Waiting; The True Confessions of a Waitress (35 page)

It’s a Saturday afternoon
and I’m standing on line in a department store coffee shop. A couple stands next to me, pon
dering the sandwich menu. The line moves slowly and soon they’ve made a decision about what they’re going to eat. They glance over at me. A flash of recognition is quickly replaced by puzzlement in their faces. I know who they are, but they are completely clueless as to my identity.

“Hello, how are you?” I ask them, smiling
.
“Great,” the man says, “how are you doing?
”
“Terrific,” I respond
.
“It’s funny running into you here,” he says. He’s fishing
,

hoping I’ll say something or give some sign of who I am. “I like this place,” I tell him. “They’ve got great coffee here.” “Yes,” he answers. I smile again and look toward the front of

the line. The man’s wife leans in close to her husband and whis
pers desperately, “Where do we know her from?”

I can see him struggling with the dilemma. He has a whole set of feelings set off by seeing me, and I watch them pass across his face one by one. He knows I’m not one of his friends or acquaintances, because if that were the case, he’d surely know my name. But he also senses that he has a peculiarly intimate relationship with me. I know things about him, he thinks. What is it that I know? What is the context in which I belong? For the life of him, he just can’t grasp it.

I could help him out. He’s correct in assuming I know things about him. I know that he and his wife raise horses. I know where they live. I know his name. I know that his wife will always want to know which specials are good and ask for a detailed description of each one. I know that no matter what the specials are, she will always order the roasted chicken. She will always have her vegetables on the side. I know that he will begin every meal by ordering a bottle of mineral water, one liter, no gas. I know that I am not allowed to bring the mineral water until he asks for it, even though I know he will order it. I know that he likes to finish his meal with a decaffeinated cappuccino and a bowl of strawberries with crème fraîche on the side, but again, I must wait for him to ask for it and pretend that this is the first time he has ordered it this way. I know that he will ask for the check after he finishes the cappuccino and that he will let it sit on the table for ten minutes. After that period of time I will pass by and he will take out his credit card, lay it on the check, and ask me to add one more decaf cappuccino to his bill and bring it along with the receipt for him to sign. I know that his wife will stand up before he does and begin strolling toward the door. He will wait for me to come and pick up the check. And then he will thank me.

Yes, I could make it easier for him. “I am your waitress,” I could say. But I don’t. I have been waiting on these two for years. They always leave a good tip, and while they are strangely

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quiet most of the time, they are relatively low maintenance. Recently, they have even started smiling at me once in a while. I must assume, therefore, that I am doing a good job at playing my part. And my part is determined not so much by how well I perform my job but by how close I am to the image of
waitress
that these two have in their minds. I’ve played it so well, in fact, that they are completely unable to attach an identity to me out
side of the restaurant. The relationship is working well. Why ruin it by telling him who I am?

And who am I, exactly? How close is my real identity to that assigned me by this customer or any other who sits down at my table? It is my feeling that these questions factor into every customer-waitress encounter. I am referring now specifi
cally to the waitress and not the waiter for two reasons. The first is simply that as a woman I am limited to a female point of view. The second comes from my belief that there exists in our culture a specific image of the waitress in particular.

This image has morphed somewhat over time yet has retained certain key elements. The waitress is decidedly blue col
lar but usually street-smart and frequently sexy. She is definitely an independent working girl (or woman); still, she is often qui
etly glamorous and mysterious. But the waitress also brings food and provides nourishment. She “takes care” of her customers, placing herself in a motherly role. Put sexy
and
motherly together and you’ve got a powerful package indeed. And although it is only my opinion, I believe that the waitress is as much a post-feminist icon now as she was a prefeminist representation years ago.

Have I gone too far? Assuming for the moment that art imi
tates life, a quick look at popular culture supports my theory that there is not only a common view of the waitress but an enduring fascination with her. The Internet is full of references to her either in little odes that various authors have penned to
her, in sites dedicated to her role, or in the above-mentioned adult websites.

The waitress has also been featured in a variety of commer
cials and advertisements, in which she has sold paper towels and long-distance phone service, lobbied against cigarette smoking in restaurants, and displayed cosmetics. Songs have been written about her and she has given her title to at least one band, The Waitresses, of the 1980s, who knew “what boys like.”

Perhaps the clearest image of the waitress as a popular icon, however, is in Hollywood’s version of her through a variety of films and television shows that feature her in a leading role.

The character of the waitress is a popular one, appearing in films from the 1930s on. For the purposes of both clarity and brevity, however, I’ve chosen a selection from the time period between 1970 and the present, a span I felt would most suc
cinctly reflect the evolution of this particular woman’s role.

I had seen all the films and TV shows I’ll present here when they first appeared. But in order to get a better sense of how the image of the waitress had changed over time, I watched all of them again within a short space of time. I’d expected to find the films of the nineties reflecting the feminism of the seventies. What I found instead was that while the trappings had changed (and the waitress uniforms had become more comfortable), the view of the woman who was a waitress remained essentially the same.

Before I begin my abbreviated study of the waitress on film, let me offer a disclaimer or two. I make no claim to critical great
ness. The plot summaries and subsequent analysis I’ll offer here in no way reflect any one film’s greater themes or artistic merit. For that I must defer to those who’ve had considerably more experience. I am, however, a waitress. As such, I can allow myself the liberty of judging how closely these films portray
me
. Ultimately, the heart of my argument is a personal one. That said, let’s begin at the beginning.

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Fiv e Easy Pieces
(1970)

Jack Nicholson plays Robert Dupeau, a pianist who has run away from his talent and his cultured family to work as an oil rigger in a dusty California town. He lives with his girlfriend Rayette (Karen Black), a waitress and aspiring country singer in burnt orange polyester. Rayette is crude, emotionally dependent, and dumber than a sack of hammers. Dupeau is absolutely faithless and often abusive, but Rayette, sweetly and helplessly in love with him, keeps coming back for more. For his part, Dupeau tells Rayette that if only she would never speak, everything would be fine. When he learns his father is dying, Dupeau drives up to the Pacific Northwest to visit his family, reluctantly taking the now-pregnant Rayette with him.

Even those who have never seen the film know the famous diner scene that follows. Dupeau’s memorable interchange with his waitress is one of the most indelible in film history. Trying to order a plain omelette and a side order of toast, Dupeau encoun
ters total resistance from the waitress (Lorna Thayer), who refuses to offer any substitutions on menu items. Ultimately, Dupeau tells the waitress (quite brilliant in heavy mascara, blue eye shadow, and more burnt orange clothing) to hold the chicken in rather a tender place and is summarily tossed out of the diner. He never does get his toast. Ultimately, Dupeau runs away once more, deserting Rayette and all that she represents, without a word.

Alice Doesn’t Liv e Here Anymore
(1974)

Ellen Burstyn won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Alice, a housewife whose abusive husband dies, leaving her and her precocious son to fend for themselves. Alice gets some work as a lounge singer in Phoenix, where she hooks up with a
man (Harvey Keitel) who seems all right until he turns into an abusive lunatic. Alice and her son hightail it out of town to Tuc
son, where she is forced to take work as a waitress (a prospect that completely disgusts her at first) in Mel’s Diner. After struggling awhile with her new role, Alice warms to life in the diner and to her coworkers, smart-talking Flo (Diane Ladd) and oddball Vera (Valerie Curtin). Still, she needs a man, and this time Kris Kristofferson plays the customer in shining armor who comes to her rescue. Things start seeming like they’re going to work out for Alice as soon as this relationship is on track. By the end of the film, in fact, Alice even defends her job as a waitress to her son, claiming that she has supported both of them on her tips.

Alice
(1976–1985)

This long-running TV sitcom took its premise and characters from
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
Like the film, the series depicted the blue-collar lives of the characters in and around Mel’s Diner. Like the Alice in the film, too, the Alice of the series (Linda Lavin) waits tables while she pursues her dream of mak
ing it as a singer. Single parenting, working women, and their relationships were all popular topics over the course of the series’ run.

It’s a Living
(1985–1989)

A small group of waitresses (Crystal Bernard and Ann Jillian among them) working in a swank restaurant on top of a high-rise were the featured characters of this TV sitcom. Adding to the mix was their neurotic manager, who had a long-running comedic romance with the chef, and a lascivious piano player whose main job was to hit on and be rebuffed by all the waitresses.

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Cheers
(1982–1993)

Given the wild popularity and phenomenal run of
Cheers,
a descrip
tion of the series is probably redundant. I’ve included it here because of the immense appeal of its characters and its depiction of two very different waitresses: Diane Chambers (Shelley Long), the intellectual whose on-again, off-again romance with barman Sam Malone was followed with avid interest by a huge viewing popula
tion, and Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman), her much-married, tough-talking foil.

Frankie and Johnny
(1991)

Michelle Pfeiffer plays Frankie, a beaten-down waitress in a New York City restaurant. Al Pacino plays Johnny, the ex-con short-order cook who falls in love with her and tries to win her in this paean to loneliness. Early on, a fellow waitress dies, sick and alone. None of the other waitresses (a familiar mixture of smart talkers and eccentrics) want to end up this way. Frankie, unedu
cated and with a long history of abusive relationships, can’t see much of a way out. She is a tough survivor but destined to live an unfulfilled life. Again, salvation comes in the form of a man. When Johnny breaks through Frankie’s tough exterior and reaches her tender core, there is finally a ray of hope.

Gas Food Lodging
(1992)

This film, written and directed by a woman (Allison Anders), fea
tures more lonely waitresses looking for love. Brooke Adams plays Nora, a woman who is raising her two teenage daughters alone in a trailer in New Mexico. Nora works as a truck-stop waitress with a somewhat miserable existence. Deserted long ago by the father of her children, Nora has recently given up a long-term relationship
with a married man. Her eldest daughter, Trudi (Ione Skye), has problems of her own, having drifted into promiscuity after a bru
tal rape. Following in her mother’s footsteps, Trudi drops out of school and ends up waiting on tables as well, until an unplanned pregnancy forces her to leave town. The younger daughter, Shade (Fairuza Balk), is not yet as jaded as her mother and sister and remains a romantic believer in the power of true love.