Tessie D

It’s Monday, and I finished my first weekend working at the restaurant.

I have never walked so much, so fast, in my life. My first shift was Friday night—“five ’til slowdown,” they called it.

Hours of go, go, go. Everyone running around filling drinks, bringing out food, carrying away plates, bussing tables.

When I first got there, I went inside and Mr. Despare was sitting at the same table in the back where we’d talked a couple days before.

He was nice to me when I walked up, looking up from the papers scattered in front of him and smiling broadly. He looked nice, too. He was wearing a white button-up shirt and dark slacks, his wavy blond hair gelled back a bit. He told me to find Debbie up at the front. She’d get me a uniform, and I’d be shadowing her all night.

I walked back up to the front, to the drink station between a window with a warming lamp that opened into the kitchen in the back and a swinging metal door. Beyond the door, I could faintly hear a radio playing Pearl Jam over the sound of clanging dishes and people laughing. So I stood there a moment and waited, and eventually Debbie came through the door holding a white wash rag in one hand and a blue bottle of glass cleaner in the other.

Debbie smiled tentatively, like she was trying to remember me.

“You’re back.”

“Yes. Hi, I’m Tessie—I mean, Tess,” I said, smiling back broadly, wanting her to like me.

“Nice to meet you, Tess. Well, first things first: you need a uniform.” Debbie turned around and walked back through the door she’d just come from. I followed, hurrying to keep up.

We pushed through the swinging door, and I was immediately hit with the sounds, smells, and heat of the kitchen. To my right was the cook station—a stainless-steel table, a magnet strip with knives of varying sizes, a double oven, two grill tops, and two fryers. I could see a small refrigerator with a sliding glass door, a warming station with different sauces, and a steamer.

In front of me was the dishwashing station with a large stainless-steel sink, two garbage bins, a rack full of dirty glasses, and rows of dirty plates stacked beside them. A short man stood in the back at another sink, spraying plates with a nozzle that hung from the ceiling before shoving them into a large metal box I assumed was the dishwasher.

Debbie turned left, though, and we walked down a narrow hall to the back of the restaurant, past shelves of canned goods and large stacks of flour and sugar, toward a closet in the corner. She opened the double doors and looked me up and down. She searched through the rack before pulling out a white blouse and a maroon skirt, then reached into a bin.

“Here—you’ll need this too,” she said, shoving the blouse, skirt, and a triangle-shaped piece of maroon fabric into my hands.

“Oh. Okay. Thanks,” I said, looking down at the bundle in my arms.

“Tomorrow you’ll need to wear pantyhose under the skirt and a pair of plain white tennis shoes. We can make do without them tonight.”

Debbie closed the closet door, and we walked back toward the kitchen.

“Go change in the bathroom. I’m gonna get me something to drink. Find me when you’re done,” she said, then walked out to the drink station.

I went into the bathroom and changed clothes in one of the stalls.

The uniform didn’t look any better on me than it did on Debbie—a white blouse and maroon pinafore, the fabric gathered at the small of the back so that it bustled, emphasizing and exaggerating whatever was back there. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and positioned the maroon kerchief over my head, tying it at the base of my neck.

I came out of the stall and looked at myself in the mirror.

I was an extra on Little Steakhouse on the Prairie.

I left the bathroom and found Debbie by the drink station, filling a metal trough with ice. She looked me up and down and nodded.

“Okay. Let’s get started.”

For the rest of the night, I shadowed her everywhere she went. She introduced me to everyone in the front and back of the house. I learned that, except for Debbie and Arturo, a cook in the back, everyone was a college student: Eric, Jay, and Deidra were waitstaff.

Eric had flaming red hair, and everyone called him Cheeto.

Jay was pale, prematurely balding, and talked with a hyperactive energy that made it hard to keep up.

Deidra stood at least six feet tall with thick, wavy red hair she wore pulled up in a high ponytail. She looked like a statue carved from stone, and she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in real life.

Arturo and another cook, Matt, worked in the back. Arturo was barely five feet tall and was dwarfed next to Matt, who, with his dark black hair and pronounced widow’s peak, looked like an adult Eddie Munster.

James — small, skinny, with bad teeth and a pockmarked face — worked the wash station. Alec worked in the kitchen alongside Matt and Arturo, and whenever I came up with Debbie to pick up orders from the window, he’d smile and wink.

Everyone was genuinely nice, and a few people were surprised that I was only seventeen, since Mr. Despare didn’t usually let employees still in high school wait tables. The first time someone said something, Debbie raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say either, so I just smiled.

For the next four hours, I followed Debbie around the restaurant, bringing plates from the kitchen, filling tea glasses, running fresh pots of coffee. I must’ve walked ten miles back and forth from one end of the restaurant to the other. By the time we were cut that evening, my lower back ached and my calves were cramping.

Still, it was more fun than I’d thought it would be.

Moving around the restaurant—carrying plates and water pitchers, avoiding little kids running up and down the aisle to the buffet, shuffling between tables—it felt like dancing. Everyone was so nice and happy: customers enjoying dinner with their families, waitstaff knowing that happy customers meant better tips.

I caught myself smiling without meaning to. It just felt good to move my body with that kind of speed and purpose. I felt comfortable at the restaurant right away—more comfortable than I ever felt at school or at home. I didn’t even care that I didn’t get to keep any of the tips my first night. It was so much fun that I think I would’ve done it for free if they’d asked.

Later, when we were finishing up, Mr. Despare commented on how quickly I picked things up and how good I was with the customers. It caught me off guard. It felt flattering enough that I forgot to feel self-conscious.