by Dyan Sheldon
Towards the end of a shift that already marked a low point in my waitressing career, Mr Schonblatt snapped at me for not serving an order that wasn’t ready yet. Claire was nearby, filling water glasses, and gave me a look as he stomped off to yell at someone else. Claire was the oldest waitress and had been there longer than anybody except Mr Schonblatt. We’d never been what you’d call buddies but it seemed to be a sympathetic look, so I asked her what was wrong with him.
“There’s nothing wrong with him,” said Claire. “Nothing new. That’s him. He’s always had less charm than your average ruthless tyrant. He was probably busy measuring place settings the day they were handing it out.”
“But he’s being totally unreasonable. You’d think he had his period or something.”
Claire sighed. “That’s the beauty of being a man. You don’t have to cram being irrational and bad-tempered into a few days of pain a month. You can be like that all the time.”
“He’s like this all the time?”
“Only when he’s awake.” Claire put down the pitcher. “I know he used to be nice to you, but how could you not notice?”
“It’s not that I didn’t notice…” I just didn’t pay much attention.
The sympathetic look had morphed into one that reminded me of Loretta. “Why do you think the Inn’s always short-handed and looking for staff?”
“Because people are always quitting or getting fired.” It was pretty much in one door and out the other at the Inn.
“Right. And that’s because…?”
“Because they don’t like the job or they don’t do it right?”
“Got it in one.” Claire nodded. “But that’s not because of them – because they’re incompetent or anything. That’s because the Schonblatt’s impossible to work with. Nobody’s ever right but him. Fabio? The chef who left last week? The really good one? He threw his apron at Schonblatt and called him a kitchen Nazi.” Claire lifted her tray. “I’m thinking of having that put on a T-shirt.” She winked. Conspiratorally. “I’ll wear it the day I win the lottery and quit.”
One morning not long after my conversation with Claire, I was hardly through the door when Mr Schonblatt got on my case about my uniform. Had I run out of shoe polish? Had the Abruzzio iron died? Was that a stain on my trousers?
I didn’t know what he was talking about. You can ask Loretta. No matter what I’m wearing, I’m not a girl to leave the house looking like I dressed in the dark. Immaculate could be my middle name.
“I’ll tell you what I’m talking about.” If he’d been a bear, he would’ve been growling. “You represent the Old Clipper Inn, not some soup kitchen in the basement of a church, Giselle. That’s what I’m talking about.”
Sharp, biting replies of the kind Loretta Reynolds would have made got to the tip of my tongue, but they never launched themselves from there. I was still the positive and pleasant person I always was, dumping honey all over the place and trying to get some flies. I said I was sorry.
Mr Schonblatt no longer smiled. At least not at me. “I would hope so.”
Layla, the waitress I was taking over from, came up behind me. “What I hope is that he gives himself a stroke,” she muttered.
I looked down at my clothes. My shoes were shined, my shirt was ironed, my slacks had just been washed. “Maybe there’s something wrong with his eyes.”
“There’s always been something wrong with his eyes,” said Layla.
I glanced over my shoulder at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean he never hires waiters, does he? The guys are all in the kitchen.”
“Well, yeah… But maybe no waiters apply.”
She gave me a pitying look. “I’m so sure. And the only waitresses who apply are all of a type, right? What a coincidence. We must be the only town in the country where there aren’t any waiters and the only waitresses are blondes with good figures.”
“Really? You think so?”
“Yeah, really, I think so. You don’t even have to be very attractive. You just have to fit his idea of how women should look.”
So here was something else I hadn’t paid attention to.
Layla patted my shoulder. “Welcome to the real world, Giselle.”
I couldn’t help wishing I’d stayed where I was in the unreal world.
And then, the day after Loretta was moaning about life at Chelusky’s, Mr Schonblatt told me off for not clearing table six fast enough. Tables are supposed to be cleared as soon as they’re empty. If not sooner. I said I couldn’t clear it any faster, I was busy serving table nine.
“If people wanted slapdash service, they’d eat at home,” snarled Mr Schonblatt. “I don’t need your excuses.”
“I wasn’t giving you an excuse, I was giving you an explanation.” Quite some time had passed by then, and with it had passed the days when I didn’t talk back. What did it matter being sweet and agreeable when he was less pleasant than an abscessed tooth?
“Excuse … explanation … it all comes to the same thing, Miss Abruzzio,” he thundered. “Incompetence. Sloppiness. What I want is professionalism. What I want is for you to do the job you’re hired to do.”
I gave him the smile that used to guarantee me forgiveness even if I messed up an order. “I guess I didn’t know I was hired to be in three places at once.”
Forgiveness, however, was also a thing of the past. “Well, now you do,” said Mr Schonblatt.
Since I had virtually no social life these days, I’d started thinking about why Mr Schonblatt’s attitude had changed so totally. I wasn’t doing anything different. I was exactly the same waitress I’d been before. Why was I suddenly the scab on his life that he couldn’t stop picking? Because I cut my hair? Because I was wearing slacks instead of a short skirt? Because I wasn’t wearing any more make-up than he was? Even to me, that seemed pretty far-fetched. Seriously? I mean, you don’t exactly need to show your legs to carry a tray. Or wear lipstick or eyeliner to take an order. It’s not like I was working in a nightclub.
You remember that book I was reading, the weird one Loretta loaned me? I wasn’t always sure I understood what the writer was getting at, but it made me think, too. I figured that the heroine’s problem was that she wasn’t sure who she was or who she should be. Everybody told her how she should act and what she should want. And so long as she did what everybody expected, they were happy because they were controlling her.
I was mulling all that over when I remembered Layla saying something about having to fit Mr Schonblatt’s idea of how women should look. What he expected. Was that all part of him being in control? So it didn’t matter that I still had breasts and close-to-blonde hair, I wasn’t wearing skirts or make-up. And now he wasn’t so sure of what to expect. His control was slipping. Things weren’t the way he wanted them to be. And when anything didn’t go the way he wanted it to, Mr Schonblatt yelled.
Loretta says I can be really oblivious, and I was starting to think that maybe she had a point. If I didn’t want to see what was right in front of me, I guess I didn’t see it. But pieces were starting to fall into place. I know this is going to sound like something Loretta would say (and it was bad enough that I was looking like her without sounding like her, too) but it finally hit me that Mr Schonblatt wasn’t just a miserable old goat who liked to boss people around. Mr Schonblatt was what Loretta would call a male chauvinist pig. (And a miserable, bossy old goat, too!)
Loretta
I stick to my skirts
I think I have a pretty good imagination but it would never have occurred to me that one day ZiZi and I would be bickering about clothes and I’d be the one saying I was going to wear a skirt no matter what, and she’d be the one saying I was crazy – why didn’t I just wear jeans?
As I told her, there was a principle involved here. Why shouldn’t I wear a skirt if I wanted to? The guys would just have to get used to it.
Besides, I’d come too far to back down now. If I started wearing jeans at work ZiZi would think
I was weakening; that I was bound to give in before she did. She’d think that all she had to do was wait a little longer and, before you could say “double standard”, I’d be back in my dungarees and wiping the make-up off my face with a gauzy top. File under the heading: Think again.
Which isn’t to say that there weren’t days when I didn’t wonder if I was fighting the wrong battles. What was so awful about getting a ride home sometimes? Or with rearranging the paint cards while Mike or Horst stacked the tins? They also serve who only put on the price stickers. To be truthful, ZiZi isn’t the only person to tell me that I’m stubborn. Not that stubborn’s bad; stubborn means you persevere and don’t give up at the first rumble of trouble. On the other side of the argument, as my father says, there is a difference between stubborn and inflexible. Was I being inflexible? Wasn’t it possible that I could give in a little without actually weakening? What was the harm in that? It might even make me stronger; being comfortable in pink jeans instead of being uncomfortable in a floral skirt might make it easier to go on till the end of the Summer if I had to – if ZiZi proved to be just as stubborn – or inflexible – as I am.
I was mulling all this over when Mr Shapiro called the store to say he needed a handrail put up along his front steps.
Mr Shapiro had never used the Chelusky handyman service before; we’d been recommended by his friend Mrs Willow. Highly recommended. I’d done quite a few jobs for Mrs Willow. The first time I worked for her, she thought I was a boy. That was partly because her eyesight isn’t that good, and partly because Mr Chelusky said he was sending Lou over. By the time we got my gender straight, I’d already replaced some tiles in the bathroom and put up some shelves in the bedroom. All she said when she realized I was a girl was, “Oh, of course. You remind me of the actress Audrey Hepburn.” I guessed she meant because I had short hair, not because I was beautiful. After that, Mrs Willow probably forgot all about it and certainly hadn’t mentioned it, because for definite Mr Shapiro wasn’t expecting a girl to climb out of the car. I could tell because his first words to me were “Where’s the handyman I asked for?”
I was wearing a Chelusky’s coverall, which was kind of a clue if you were paying attention; I held up the toolbox. “She’s right here.”
Apparently, that statement needed clarification.
He eyed me suspiciously. The coverall wasn’t fooling him. “You? You’re the handyman?”
“Yes, me.” I held up the toolbox again. “That’s why I have this. It makes it easier to do the job.”
“You’re going to put up a handrail?”
“It’s not against the law,” I assured him.
“You,” he repeated. “All by yourself?”
It didn’t seem as if ZiZi’s cute-girl lever was working, but I kept smiling sweetly. “How many people do you think it takes to put up a handrail?”
“One who knows what he’s doing,” replied Mr Shapiro.
I let that pass.
“Don’t you worry,” I said. “I’m much better at installing handrails than I am at baking pies.”
I wondered if age had deprived Mr Shapiro of more than his hair; his facial expressions seemed to be limited to scowling and glaring.
“I don’t think I can do this.”
“You’re not doing it,” I reminded him. “I am.”
He shook his head. “I can’t have this anxiety.” Which, apparently, was the anxiety of having a girl put up the rail. So much worse than the things that cause most people anxiety, such as being on a plane with engine trouble or not being able to pay the rent. “I have a bad heart.”
He could say that again.
“You don’t have anything to be anxious about, Mr Shapiro. I know CPR.”
“Probably as well as you know carpentry.”
“Not really. I’ve had more experience with carpentry than life-saving.” I was rigid with reasonableness. “Look, if you’re worried, why don’t you call your friend Mrs Willow? She can tell you I do good work. She always asks for me.” She was the reason Mr Chelusky sent me.
“Never mind her. What does she know? She’s a woman, too.”
“Mr Shapiro, this isn’t some kind of conspiracy. Mrs Willow appreciates my workmanship.”
He waved me away. “You go back and get them to send me a real handyman.”
I was as rooted as a tree. “I am a real handyman.”
“You know what I mean.” Oh, I knew all right. “My wife, may she rest in peace, could hardly change a light bulb.”
“I am not your wife. I’ve won awards for changing light bulbs. I am also very good at putting up handrails.” If I hadn’t been holding the toolbox, I would have folded my arms in front of me, ultimatum-style. “Do you really think Mr Chelusky would send me if I didn’t know what I was doing?”
Mr Shapiro humphed. “Charlie Chelusky wouldn’t be the first man to be bamboozled by a pretty face.”
This was probably when I should have gone full-throttle on the cute-girl lever. ZiZi would have. ZiZi would have widened her eyes and burnt him with her smile, but I was too annoyed not to stick with reason. “If that’s what you want, Mr Shapiro, of course I will.” I hefted the toolbox, ready to go. “Only I am a little worried about the expense to you, Mr Shapiro. You know you’re paying for my time, don’t you? I’m already here. If they have to send someone else you’ll end up paying twice.”
I could see the calculator in his brain working that out. Which was going to win, prejudice or cost?
“You’re sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Absolutely.”
He shrugged. “Well … maybe you’re right. Since you’re here. But you better not mess up. I’m going to be watching you. Don’t think I won’t.”
“Oh, I don’t think that.”
Mr Shapiro was as good as his word. He hovered behind or beside me the whole time I was working. Fussing and fidgeting, chirping over my shoulder like a nervous bird. What are you doing? What’s that for? What’s this for? Watch those bushes. Are you sure that’ll hold? I could barely move without bumping into him. If he didn’t waste half his brain on being bigoted and blind, he would have realized what a good carpenter I am based solely on the fact that I didn’t accidentally hit him with my hammer. If I hadn’t been afraid of putting him into cardiac arrest, I would have chased him into the house.
When I was done, after he’d pulled on the rail and it didn’t fall over, he refused to pay me. “I’ll talk to Charlie Chelusky,” said Mr Shapiro. “I’m not paying till I’m sure it’s sound.”
As an example of being as stubborn as Galileo, I sat down on the bottom step. With my toolbox at my feet and my arms folded. “And I’m not leaving till you pay.”
Mr Shapiro stormed into the house – testing the handrail as he went. Ten minutes later, Mr Chelusky called, ordering me to go back to the store – without my money.
I was in a really bad mood by the time I got there.
And what was the first thing I saw? The empty coffee pot. Waiting for me like one of those men who sits watching the news while his wife makes the supper. It was all I could do not to smash it against the floor. Instead, I ignored it. I didn’t see it, and I was never going to see it again.
I was a golden parakeet, and the cage I was in was probably pink. But I was a golden parakeet who refused to make the coffee ever again. Either they did it themselves or it didn’t get done. Let them drink water.
File under the heading: There was no turning back now.
ZiZi
The revenge of the male chauvinist pig
It wasn’t enough for Mr Schonblatt to follow me around like he was a freelance photographer and I was a Hollywood star (except instead of hearing click click click behind me, what I heard was wrong wrong wrong). To prove that I really wasn’t his favourite waitress any more, he changed my section. Maybe like two hundred years ago the Inn was some millionaire’s summer mansion where he brought his friends to hunt and fish and stuff like that. He must’ve had a lot of frien
ds because it’s so big they made it into a restaurant and a hotel. There’s one entrance at the front for the hotel and another on one side for the restaurant. Downstairs, the hotel is just the reception desk and a small lounge area, and the restaurant is kind of an L-shape. I’d always worked in the main dining room (which runs along the back down one side of the building, overlooking the garden, with tables on the patio in the Summer), but, sudden as a broken zipper, the Schonblatt moved me to the dining room at the side and moved Claire to the back. Mr Schonblatt calls the back dining room the Garden Room, because even though it isn’t in the garden it overlooks it, and in the Summer, there are tables on the big patio. If you’re serving the room on the side, you’re about as far from the kitchen as you can get without being in a different restaurant. It would make an awesome exercise programme because you practically have to run with your trays if the hot things aren’t going to be cold and the cold things aren’t going to be hot before you get them to the table. Or before your customers think they’re never going to see you again and go home.
I know they don’t have restaurants in Hell, but, if they did, waiting tables in one of them couldn’t be worse than the back dining room (except that the Inn does have air conditioning, so I suppose it gets a point for that). I was sprinting back and forth from the second my shift started till the second it ended, smiling so much I thought I’d permanently damaged my jaw.
The main room is where the business meetings and people off their yachts usually ask to sit; the other room is where the families with children are put (so that the first thing you see when you walk in isn’t some kid sticking fries up his nose). The main room is usually men who are into a little banter, and who are generous tippers. The businessmen and boating types can be pretty picky, but next to the families they’re so laidback they’re asleep. The families aren’t just wide awake, they’re like waitress-eating tigers. They need special chairs, more serviettes, what about a bib? There can’t be anything green on Sarajane’s plate, Ben doesn’t eat potatoes, Angela’s allergic to bread. Glasses are constantly being knocked over, food thrown on the floor (and I mean thrown, not accidentally dropped). I timed it, and it takes five times longer for a table with children to order than it does for a table without (and that’s when things are going well). Once they do order, nine times out of ten, it turns out that they didn’t mean it. Could you change that chicken to the pasta salad? Could you change the soup to the risotto? Could you make that spaghetti without any sauce? The kids want cheese, but not that cheese. They want bread, but not that bread. They want soda but not in a glass. The ice cream’s too cold, the fish is too hot. And nothing is ever brought fast enough. Adults beckon, or snap their fingers, or give you stink eye when they feel they’ve been waiting too long for that bottle of water. Children wail like starving wolves.