Tessie D

It’s Monday, and I’m tired and sore after my first weekend working at the restaurant. I have never walked so much, so fast in my life. My first shift was Friday night, “5 ’til slowdown,” they called it, and it was hours of go, go, go. Everyone running around filling drinks, bringing out food, carrying away plates, and bussing tables. 

When I first got there, I went inside and Alec was sitting at the same table in the back that 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. He was wearing a white button-up shirt and dark slacks and his wavy blonde 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 int he 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 blue bottle of glass cleaner in the other.  

Debbie smiled tentatively, seeming to remember me. 

“You’re back.”

“Yes. Hi, I’m 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 the 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 also see a small refrigerator with a sliding glass door, a warming station with various sauces, and a steamer. In front of me was a 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 was standing 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 to be the dishwasher. Debbie turned to the 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 large closet in the corner. She opened the double doors and turned to look me up and down. She searched through the rack before before pulling out a white blouse and a maroon skirt, and then she reached into a bin.

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

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

“Tomorrow, you’ll need to wear a pair of panty hose 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,” Debbie said and walked out of the kitchen and 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 a bit at the small of the backs so that it bustled, emphasizing and exaggerating whatever was back there. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and positioned the maroon kerchief over my head, tying it at base of my neck. 

I came out of the stall and looked at myself in the mirror. I could have been an extra from 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,” she said. For the rest of the night, I shadowed her everywhere she went. She introduced me to everyone in the front and the back of the house. I learned that, except for Debbie and Arturo, a cook in the back, everyone were college students: 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, curly red hair. She was so rock solid that she seemed to be carved from stone and 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 Matt who, with dark black hair and a pronounced widow’s peak, resembled an adult Eddie Munster. James, small, skinny with bad teeth and a pop marked face, worked in the wash station. Alec worked in the kitchen alongside Matt and Arturo, and whenever I’d come up with Debbie to pick up orders from the window, he’d smile and wink. 

Everyone was genuinely nice, most were surprised that I was still in high school since they didn’t know any other high school students who were allowed to wait tables. The first time someone said something, Debbie raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say, 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, I have to admit that it was more fun than I’d thought it would be. Moving around the restaurant, carrying plates and water pitchers, avoiding the little kids running up and down the aisle to the buffet, shuffling between the tables–it felt almost like choreography. Like dancing. And, everyone was so nice. The customers happily enjoyed their dinners with their families, and the waitstaff especially pleasant knowing that happy customers meant bigger tips. 

I caught myself several times throughout the night smiling without meaning to—it just felt so good to move my body with such quickness and efficiency—and I immediately felt comfortable at the restaurant, more comfortable than I’d ever felt at school or at home. I didn’t even care that I didn’t get to keep any of the tips for the first night. It was so much fun that I might’ve done it for free if they’d asked. Later in the night, when finishing up, Alec even commented how quickly I picked it all up and how good I was with the customers. It was so unexpected and flattering that I forgot to feel self-conscious.