Waiting; The True Confessions of a Waitress (25 page)

waiting
173

centage of his tips by telling his tables that he was a struggling single father (never mind that his daughter was over twenty-one and that parenting was probably last on the list of his priorities). Another waiter I worked with performed magic tricks at the table. His pockets were constantly bulging with colored scarves and playing cards, and he was usually late picking up his food since some of his tricks required quite a bit of time.

Waiters and waitresses who hail from countries other than the United States generally have an easy time presenting a restau
rant persona. I’ve been consistently amazed at how easily impressed most people are by an accent of any kind. In fact, I’ve seen countless transgressions forgiven by customers just because the waiter or waitress was French, Italian, or Spanish. I’ve experi
mented with this one myself. One of my “talents” is the ability to mold my speech patterns and accent to whomever I’m talking to. A British accent is especially easy, as is a New York twang. At the table, I’ve utilized both, usually to great effect.

Many years after she sat behind the counter at Peppy’s rehearsing for her first performance in an elementary school pro
duction of
The Wiz,
my sister Déja, an aspiring actress, would rehearse for other roles and develop characters at the tables of restaurants where she worked. For her, the restaurant literally became her stage; every shift was an opportunity for an improvi
sational performance.

At Peppy’s, our shtick, such as it was, involved our family and the dynamic inherent within it. My pregnancy was unques
tionably a part of this. Certainly, all of our neighbors knew that I was going to have a baby and they all seemed to wait for the blessed event with me, at times less patiently than I did. Mike, especially, was fond of walking into Peppy’s, looking at me, and saying, “Haven’t you had that baby yet?”

There was a high school close by from which we began to draw a lunch crowd of teenagers. I became a walking cautionary
tale for the high school girls who came in and watched my expanding midsection. Most of them thought I was in my teens and had been forced to drop out of school. I saw them some
times, huddled in the booths, whispering about what might have happened to me. The high school girls weren’t the only ones who held these opinions. Many of our adult customers, who knew that we were all family at Peppy’s, sought to unravel the circum
stances behind my condition with considerably less subtlety:

“When’s your baby due?”

“Are you going back to school once it’s born?”

“Where’s the father? He run out on ya?”

“Looks like you’re carrying low—must be a boy.”

“You’re having a girl, aren’t you?”

“Are you gonna call your baby Peppy? Ha ha.”

“Is this your first baby? You’re in for a treat. You can’t imag
ine how wonderful it’s going to be.”

I can’t say I minded the attention or even the fact that my unborn baby was up for discussion as often as whether we made our pizza with a thin or thick crust. In a way, it helped me feel a sense of community and commonality with people outside of my family. Perhaps, too, there is a bit of the exhibitionist in every
one who chooses waiting as a profession. At the very least, it’s not a job for shrinking violets. A certain gregariousness is required of a person who must strike up pleasant conversations with dozens of strangers on a daily basis. And although my preg
nancy was a distinctly personal experience, I’ve witnessed and been part of several other public episodes of bonding between seemingly disparate people, together only because they all hap
pen to be eating in a restaurant.

I saw a striking example of this kind of bonding, for example, in September of 1997 when Princess Diana died. I worked the dinner shift on the night after the funeral. Without exception, every customer and employee of the restaurant had stayed up all

waiting
175

night watching the funeral on television. Many customers were actually still tearful, their eyes red-rimmed. There was a feeling of shared sadness at every table. Some of my customers even took my hand as I took their orders and said, “Isn’t it just the saddest thing?” It was the topic of conversation for the entire night, with everyone united in a sense of overwhelming grief.

Although business improved over the first few months we were open, it never really took off. My father was disappointed by the lack of support among the local businesses and felt that for the amount of effort we were putting in, the returns were quite small. He couldn’t understand what we were doing wrong and why the neighborhood hadn’t responded more positively to our pizza. He and Maya, together for more hours at a stretch than anyone else in the family, often lapsed into a routine argu
ment when it was particularly slow.

“Where are all the customers?” he’d ask her. “It’s Saturday night.”

“I don’t know,” she’d answer.

“Haven’t you had any orders for delivery?”

“No.”

“Maybe the phone’s not working.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the phone.”

“Go call the operator, make sure it’s working.”

“It’s working.”

“Why are you still sitting in the same position? Why don’t you make a fresh pizza?”

“For who? There’s nobody here.”

“There’s not going to be, either, with that attitude.”

The “Saturday Night Fight,” as it was soon dubbed, became as much a ritual as the daily peeling of garlic and grating of mozzarella.

My father redoubled his efforts to make Peppy’s a place where everybody would want to eat. It was all about pleasing the
customer, he maintained. This was another distinct truth about restaurant work I learned at Peppy’s: The customer is always right.

When I was a sixteen-year-old working at Maxman’s, I hadn’t truly understood why my father consistently gave Mrs. Zucker more meat on her sandwich or filled up Mr. Grubman’s platters. A few years later, I found myself outraged at the lack of support given to waiters and waitresses by restaurant management. It took Peppy’s to make me understand how truly expendable waiters and waitresses are. It is extremely easy to replace a server. In fact, most restaurants don’t even bother advertising when they need to hire staff. A “Help Wanted” sign in the window or, in the busier restaurants, a predictable stream of prospective employees is usually all that is needed for a plethora of server hopefuls. The customer, however, is not so easy to replace. For some people, even one slightly negative experience in a restaurant is enough to warrant a flood of complaining let
ters, phone calls, even a potential lawsuit. The unhappy cus
tomer’s ultimate threat is that he will never return and, what’s more, he’s going to tell all his friends about how poorly he was treated.

Because their cash flow is greater, larger restaurants are bet
ter able to handle disgruntled customers. Still, with the excep
tion of one restaurant where the owner was certifiably insane, I have never worked in a place that didn’t fall over itself trying to make sure that the customer’s last words were “I’ll be back.” For a small, family-run operation like Peppy’s, unhappy customers would signal a quick end to the business. Even with various enticements (free delivery, coupons, and specials), it was diffi
cult enough to convince people to come in for the first time.

It was with this very intimate understanding of why the customer is always right that we restrained ourselves from cracking wise when a potential customer asked us “How big is

waiting
177

your sixteen-inch pizza?” or “What comes on a cheese slice?” or even “Want me to tell you how you should really make pizza?” We said nothing when half of our high school crowd showed up with bags of food from McDonald’s. The other half, after all, were eating pizza. We listened patiently while people gave us decorat
ing tips, menu suggestions, or told us that we should lower our prices.

In a way, it was Mrs. Zucker all over again. This time around, we took it only slightly less personally.

By the beginning of July, I couldn’t stand, sit, or lie down comfortably. I was so distracted, heavy, and full of baby that being at Peppy’s became an impossibility. It was the hottest summer on record and I sweated it out alone in my apartment for what seemed an eternity. Finally, in the last week of July, I checked into the hospital to give birth.

My father placed a sign in the window at Peppy’s that said sim
ply
CLOSED FOR DELIVERY
, and my entire family joined me in the hos
pital, talking, eating, and milling about while I went through thirteen hours of labor. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

My son, Blaze, was born very early the following morning. Several hours later, Maya and my father went back to Peppy’s and fired up the ovens. But it would never be business as usual for me again. The change in my life was staggering in its enormity.

Blaze’s delivery had been complicated and he had to spend an additional week in the hospital. When I finally brought him home, I was amazed at the sheer emotional chaos my new baby created for me. He cried and I cried along with him. He seemed, quite simply, angry at having been removed from the womb. And after his time in the neonatal care unit, I was afraid that every sound he made was an indication of some strange mysterious ill
ness. Neither one of us slept. For a week, I doubted all my instincts, terrified that I would be unable to understand or give him what he needed.

After about a week of this, I brought him to Peppy’s. Exhausted and bleary-eyed, I sat in a booth near the counter with Blaze next to me, wrapped up like an enchilada in his car seat. The pinball machines rumbled. Maya made pizza. My father peeled and chopped garlic. Customers walked in and out. My mother sat with me and we gushed over what an unbelievably cute baby I had. Blaze slept peacefully. I felt safe for the first time since his birth. Nothing bad could happen here. From that moment on, my son and I developed a certain rhythm. He became a very contented baby, and I became not a woman who had just given birth, but his mother.

I spent only a couple of weeks at home with Blaze before coming back to Peppy’s to resume my position behind the counter. We came back to a warm welcome from everyone in the neigh
borhood. The ladies from the bank presented me with a tiny blue suit and the request that I bring the baby in to see them as often as possible. Kev, Mike, and Jeff brought over a bag of toys and the Bens sent flowers. I was genuinely touched.

I brought Blaze with me every day and kept him beside me at all times. He always had a full bag of teething rings and toys, but he preferred playing with paper cups, rolls of tape, and take
out containers. He was never as happy as when the restaurant was full of people, noise, and the smells of pizza.

In the months following his birth, I couldn’t have been more besotted with Blaze or happier in my new identity as his mom. That was the easy part. The difficult part was knowing that the quality of another person’s entire existence depended on me alone. Peppy’s, as it turned out, was the perfect buffer. As long as I was there, surrounded by family, food, and the endless sound of the pin
ball machines, I felt secure. For a short period, I not only ceased waiting for anything but sought to freeze time as it was, wrap
ping myself in the warm glow of new motherhood. And for a lit
tle while, Peppy’s allowed me to do just that.