact.” Jill chuckled. “And I have even better news for you, actually.”
“Better?” Riley’s eyes widened
“I’m letting you go early tonight; Sarah’s agreed to take over your last couple of tables.” If she weren’t starting a new job the next day, Riley almost would have hated to lose the money for the last couple hours of work—especially the tips. But she’d already made enough that night to cover herself until she got her first paycheck from the production company, and having a few hours extra to spend celebrating her good luck was definitely welcome.
“Thank you, Jill!”
Acting on impulse, Riley threw her arms around the older woman’s shoulders, hugging her quickly. Jill returned the hug much more readily than Riley would have expected, patting her back.
“Now go grab your things and get out of here before someone on the floor decides that it’s not fair,” Jill told her, smiling.
Riley released the older woman and nodded, dashing the few tears away from her eyes. She grabbed the bouquet in its plastic vase and hurried out of the office and to the lockers; she’d brought a change of clothes with her to work, thinking that she’d dart into the restrooms to get out of her uniform when the night ended. Now that she had the rest of the night off, Riley had a chance to get to the bar possibly even before her friends arrived.
She grabbed her purse and the bag she’d stuffed into her locker and dashed into the employee women’s bathroom, locking the door behind her and immediately kicking her shoes off. In a matter of maybe three minutes she was out of her uniform
and glancing in the mirror to check her makeup, debating whether to touch up her mascara and lipstick or to simply put a little powder on to eliminate the faint shine on her cheeks and nose from hours of running around.
Riley crumpled up her uniform and stuffed it into her bag. She made her way out of the bathroom to put her bag and the bouquet of flowers away in her car before heading back into the restaurant through the employee entrance at the back. I’ll make the rounds, say goodbye to everyone, maybe collect a couple of hugs and make an early start, she thought.