Service with a Smirk

by Ariel Tachna

  “No, but I want an honest opinion of it,” Mathias said. “I’ll tell you what’s in it after you tell me if you like it. It’s a new recipe Michel is trying, so it’s not on the menu yet. Adrien said he could try it on some customers to see if we should add it to the menu.”

  “Updating the menu is always a risk and a challenge in one,” Pascal agreed. Mathias wanted to ask where Pascal worked or had worked to have that kind of insight, but he didn’t want to be too forward.

  Pascal took a sip of the drink, his face showing the depth of his consideration. Again Mathias was struck by the sense of talking with someone who knew what he was doing, someone who did these kinds of things and made these kinds of decisions regularly.

  “It’s interesting,” Pascal said. “A hint of sweetness from the pear, but not sugary, and there’s something else there as well. This isn’t just a cosmo with pear substituted for the cranberry. What else is in it?”

  “Elderflower cordial,” Mathias said. “It’s not a common ingredient, at least not that I’ve seen since I started working here. You’d probably know more than I would.”

  Pascal shook his head. “I know wines well, but I don’t pay a lot of attention to liqueurs. I try all the new drinks on the menu at work so I know what a drink tastes like if someone asks, but most of my patrons order wine rather than cocktails, outside of a few standards.”

  “Where do you work, if you don’t mind me asking?” Mathias asked.

  “La Colombe d’Or,” Pascal replied. “I’ve worked there for the past nineteen years.”

  “I’ve seen it as I walk by,” Mathias said. “It seems like a really nice place.”

  “It is,” Pascal said.

  “Mathias!”

  Mathias looked away to see Adrien gesturing for him. “Oops. The boss is calling.”

  Pascal smiled. “Don’t let him yell at you too much. Tell him I was monopolizing your time.”

  Mathias smiled all the way over to the owner of Le Salon.

  “You seem to have hit it off with Pascal,” Adrien said, “but don’t forget you have other tables besides his.”

  “Sorry,” Mathias said. “Michel made a new drink, and Pascal was testing it out for us. I wanted to see what he thought.”

  “Just don’t neglect your other customers,” Adrien repeated.

  Mathias nodded and ignored his impulse to return to Pascal’s table. He made his rounds, smiling at the patrons flirtatiously, making sure to bend and stretch just the right way so they could ogle him to their heart’s content. He ignored the wandering hands at table eight. The man groped his ass but didn’t try to go beyond that, and Mathias had seen him more than once. He was handsy, but he tipped really well, so Mathias figured he could put up with the indignity.

  By the time he made it back around to Pascal’s table, the two men from the other night had joined him, and Pascal had retreated into his shell. Mathias tried to draw him out, but the more he flirted, the more withdrawn Pascal got. Mathias almost gave up, but Pascal’s glass was empty. Rather than take the risk, he got a vodka martini from Michel and brought it to Pascal. “Our treat, for helping us out with the new drink.”

  Pascal smiled again, and Mathias returned it instantly, relieved to see the genuine expression on his face again instead of the slightly forced one he’d given Mathias when he’d first come back to the table.

  He figured that was as good as he was going to get with Pascal’s friends there—he hoped they were his friends and not his lovers—so he let it go at that and went back to the other tables with a bounce in his step and a smile on his face.

  Chapter 3

  PASCAL HAD never been so grateful for a night off as he was a little over a week later. His fridge was empty (thus the plethora of bags in his arms), his apartment was a disaster area, and he desperately needed to do laundry.

  He made it to the door of the apartment building and muffled a curse. His keys were in his back pocket, and with his hands full, he couldn’t reach them. He’d either have to set down all the bags or wait for someone to open the door. At this hour of the day, it might not be a long wait, but he didn’t want his milk or meat to spoil.

  “Here, hold on just a minute. I’ll get the door for you.”

  Pascal let out the breath he’d been holding in a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he said automatically before turning to see which of his neighbors had come to his rescue. He didn’t know everyone in his building, given that his work schedule didn’t always leave him free to socialize at the same time as someone who worked normal hours, but he knew more than half of them, in passing if not more.

  It took Pascal a minute to place the young man walking toward him as the waiter from Le Salon, the one who had flirted with René and Benjamin but had actually talked to Pascal. Instead of wearing form-fitting jeans and a tight T-shirt, he was wearing a suit. Not the fanciest or most elegant one Pascal had ever seen. Not even the nicest one he’d seen this week, but a nice enough one that it was a sharp contrast to the vision that had filled Pascal’s personal time over the past week. What little of it he’d had.

  “Looking good….” He cast around for the kid’s name. “Mathias. That’s your name, right?”

  “Yes,” Mathias said with a smile. “I guess I should have actually introduced myself at some point, eh? Mathias Perras.”

  “Pascal Larocque. You’re not dressed for an evening waiting tables,” Pascal observed as Mathias fished his keys out of a very nice briefcase.

  “I work at BMO during the day,” Mathias explained. “The bar is just a way to earn a little extra money.” He held the door for Pascal. As soon as they got inside, Mathias reached for the bags encumbering Pascal’s hands. “Let me take one or two of those. I don’t know which apartment is yours, but you’ll never make it up the stairs with your arms full like that.”

  Pascal turned over a couple of the bags, relieved not to have quite as much weight to carry, and led Mathias up the four flights of stairs to his apartment. Usually he viewed the climb as a bit of extra exercise, but after the week he’d had and with the load of groceries in his arms, it was just one more annoyance. “Why did I think living on the top floor was a good idea?” he grumbled.

  “Because it has the best view?” Mathias asked from behind him.

  “Because it has washer and dryer attachments in the apartment,” Pascal replied, feeling a smile forming.

  “Oh, now I’m jealous!” Mathias said. “I have to take my suits to the cleaners, of course, but it would be nice not to have to take my jeans and stuff to the Laundromat. Such a pain in the ass!”

  “When I got the job at la Colombe d’Or and could afford a nicer apartment than the dingy hole in the wall I had before, I swore I’d never live in another place that didn’t have a washer and dryer,” Pascal admitted. They reached the landing for his floor, and he set the groceries down. Mathias had let him in the front door, but Pascal needed his keys to open the door. “Thank you for your help.”

  “It’s not a problem. I can help you get them inside if you want.”

  Pascal almost said no, thank you. He was already at his door, and even if he made two or three trips to carry the bags inside, it was far different than having to make two or three trips up the stairs. Then again, if he said yes, he’d be able to spend a few more minutes with this other side of Mathias. He’d tried to avoid staring, but the kid could carry off a suit!

  “Thanks. If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.” Mathias grabbed another of the bags as Pascal picked up the others and carried them inside. Fortunately most of the mess in his apartment was confined to the bedroom, primarily because he hadn’t been home long enough to do more than toss his dirty clothes aside as he fell into bed. The floor could afford to be swept, but he didn’t have a pile of dirty dishes stacked in the sink or anything else grossly offensive in the visible part of his apartment, so he wasn’t too embarrassed to have Mathias see it.

  “You can just set them on the cou
nter,” Pascal said. “I’ll get them put away. Can I offer you a beer?”

  He’d made the offer impulsively, but as soon as the words were out, he was glad of them. Mathias at the bar had been attractive enough. Mathias in a suit was enough to push all of Pascal’s buttons. Not that he actually thought Mathias would be interested in someone like him, especially not if he had a career planned at the Banque de Montréal, but it couldn’t hurt to get to know him a little better.

  Mathias looked down at his watch, his lips contorting as he read the time. “I wish I could, but I have half an hour to shower, change, and get to Le Salon if I don’t want to be late for my shift.”

  “Another time, then,” Pascal said. “I don’t want to make you late.”

  “Another time, I’ll take you up on it,” Mathias said with a smile. “I think I’m off on Tuesday.”

  Pascal frowned. “I work on Tuesday night. What about Saturday? What time do you have to be at the bar?”

  “Not until three, but I already made plans with a friend from work. I have to go now, but come by the bar if you have time. We’ll figure something out when I bring you a drink.”

  Pascal smiled and nodded automatically, even though he hadn’t made any plans to go out that night. Then again, he hadn’t planned on running into Mathias outside his building either. “I’m going to make dinner first,” he said. “I don’t want to drink on an empty stomach, but I’ll come by later.”

  Mathias’s smile lit up the room. “Great! I’ll see you there. I’ve got to run now.”

  Pascal accompanied him back to the door and watched him walk down the hall and down the stairs. When Mathias was out of sight, he went back inside and shut the door, barely resisting the urge to pound his head against the wall. What was he thinking, lusting over a kid like Mathias? He hadn’t asked Mathias how old he was, but everything about him proclaimed he was fresh out of university, just starting his career. If Pascal was lucky, Mathias was twenty-four or twenty-five, only half Pascal’s age, instead of twenty-two or twenty-three, and even less than half Pascal’s age. Regardless, he had no business inviting him in for a beer or anything else. He had been called many things in his life. He refused to add “dirty old man” to the list.

  AN HOUR and a quick dinner later (Pascal pretended he hadn’t put off cooking the chowder he’d planned to reheat all week so he could go to Le Salon), Pascal walked into the bar, glancing around in search of Mathias so he could sit at a table in the younger man’s area. All his doubts and guilt from earlier rushed back, but he focused on the fact that Mathias had asked him to come by, had seemed interested in finding a time when they could have a beer, maybe a meal, and some conversation. Maybe it wouldn’t be anything more than Mathias picking his brain for suggestions about his schedule or getting better tips, or moving to a better paid position, but whatever the conversation ended up being, Mathias had been as interested in it happening as Pascal was.

  “Bonsoir, Pascal,” Mathias said as he came to the table. “What are you drinking tonight?”

  “Does your bartender have another of those pear drinks you brought me last time? It was pretty good.”

  “One pear martini, coming right up,” Mathias said with a grin Pascal couldn’t quite decipher. He smiled and flirted with all his customers. All the servers did. It guaranteed them better tips, and that was the bulk of their income, just as it was for Pascal. The difference was the size of the tips. At la Colombe d’Or, a party of two routinely left a twenty-dollar tip or more. A large party could leave as much as a hundred, and Pascal served eight to ten parties a night, not counting the lunch shift. Here at Le Salon, Mathias probably did well to earn five dollars a table unless they stayed all night or were a large party. Fifty or a hundred bucks in tips a night was Pascal’s spare change. If a smile or a bit of flirting earned him a few more dollars, Pascal could hardly blame him. He just wished he didn’t feel like Mathias’s smile for him was the same as the one he gave everyone else. Yes, he was a customer at the bar, and yes, he’d be leaving Mathias a nice tip when he left, but he didn’t need to be flirted with or seduced into giving one. He wanted more than that. He wanted the bank employee he’d met in his apartment building an hour ago. That didn’t look likely, though, so Pascal resigned himself to the torture of watching Mathias flirt with everyone else.

  “So Saturday won’t work,” Mathias said without preamble as he set the martini down in front of Pascal. “What about Sunday?”

  “It’s my week to have lunch with my parents and do their shopping and everything,” Pascal said. “They’re in their eighties and shut in. My sister and I alternate weeks, and it’s my turn. I’d see if she could switch, but we had to switch two weeks ago, so she’s already gone two Sundays in a row. She needs a Sunday to spend with her kid.”

  “Well, damn,” Mathias said. “I guess that leaves a week from Saturday. If you’re free, I mean.”

  “The restaurant is closed for lunch on the weekends,” Pascal said. “Not enough foot traffic in that area of town to make it worth staying open. In the evenings, yes, but not for lunch. Our lunch traffic is almost all people working in the surrounding buildings, and all those offices are closed on the weekends. So I’m pretty much always free on Saturday unless I decide to do something with René and Benjamin before I head in for the dinner shift.”

  Before Mathias could say anything else, one of the other servers walked by and bumped Mathias with his shoulder. “Adrien’s frowning at you. You need to check on your other tables.”

  “Allez,” Pascal said. “I don’t want to get you in trouble with your boss.”

  Mathias flashed another smile and left Pascal to waltz over to another table. A moment later, Adrien came over. “Was he bothering you?”

  “No, not at all,” Pascal replied. “We live in the same building. We were just chatting a bit.”

  That didn’t seem to appease Adrien the way Pascal had hoped it would.

  “I’m not so sure about that one. He’s cute enough and the customers seem to like him, but he’s flighty. I keep having to remind him of things. They all flirt to some extent, but he’s pushing it. I don’t mind a little flirting, but I won’t have them trying to pick up my customers.”

  “He isn’t, or at least not with me.” If anything, Pascal had been trying to pick up Mathias, not the other way around. He hadn’t seen anything wrong with coming out tonight so he could talk to Mathias a little more, but if it was going to get him in trouble with his boss, Pascal would have to reconsider that plan. If Mathias lost his job because of Pascal, that certainly wouldn’t endear him to the younger man. Maybe he’d had the right of it earlier tonight after all. Maybe he was bad for Mathias. “I don’t know him all that well, but he seems like a good kid. He works another job besides this one. Give him a break. He’s already worked a full day when he comes in here at night.”

  “My customers deserve good service, no matter what’s going on in their server’s life,” Adrien said.

  “Yes, and I’m not saying you should let him get away with bad service, but he’s certainly never given me bad service, and you know how picky I am.”

  The best part of that was that it was true. Mathias might be inexperienced and maybe a little overenthusiastic, but he didn’t give bad service. He’d found a new drink for Pascal, convinced René to try something new as well, and had generally made their past few visits to Le Salon enjoyable ones. Even if nothing else came of his interest in Mathias, he would miss the younger man’s smile if Adrien let him go.

  “I’ll give him another warning, then,” Adrien said. “Good help is hard to find. If he’s giving good service, I suppose it’s worth coaching him on the rest.”

  “I’ll stop monopolizing him,” Pascal said. “I know better than most how hard his job is.”

  “It’s still his responsibility to balance everything, not yours.”

  Pascal couldn’t argue with that, but he could make sure he wasn’t making Mathias’s job harder than it needed to be. “I’m
not asking you to do him any favors, but remember how hard it was when you were first starting out. Give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  Adrien winked at Pascal. “Only because he’s cute and you asked.”

  Pascal couldn’t argue that, but it worried him at the same time. Had he put Mathias’s job that much at risk? If he had, he couldn’t keep coming by himself on his nights off as an excuse to see Mathias. He’d never forgive himself if his presence cost Mathias his job, and while he wasn’t sure he wanted to pursue a relationship with Mathias (assuming Mathias was even interested in such a thing), he wouldn’t stand a chance if Mathias lost his job because of Pascal.

  “Whatever you’re thinking that put that frown on your face, stop right now.”

  Pascal looked up and smiled before he realized what he was doing. “You shouldn’t spend too much time with me. You have other customers too. You don’t want to make Adrien annoyed with you.”

  “Adrien is always annoyed with me,” Mathias admitted. “Talking to you isn’t going to change that.”

  “Not talking to me might help.”

  “No, then he’d say I was neglecting you and be annoyed because of that.”

  “I could sit at someone else’s table,” Pascal suggested.

  “Then I’d be distracted because I was jealous of whoever got the chance to flirt with you.”

  “I think that’s a conversation best saved for a week from Saturday,” Pascal said after a moment. He wasn’t at all sure how he felt about Mathias’s casual declaration, but he knew this was neither the time nor the place to discuss it, not with Adrien hovering in the background somewhere and the sense of necessity that overshadowed all of Mathias’s actions here, where his flirting could be as much about a tip as about anything else. Pascal wanted the bank employee, not the bar boy.

  “Next Saturday it is,” Mathias said, “although I hope you’ll come in and see me between now and then.”