Waiting; The True Confessions of a Waitress (28 page)

“Danny! The popovers. It’s getting late—please.”

The door opens and I am assaulted by a wave of alcoholic fumes. Danny, half dressed, bloodshot and pasty, looks worse than a train wreck.

“Where’s Adrian, the scabby prick?” Danny mutters. “It’s not my shift this morning.”

“He’s not here,” I say, desperately. “Please unlock the door for me, Danny.”

Spewing barely intelligible curses, Danny stumbles down to the diner and lets me in. I have to beg him to stay vertical and start cooking. The restaurant is scheduled to open in an hour and we’ll be full to capacity within a half hour afterward. Reluc
tantly, Danny staggers to the kitchen and begins whipping up a batch of popovers destined to reach a new low point in culinary standards.

It’s seven-thirty and Sheryl, the next waitress on, is half an hour late. I’m running around frantically trying to get the coffee made, the tables wiped down, and the condiments filled and lined up. We’re not going to be ready.

The phone rings and I lunge for it, hoping it’s Adrian to say he’s on his way. No such luck. It’s Sheryl, sounding none too happy.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m going to make it into work today,” she says.

“Sheryl, please, even if you’re late, it’s no big deal. But it’s going to be really busy and we really need—”

“No, I’m really not going to make it.”

“Are you sick?”

“Not exactly.”

“Can someone come pick you up?”

“Well, I’m kind of in Mexico.”

“Well, you could make it back in a couple of hours, couldn’t you?”

“Not really. I’m kind of in jail. In Tijuana.”

There is a long silence. My brain is refusing to process the information.

“Listen,” Sheryl continues, “can you let Adrian know what happened? Tell him I’m really sorry. Also, I think you should know that Frank’s with me. I mean, he’s also in jail, so he proba
bly won’t be able to make it for his shift, either.”

I don’t want to know the details and Sheryl doesn’t offer them. What I do know is that we’re now two servers short. This day has all the earmarks of certain disaster.

Adrian shows up at eight. He’s wearing a pink sweatshirt, black tights, and loafers with no socks. His hair is matted and his eyes are wild. He looks as if he hasn’t eaten, slept, or bathed for at least a month. He barks, “Cappuccino, make it a double!” at me and heads to the kitchen. By this time my first customers have arrived, a couple of regulars who bring the Sunday papers and fold them into neat sections to read one at a time. One of them watches Adrian, smiles, and shakes his head.

“Crazy guy,” he offers. I smile and fill his coffee. “It will probably be a few minutes before the popovers are ready,” I tell him. “We’re running a bit late today.”

“So what else is new?” Mr. Regular tells me grumpily. “I’ll take the omelette first, then. Bring me the popover when it’s ready. And since I have to wait for it, you can bring me an extra one for free.”

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Thank you, thank you, Mr. Regular. I’m happy to serve you and really earn my $1.57 tip. How empty would your life be without the chance of that free popover for all your troubles? I ring up his omelette, but I’m dubious that anyone is paying attention to the order in the kitchen, where shouting is audible.

“You call this a popover?” Adrian is screaming as I approach the kitchen. “This is an abortion!” Adrian takes the first batch and throws them into the trash. “Now, make some real popovers!”

Danny is staring at his feet, taking the abuse. His misery emanates in tidal waves.

“Um, I’ve got an omelette on order,” I begin tentatively. Adrian and Danny stare at me as if I’m speaking Greek.

“Can you believe this fucking kid?” Adrian says, pointing at Danny. “Can’t even get a fucking popover together. Where the fuck is Oaxaca?”

“Oaxaca” is the other international star in Adrian’s chef ros
ter. A Mexican national with no green card, Oaxaca is illegally employed by Adrian and treated even worse than Danny, if that’s possible. Sweet, timid, and unable to understand almost any English, Oaxaca regularly works twelve- to fifteen-hour days. I don’t know how much Adrian pays him, but I’m sure it’s crimi
nally low. Oaxaca is not his real name, it’s the region in Mexico he comes from, but he is never referred to any other way— another attempt on Adrian’s part to keep him in his place. None of us know what his name is, exactly, and he’s too shy to tell us.

(This type of hiring practice was a fact of SoCal kitchens I’d discovered very soon after moving to the area. Inevitably, restau
rants would hire illegal, or dubiously legal, aliens to work in the kitchen for ridiculously low wages. Thus, restaurants of every nationality—Greek, French, Italian, Indian, Thai—ended up with Mexican cooks. One restaurant I worked in later carried this policy to extremes, hiring illegals and raising their wages by
minuscule increments until Immigration did a sweep. At this point, the restaurant would “fire” the cooks, only to hire them back with new names at the old wages.)

“Um, Adrian? Sheryl called from Tijuana. She’s in jail with Frank. They’re not going to make it to work today, obviously, so I was wondering if maybe we could call somebody else?” I run from the kitchen after delivering this news, not wanting to hear its effect.

At nine the restaurant is almost full. Maya and one other waitress, Jessie, have arrived. Maya takes one look at me and reads the morning in my face.

“How bad is it?” she asks.

“Don’t ask,” I tell her. “I need you to take Twelve, Fourteen, and Fifteen. And Twenty’s been waiting for ten minutes. How’s Blaze?”

“Fine,” she says, tying on her apron. “Mom and Dad have big plans for him today. They’re going to the Wild Animal Park.”

I raise my eyebrows. “They could just bring him here and avoid the cost of admission,” I say.

Maya and I are soon waiting on at least ten tables each, while Jessie is struggling to handle two. Jessie explains that she’s hung over this morning and will need a little time to ease into her shift. Adrian doesn’t care about this because Jessie’s father coaches a professional football team. Even though Jessie has been disowned by her father for drug and alcohol problems, Adrian figures some of the gravy will eventually drip over onto him if he employs the daughter. Oaxaca has shown up and started cooking, but Adrian is on a rampage, criticizing every plate that comes out of the kitchen, so that now we are at least ten plates behind and not a popover in sight.

“I don’t know why I keep coming here,” a woman says to me, waving her diamond-encrusted hand in disdain. “The service is slow and the food is terrible.”

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I don’t know why, either. Go to another restaurant, I want to tell her. Please. Better yet, go home and cook something yourself for your bratty children. Instead, I make her a free latte and locate crayons for her two screaming kids, buying myself ten more minutes before she erupts again.

At ten, Chris and Terry arrive, replacements for the jailed Sheryl and Frank. Terry and Chris feel that since they have come in on their day off, they should be given the best tables, which are located on the patio, up a rickety flight of wooden stairs.

While the popovers were subject to the vagaries of human nature, the ocean was consistently beautiful. Since my episode at Hoover’s, I have learned that people will do just about anything to secure themselves an ocean view, even if the table they are viewing it from is made of dirty white plastic, shaded with an ancient Cinzano-emblazoned umbrella, and laid with barely edi
ble food. This was certainly the case at Hoover’s, which in addi
tion was laid out so eccentrically that it was almost impossible to give decent service to its prime tables.

Chris and Terry are arguing their point when the question of who will serve up on the patio becomes somewhat moot. We all hear a spectacular crash and a gasp of “Ooh” from the upstairs diners. On closer investigation, it seems that Jessie has fallen up the stairs with a tray full of cappuccinos.

“I think I blacked out,” she says. “I think I twisted my ankle. I can’t walk. I’m going to have to go home. Or maybe to the hospital.”

At Adrian’s command, we begin handing out free mimosas to the patio tables to assuage the trauma they’ve sustained watching the accident. Several tables feel they have to justify receiving freebies that they haven’t yet had the chance to demand:

“You’d better make sure you get that cleaned up. If I slip on those stairs, there’s going to be a lawsuit.”

“Only one mimosa? Can I get another one if I don’t get my breakfast in the next half hour?”

“Are you sure you use fresh-squeezed orange juice in this? Doesn’t taste like it.”

“I don’t drink champagne. Can I get a free Bloody Mary instead?”

The downstairs tables get wind of the situation and begin complaining bitterly:

“Hey, I’ve been waiting thirty minutes for two eggs and toast. Where’s my free drink?”

“What kind of place is this? Free drinks for half the restaurant?”

“Get that fascist Adrian out here now.”

The downstairs tables get mimosas. This ploy actually works quite well. Enough diners get tipsy enough not to notice the wait or the escalating entropy. The only trouble now is that we’ve run out of orange juice. The juice man hasn’t made a delivery for a while since Adrian is at least two months behind on payment. We are also running out of eggs, bacon, sausage, and hamburger because the meat distributor is in the same boat as the juice man. At this rate we will be out of every menu item but the tuna melt by noon.

“Tell them that this is Vegetarian Day at Hoover’s,” Adrian says. “This is California, isn’t it?”

Despite the chaos, business continues to be brisk. I even have time to converse with some of my customers about topics other than the lateness of their orders. One man, for example, asks me: “What is this awful music?”

Adrian has two tape loops he insists on pumping through the restaurant. One is a medley of relatively current pop tunes and the other is a collection of standards that would work well in an underground French bistro. Today we are listening to the latter.

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“I believe this is Eartha Kitt,” I tell him.

“Eartha Kitt? You mean Catwoman? You gotta be kidding me. This place . . . ”

I approach another table and offer them something to drink. “I just want you to know,” one man says, “that the last time we were here, we had a terrible experience. The food was cold and we were not given any attention from our waitress.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

“Well,” he continues, “we’ve decided to give you one more chance. Now, what do you recommend?”

“The tuna melt is excellent,” I tell him and he orders it.

A couple I’ve waited on before comes in with their baby girl and sits down at one of my tables. There is dread in my heart. “How’s it going?” they want to know. “You remember us, right? Greg and Kate? And this is our little Annalisa. Your name’s Brenda, isn’t it?”

“Uh-huh,” I say. I don’t have the energy to correct them. I’ve already told them what my name is at least six times before.

“Is it
crazy
today?” They are both grinning ear to ear, as if they’ll be disappointed if I say no.

“A little,” I say hopefully.

“We thought so. We’re so glad you’re waiting on us today, you’re so nice. I hope the popovers aren’t soggy today. Some
times they’re pretty soggy. But we don’t mind because it’s always so much
fun
to eat here.”

“Like Dinner Theater?” I ask.

“Ha ha ha, you’re so
funny
. She’s so funny, isn’t she, Greg?”

“Cute, too,” Greg says. “Say, Brenda, we’d like to have a couple of omelettes, but Kate doesn’t eat the yolks. Do you think you could get her an egg white omelette? If it’s too much trouble, don’t worry about it, we’ll understand. We know things can get a little wild around here. Also, do you think you could find some kind of cereal for the baby? Maybe some polenta or
something like that. Do you have polenta? If you don’t, that’s OK, but she does need to eat, so if you could get something soon for her, that would be great. But don’t worry, we’re not in a big hurry. If you could bring us a few popovers while we’re wait
ing for our food that would be terrific. Also, can you check and see if you’ve got any asparagus? It would be fantastic if I could get a side order of asparagus steamed with a little olive oil. We’d like to start with some coffee drinks, if you’ve got time. I’ll just have a double decaf latte. What would you like, Kate?”