Prologue :: Pam :: Perkins :: June 1998

I had to stop kidding myself.

There had to be nice, decent human beings out there.. somewhere.

If they didn’t frequent the local Perkins-- well, that was okay. There was a big world out there, beyond Scranton.

I still had faith.

I reminded myself, constantly, that I would never settle for less than a good tipper as a husband.

Because, unlike some guys, my husband wouldn’t get reprimanded for being nice to the waitress and leaving her twenty percent of the bill. I wouldn’t misconstrue being polite for being flirty, because I’d remember.

I’d remember all the nights where I made eight dollars.
I’d remember all the arguments with the chefs and the hands burnt from filling up hot tea.

I’d remember the way my shoes squeaked against the floor in the dining room, annoying me to no end.

I’d remember the other girls and the way they laughed when I spilled things.

I’d remember little kids with french fry fights and parents with no sympathy for the messes I had to endure.

I’d remember locking up, eating half a sandwich all day, pulling my frizzy hair back to a ponytail on days where it just wouldn’t stay put.

I’d remember-- and until I found the right guy, a good guy-- I’d always make sure the tip was decent, double, and even triple-checking the amounts.

Because I knew how it felt to be stared at, depended on, yelled at mercilessly for someone else’s mistake.

And I would never, ever forget.

Last day at Perkins, last day of high school.

I wasn’t sure if my boyfriend, Roy, would make the cut.

He honked the horn of his truck and called, “Pammy!”

I didn’t say goodbye to anyone inside, didn’t need to.

I would find what I was looking for.

November 1998

It was a Monday, the slowest day of the week. Even more so with it being right after Thanksgiving.


Carrie was flipping through a magazine, Jess was filing her nails, and Morgan was picking at a half-eaten plate of today’s special. I was wondering why there were four waitresses on duty with not a customer in sight.


I checked my watch and saw that I had four and a half hours left on my shift. I checked my tip cup and saw that I had exactly three dollars and twenty-eight cents racked up since seven AM.

Morgan and Carrie started whispering about some party they went to the other night, and I started thinking of how I was home watching reruns of Saturday Night Live with my little sister.

I could have been studying for my after-Thanksgiving-break French final in Mrs. Whitman’s class-- but if there was one thing I’d perfected since taking this job, it was the art of eavesdropping.

“So, that guy from my cousin’s school.. Well, I think his name is Landon. Isn’t that adorable?” Carrie blabbed while twisting a ring on her hand. She’d been seeing this guy, Chris, for almost three years. He’d given her his class ring, she wasn’t sure how she felt about him, they had broken up and gotten together more times than I could count.

It was almost like watching a soap opera-- bad script, sometimes even kinda inappropriate, but I couldn’t resist.

Just as the story was about to unfold, maybe involve more seniors and college guys, a customer walked in. Usually I knew most of the people who ate at the diner, but with this guy, I didn’t have a clue. Which is exactly what I needed-- a break from the small-town, interlocking lives that I had come to know, unfortunately.

I grabbed the chance and took a menu from the stack next to Carrie and her magazine. She shot me a look before returning to Landon and his chiseled arms, all described to Morgan with flourishing detail.

Quickly, I walked to the very back of the restaurant, where this guy had chosen to sit down. All the better though, to keep me running and the time passing. I was glad to see his table had full bottles of ketchup and hot sauce already there.


So this guy was cute. Just as I was about to do the whole “Welcome to the Diner” thing, I dropped my pen, where it rolled under his feet. Like always, I got really nervous and apologized just a few times too many, when one time seemed awful and embarrassing enough.

He actually picked up the pen for me, handed it to me, and said, “Cool pen. I like the lights.”

My stupid light up pen. I didn’t even know what I was thinking.

“Oh. Thanks,” I replied, hair in my face and a redness already spreading over my cheeks. “Um. Can I get you something to drink?”

This awkward (or at least on my end) exchange seemed like it was taking forever. I shuffled his order for a Sprite in the back of my mind and tacked on the reminder that he had someone else joining him soon.

When he’d told me, I figured it was his girlfriend, whom he would warn about the weirdo waitress he had unfortunately been paired with for the afternoon.

Back behind the counter, the other girls were huddling together and watching Days of Our Lives on the small TV hidden in the corner. So they really were like me, depending on how you looked at it.

As I poured the Sprite from the soda dispenser, I heard Morgan say something like, “New guy in booth ten is cute.” Carrie and Jess followed with, “Totally hot,” and “Will you get me his number?” respectively.

I did my little fake laugh and smiled without looking back at them, for fear of interrogation. It had happened before, and I didn’t really want to relive the experience of when I’d waited on David Denman, our high school’s football captain.


In that case, he wasn’t as cute or as nice or as funny as they made him out to be. He belched in front of me and left me one dollar on twenty. Usually, the guys these girls picked out were all the same, and I was surprised they had any interest in this one at all.


I carried out his Sprite and drew a straw from the back pocket of my apron. He said thank you. I asked if he wanted to order now or wait. He said wait. I glanced over him, just once, and allowed my eyes to fall on his name tag. I hadn’t seen it earlier because he was wearing a heavy corduroy jacket, something that looked worn and well-loved.

But Jim, as he had unknowingly introduced himself, worked at Best Buy, as he had unknowingly informed me.

A while later, after Days of Our Lives had finished, the girl had arrived to Jim’s table, just as I expected. It was Holly Halpert, from my gym class. She was the best swimmer in the county. And she was Jim’s girlfriend. I saw them laugh as she shrugged off her coat. As much as I didn’t want to, I had to go over there and do my job.

She ordered a Pepsi, but I had to tell her we carried Coke products. She smiled and agreed to a Sunkist. I was getting pretty bummed that the highlight of my day was going to be Carrie cheating on Chris for the tenth time and reporting said news to my little sister, an avid follower of the story.

But later, when I brought out their order, Holly recognized me.
“You’re Madeleine Yates, huh?” she said.
I nodded. “That’s me.”

“You seem like a perfectly nice girl-- someone with an opinion. Please tell my big brother here that he’s got to stop waltzing around and ask his girlfriend--” Jim cleared his throat. “Whoops, I mean his ‘friend who is a girl’ out on a date. Like a real live date.”

This had to be a joke. In my three years of waitressing, never had I been asked a question that didn’t involve food or prices or restaurant policies.

Jim interjected before I could react. “Holly, don’t involve the waitress in this.” He looked from her to me. “Sorry.”

I smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it.” Holly egged him on and he seemed almost as embarrassed as I had been when I dropped my pen.

This Jim Halpert, when I went back the the table and asked my standard, “Everything okay here?” Well, he had responded with, “My sister thinks it is.”

He worked at Best Buy and had a nagging little sister and was cute. That’s why the other girls seemed to like him, for all the superficial reasons--but he didn’t really seem like the type who wanted to put up with those other girls.

Or at least that’s what I liked to think.


He left me seven dollars on fifteen.

Bridget :: Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe :: April 2000

“Bridge!” I heard like a constant, nagging reminder. “Bridge Bridge Bridge!”

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and smoothed down my frizzy hair. Three hours of sleep didn’t exactly call for a fun day at work. Especially when we were starting to get busy, and my mind was starting to flood with panic as my boss appeared next to me.

“Bridget,” he said evenly. “Get back to work. We’ll talk about this--” He gestured to my unkempt appearance and sleepy face. “Later.”

Unable to even process the possibility of being fired, or maybe warned for the millionth time, I sucked in a breath and turned my beat-up sneakers in the direction of my next table.

A family. Okay. Not sure if I was up to serving so many people. I counted nine full seats and over half of them seemed pretty hungry. The other half was content talking, I could tell--- but it still made me wonder how long I had kept them waiting.

Come on, keep breathing. Keep smiling, no matter what happens.

It really bugged me that my motto didn’t apply to anything but waitressing. Realistically, I couldn’t smile all the time. Of course, I could breathe all the time-- but that fake, plastered-on smile was more than I could handle.

I felt the corners of my mouth starting to form up, like an impulse.

Almost more than I could handle.

“Hi, Welcome to Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe,” I said cheerily, like I was excited and thrilled and a million other things I wasn’t. “My name is Bridget, and I will be your server tonight.”

I flapped down menus in front of each person. Luckily, they weren’t mad, up-close. You could never really know for sure, until you could see the fidgeting, the eyes anxious to leave.

They didn’t have them, thankfully. I was off the hook, for now and maybe for the night if I did a good job.

This was a family made up of mostly good-looking guys and their wives and girlfriends. The mom of the family was there, too, and I heard something about the dad working late as I gathered their drink orders.

I went back and contemplated where I was going to get more drinking glasses, we had run out and I was too scared to ask the boss. My order pad was practically screaming at me to get a move on, each line filled with specifications and even a chocolate milk, which I absolutely detested making.

“Porter,” I said, walking into the kitchen warily. This was their domain, and they didn’t like waitresses encroaching in their territory.

“Yeah?” he answered, annoyed. He was covered in grease and flour and all the other things that I went home smelling like at the end of the day.

“Um, where could I get more glasses? We’re all out, and there’s none in the dishwasher.” Oh, man. Time was ticking and I was going to get killed with an insult or some little comment that took me hours to dissect.

“Bridget,” he started, mixing sauces with spices in a huge, bubbling pot on the stove. “Can you not see that I’m a little backed up here? Goddamn Jeff has to call in sick, when you know he’s really at the Steelers game for the weekend. My goddamn wife has to call and tell me she wants a goddamn divorce, right in the middle of the dinner rush. And, oh yeah, one more thing. You goddamned little kids think you’re good enough to fall asleep on the job and assume that everyone else will pick up the slack!”

I hadn’t had a bad one like this since-- well, I couldn’t exactly remember. Maybe it was the last time his wife had called for a divorce.

My face heated with anger as I swallowed any built-up response. This was not the best time to have an opinion, and I had a family of nine waiting for me.

The “wait” in waitress really encompasses the job as a whole.
Waiting on customers to decide what they want. Waiting on the chef to finally agree with you. Waiting for people to come during a slow stretch. Waiting for your life to turn around and for something to open up somewhere else so you can quit.

I swiped ten styrofoam cups from Porter’s secret stash of supplies in the back. I didn’t care, at that point, that this family wouldn’t be subjected to the “True dining experience” complete with real glasses and silverware.

Filled the glasses, ran back to the table like my life was depending on it. Everyone was laughing over something I’d come to see the middle of. It was quite the production, I had to say.

I placed each drink, one by one, carefully and listening all the while.

“I dare you,” the taller guy said. He was lanky and had a mess of brown hair, his cheeks were red from laughing. “You have to do it.”

“No way,” the other guy said.
Their mother intervened. “Boys! We’re in public, for god’s sake.”

The taller guy looked at me and asked, “Do you guys serve pickles here?”
I wasn’t really sure what he was getting at. “Um, yeah. Why?”

He just shook his head. “Forget it.”

I smiled and took their orders, went back to the kitchen and pegged three sheets of paper up in front of Porter without saying a work.

“Everything okay here?” I asked later, when they had torn through two large pepperoni and sausage pizzas.

“Yes, everything was wonderful,” the mom said. “If my boys would just get along-- it would have been the perfect family outing.”

I was in one of those moods. “Well, everything can’t be perfect, huh?”

“Isn’t that the truth?” The woman beamed over at her family, from where she sat at the head of the table.

As I collected the finished plates, I paid careful attention the messages scribbled with crayons on the butcher paper littered with pizza sauce and grease stains. I found it odd that neither of the brothers said anything to me, not even a word, a peep. Then I noticed that they really hadn’t said anything at all since I’d checked on them last.

Their mom informed me of the story. “They’re always making these dares, my Jim and Ben. I hate it so much, that I finally just made up one of my own. I’m going to see how long they can go without talking. But this time, with a bet. Loser pays dinner.” She smiled slyly.

The girls at the table laughed and I laughed with them.
When I came back with the check, everyone was trying to get the two guys to crack, peppering them with questions and annoying them to no end.

For fun, which I needed desperately after a day like this, I added a question of my own into the mix.

“What was the dare?” They both looked at me with knitted eyebrows. “With the pickles?”

Refused to budge, but at least it put me in a good mood. Now to face the wrath of Porter.
“Bridget, let’s have a little chat, shall we?” he said to me, almost sweetly as I sat down with a glass of Coke and my cell phone, ready to relax for the evening. We had been reduced to mostly to-go orders, aside from the family I was waiting on, who lingered and talked constantly.

“Okay.”
“I’ve been thinking about your performance at work lately, and frankly, I’m not satisfied,” he said without really looking at me.

Breathe. No apology, but what was I expecting? A hug?
The family at my table started to gather their things and the taller guy came up to the counter to pay the bill.

“Hold that thought,” I managed to say to Porter.

“Everything okay for you tonight?” I asked the brother, forgetting for a second about the dare and getting kind of peeved that he didn’t answer. I hated it when people did that. I hit clear on the cash register and ran through his credit card before snapping back to reality.

Porter and his damn “frankly”s. The bet, the good mood.

“Still not talking, huh?” I said, a real smile, an ironic one, playing on my lips.

He shook his head and smiled back as I handed him the receipt to sign.
“Really treating your family tonight, huh?” I asked. Nothing.

“Jim!” I heard the other brother, the other one in the bet, call after him. Ben was his name, and Jim looked up from the receipt to him.

Okay, so he had broken the bet.

“Jim! You can start talking again,” Ben said, stepping up next to him. “Holly, mom, tell him it’s over! He lost!”

“He lost?” I said. “But you’re the one talking.”
“Yeah,” Ben replied with a grin. “But he broke the bet. Answered your question, only you didn’t hear it.”

I looked at him, confused. Jim shook his head and shrugged.
“Pickle juice.” Ben laughed out loud as the rest of the family started to shuffle out the doors. “He wanted me to drink pickle juice.”

I found myself laughing over nothing.
After they had left, I had cleaned the table, and went back to face Porter, I had an idea.

He was arguing with me, challenging me, coming up with a million reasons to fire me.

“Well, Porter, I’m all the help you’ve got right now. I dare you.”

He recoiled and said goddamn more times than I could count.
Three weeks later, without seeing that family again, I quit my job.

He’d never know what courage he had given me.

Karen-- June 2002

I must have been crazy or drunk or something when I had agreed to fill in for my sister at the coffee shop she worked at-- just for a few weeks. Granted, she had a broken ankle and couldn’t exactly maneuver steaming pots of coffee on crutches, but days like this--

Basically, I was in between jobs and looking for work. Totally awful excuse, but it was definitely the truth. The last decently paid job I had was Burger King in the eleventh grade. Since then, let’s just say I hadn’t had the best luck with too many of my bosses. It wasn’t my fault I was always distracted.

I texted my boyfriend, Greg, during my break. He asked how much money I’d made so far and I replied with a big fat zero. I hopped down off the barstool with an obscenely hot non-fat latte scorching my hands after it had dripped. Great. And I wiped my hands off on my pants leg without thinking. Attractive.

I stood over the decaf urn, waiting and waiting and waiting for the pot to fill up. It amazed me that they only had one running pot of decaf coffee, as opposed to six regular ones. I was just bold enough to ask, next time I got the chance.

There came my sister, crutches and all, stopping by to critique my work. Her work? Her replacement? I didn’t understand her most of the time, especially when Mocha Marlie’s was involved. A few weeks of a broken ankle had turned into over a month, and she was getting restless. It was like her proudest achievement, working here. Granted, she was seventeen.
“Julie?” I said, approaching her in the doorway, hands on hips. I was trying to look flustered and busy, trying not to be upstaged by my little sister. The sad part was that she was, and always would be, a better waitress than me.

“What are you doing here?” I said.
She looked at me like I was dumb. “You know it’s Triple Mocha Monday, Karen. I always come in for a cup of the special. What is the special, by the way?”

She was testing me. I didn’t know the special. I didn’t even know there were specials. God, I was pissed. She smiled with her little sister grin that had won her many arguments with Mom and Dad.

“There are no specials today. They decided to, er, not have them? So I’m thinking maybe really that you should leave,” I said easily, like I was the best liar in the world.

Luckily, she didn’t fight it. “Okay. Whatever. Mom’s taking me to the doctor to get my cast off. See ya.” I knew she didn’t believe me, either.

She left the shop with a loud jangle of the bells on the door and a wave out the window of her Beetle that she had just bought herself with money she’d been saving.

Oh, man. She was seventeen, for crying out loud! I rode the bus here and back if Greg couldn’t pick me up, and those were only on the days that I made enough to even pay for the bus. Being a waitress was supposed to be easy-- I mean, it always looked easy.

Maybe if it were somewhere else, it would be different. Caffeine-needy and brooding artists and writers aren’t exactly known to be the friendliest or most accommodating people, or so I’d learned. I decided I should make a sign that read, “I only make $1.43 an hour.” Just to further prove my point.

Pouring coffee was sort of like an acquired skill. At first, I always did it too fast and ended up splashing it everywhere. Now, I went slowly but not too slow, for fear of losing patience and valuable time. Being one of only two waitresses ever in the place, I had to get things right down to the very last second if I planned on making any money.

But I was still horrible. Spilling things, forgetting things--- my mind was definitely not cut out for this. Now Julie, on the other hand, was perfect for it. Cute, a mind that could remember anything, a fine attention to detail and a keen sense for reading people-- she fit the bill. I was much more business-driven-- people skills were not my thing.

So at four o-clock, when my shift started to wind down into its final hour, I got a little anxious to go home and started dialing Greg’s number, just to talk until I went home. The place was empty and I was dead tired from doing what seemed like nothing all day.

“Karen? Aren’t you still at work?” He said after the initial hello.
“Yeah, I’m so bored though. There’s nothing to do..”

Of course, with my luck, a customer walks in.
“Gotta go. Love you. Bye.”

He sat down at the counter on the barstool I always sat at. I checked him over for the creepiness factor-- writer, painter, professor of jazz, struggling actor, carpenter, car salesman-- it was a diverse crowd, and I’d more or less seen it all in the short time I’d been there.

I plopped down a coffee cup in front of him. He seemed pretty safe-- he was wearing a suit and tie and had a shaggy haircut that made him look younger than he probably was. I guessed first job.

“What can I get for you?” I asked. Fifty six minutes and counting..

“Um, black coffee’s fine,” he replied without looking up from a piece of paper he was reading. Resume-- I could see a “Dunder Mifflin” logo in the upper right-hand corner, upside-down of course. I wondered what kind of job you could get there.

“Haven’t seen you here before,” I said to start a conversation, make time go a little faster.

“Yeah. I, um, just moved here.” He took a sip of his coffee, winced. With one more swig and another funny face, I could tell he was attempting to drink coffee to either please someone, like a girlfriend or fit in with the crowd.

“Cool. Well, welcome,” I said with a smile. Come on, clock.

Julie came through the door again.

“Karen!” she exclaimed in the near dead-silent room. “They canceled my fucking appointment. So now I have to wait another, like, four weeks until I can reschedule-- which means I can’t go back to--” She saw the guy at the counter, plastered on her waitress smile. “Oh. God. Sorry. Oh. Man. Sorry.”


And repeat, repeat, repeat.
“Sorry to hear that, Jules. Guess the shop’s stuck with me for a few more weeks,” I said without a trace of anger or resentment in my voice.

The new guy, the job guy, had left me my first tip all day. Two dollars, which I saved and remembered as the first thing I ever did right at that job, the first time my sister was the bad one, not me.

Naomi :: Cugino’s :: March 2003

“Okay, you’ve outdone yourself,” I admitted as I took another bite of Paolo’s latest concoction. Cheesecake with a gingerbread crust and garnished with berries-- it was almost too pretty to eat. But I did anyways.

“You like, Nomi?” Paolo said, kneading dough on the well-floured counter between us.

“Like? Oh my god, it’s amazing!” I kept eating, savoring every bite. It wasn’t often that I actually got to enjoy, or even take my break at work.

We were this up and coming little restaurant in this nothing town-- word had definitely spread among such a small circle of people. I’d seen my fair share of money within the first three months there, sometimes upwards of two hundred dollars a night, when we were busy.

It was a far cry from the diner I used to work at a few blocks away.
At times, I felt bad for my old co-workers, still scraping by.

But at other times, like during a rush, I remembered how they pretty much sat around and did nothing. Like they came to work but didn’t expect to actually work. All sympathy lost-- I hated putting up with that.


“Well, I guess it’s time for me to get off break,” I said dreamily. The cheesecake had really had an effect on me-- I literally almost licked the plate clean.

“Okay. You have fun then, now, Nomi,” Paolo called over his shoulder.

During lunch, the tips were better. People were in a better mood. I was actually awake and not constantly dragging my feet from table to table. I looked better, too-- even if no one really noticed my efforts to look cute and decent.

Plus, if there were a bunch of customers, I was always running and I didn’t even have time to consider what was going on at home or school or whatever else. It was just me, focusing on these people that wanted food. Not really much more connection than that, not really.

Couple in table seven. He pulled out her chair for her. They were both very polite. The girl seemed pretty jumpy. The guy was more relaxed, telling her what his favorite dishes were and so on.

“So, are you guys ready to order?” I asked, trying not to butt into their conversation. They’d been saying something about some guy named Dwight and something else about Jell-O. God, I was really bad at pretending I hadn’t heard every word they’d said.

“Yes, I think so,” the girl said. She looked over her menu one more time, placing her finger on her selection. Ravioli and a green salad with blue cheese dressing. A little daring-- I would have gone with Ranch for fear of stinky breath. They must have been pretty comfortable with each other.

The guy ordered a panini and homemade chips.
“Are the chips spicy at all?” he asked me as I was about to take their menus.

“No, not really. They have pepper and a hint of garlic, but not much of anything else. They’re really good,” I reassured him with a smile.

“Can’t handle a little spiciness?” his date asked him.

He got a little embarrassed and thanked me.

Paolo talked to me while he prepared their food, like always. He called me Bella and acted like he was really Italian. I wondered constantly if his name was really Paolo. At times, I half-expected him to break out a fake mustache to match those of his great heroes.

In reality, he was about as English as you can get, with fair hair and light skin. All the classic features with none of the accent. But I was thankful for it, I looked forward to it like all the junk TV shows I watched at home.


“You think those two are in love?” I asked him after I’d gone to check on my other tables.

He was up to his elbows in sauce and cheese. “Ah, yes. Those two. They’re something. See the way they look at each other, bella.”

“She’s lucky-- that guy is really paying attention to her, you know,” I replied and contemplated with a sigh.

I hadn’t had fun on a date for as long as I could remember. I was always serving the food, never enjoying it. Either that, or my bad habit would start to kick in and I would endlessly criticize the service while my date rolled his eyes.

I couldn’t say I blamed any of them for not calling back.

Paolo shrugged his shoulders. “Nah, not just paying attention to her. It’s the whole thing. Love, love, love, that’s amore.”

I didn’t understand a word of it. I laughed a small, pitiful laugh and turned to look at Paolo. “You’re something, too, you know.”

He grinned. “Yes, Bella. But not so much as you. You’ll find whatever it is.”

Cue the music as if I could see the future. Paolo singing “That’s Amore,” and swaying around with a wooden spoon and muttering to me that my side dishes were up.

The only two times I came back to that couple’s table, I felt like I was interrupting something huge. They were constantly laughing, relaxed, focused only on themselves and whatever they were talking about.

When the girl got up to go to the bathroom, I went over with the check and handed it to the guy. As I started gathering dishes and shoveling her leftovers into a carryout box, he asked me a question.

“Do you think this was a date?”

I thought for a minute. Maybe I’d been totally wrong about this.

“Um, what do you mean?” I said, a little curiously.

“This girl, and me.. Do you think she considered this a date?”

I snapped the lid shut on the styrofoam box and started tying it with the customary red and white checked ribbon. I swore we were losing money on it.

“I thought you guys were, like, boyfriend and girlfriend. God, I’m sorry-- I didn’t mean to--”

“No, no. That’s okay. Just looking for another girl’s opinion,” he replied, fishing through his wallet and pulling out a Visa card, before replacing it with a two twenties.

“Well,” I began, not really sure what he wanted to hear. “I’ve seen a lot of couples in here before, all kinds. You guys looked, by far, I don’t know-- the happiest. Idyllic.”

He chuckled to himself and handed me the bill. “She just told me she’s in love with some other guy. Engaged. God, I'm so blind I didn't even catch the engagement ring.”

My heart sank. I sighed at him with sincerity and couldn’t believe how stupid I was to even get involved. I thought of his joke about the Jell-O and the stapler, and how he was embarrassed about the spicy chips. He wanted to impress her, and got left with a shocker.

I said what I thought was right, offering him a small smile and my most heartfelt, secondhand advice. “You’ll find whatever it is.”
He raised his eyebrows and gave it a little thought. “Yeah, well..”

The girl came back to the table. “Jim! Sorry it took so long, can you believe there was a line in the bathroom? Crazy.” She saw me standing there, lingering. “Thank you so much! Everything was really great.”

The little diamond on her hand caught my eye, quickly. I hadn't seen it either, maybe because I was so determined that they were in love. Maybe I was just holding out hope.

I smirked and said quietly, “Welcome.” She didn’t know all that I had just heard. I imagined that’s what it was like for a lot of people-- I knew entire life stories in cases where things seemed almost impossible to understand. Yet people were willing to discuss them in restaurants, oblivious to the fact their waitress has pretty good ears.

“Okay, so, Pam,” Jim said hurriedly. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah,” she chirped.

I turned to walk away, rang up the bill. I returned with the remainder, but he waved me off.

“Keep the change,” he said.

I watched him, a little brokenness, disappointment I found in his eyes. He didn’t let it show very much, if it all-- but it was there. Waitressing, among other things, trains you to read people and what they’re feeling.

I wasn’t sure what matched up with this one, but I took “keep the change” to mean more than it did.


Keep the change, let it into your life, accept it.

Come to terms with the fact that change is all around, always.

Settle back to the way things were, know that surprises are bound to happen.

I decided that I must not be the only person who hates surprises.

Carla :: Barley’s :: Jan. 2004

If I had to listen to those old guys sing “New York, New York,” one more time, I was pretty sure the day would be doomed.

I want to wake up, in the city that doesn’t sleep..

In fact, I had cursed myself.

This place attracted more “Breakfast Choir Clubs,” than I could count. The past week had been jam-packed with everyone from the Bowling Team to the Retired Teachers of Scranton Elementary. Who knew something like this even existed?

Most of the time, I didn’t mind it. They stayed for hours, left good tips, and were fun and usually funny. Sometimes the singing was even pretty okay. But others..

And find I’m king of the hill!

..Were more than I had bargained for.

Growing up, I always went to Barley’s for breakfast. They had killer omelets and amazing hash brown potatoes. Then, I was only concerned with getting a good meal-- now, I was on the flip side of that.

College and work didn’t really seem to balance each other out, so I started taking the early, early breakfast shift with afternoon classes at the local university a half-hour away.

This meant four AM mornings and eight PM bedtimes and not a whole lot of room for a social life. Unless, of course, you counted the eighty-year-old men I socialized with on a daily basis.

“Carlie!” one of my regulars, Frank, exclaimed.
“Oh, man. Frank. Where’s the rest of the gang today?” I said, pausing for effect, knowing full well he always came by himself.

“Left ‘em in the car, who needs ‘em anyways? Sweetheart, you think you could get me something besides coffee today?”

Seeing this guy was one of the reasons my mind was willing to go into diner mode at such an ungodly hour.

“Sure thing. What can I get you?” I asked, actually kind of curious of what he’d say.

“Real coffee, like freshly brewed. None of this instant crap you guys always serve me. I haven’t got that much time left and I might as well live it up!”

I laughed with him and went and poured him the same coffee I always did. He never complained.

“Carlie! More decaf?”
“Carlie! Extra sugar packets?”
“Carlita! Toast?”
“Carmen! French toast AND toast?”

It never phased me, this constant cycle of wrong names and sometimes grumpy old men.

You can’t have one without the other..

A fresh crop of young guys, a rarity in this place, walked in and shuffled their way to the biggest booth in the place.

“Snazzy selection, Sinatra on a Saturday sunrise, huh?” I told them, my way of a greeting. “Who can I bring coffee? Orange juice?”

A bunch of them shrugged of jackets and placed knit hats on the table with mismatching gloves. I wondered who was dressing some of these kids.

Kids. What was I, forty?

“Coffee,” the first guy said. And round-robin it went-- totaling with four orange juices and three coffees in all.

“Carlotta,” Frank said as I passed him on my way with the huge tray of drinks. “Copying my name and doing Sinatra today, I see.”

He looked out at the Choir Club from the top of his newspaper. I laughed and said, “Only because they’re jealous you have one of the greatest names of all time.”

I topped of his cup with fresh coffee and went back to the booth.

“Okay, let’s see here,” I began, kicking in with my memorization tricks as to who got what.

Striped sweater, OJ. Red hair, coffee. Sheepish smile, OJ with ice.. and on it went.

“Orders. What can I get you all?” I asked, drawing my well-loved pen from my apron and scribbling furiously as they rattled off what they wanted faster than anything I’d ever seen. Usually people around here were used to taking their time.

I came back with steaming plates of eggs and pancakes and sausage. This is what got me into trouble.

I placed each one with its appropriate bill. I did everything correctly, didn’t miss a beat. I refilled everyone’s drinks to their heart’s content. This is where it got awkward.

The guy at the head of the table had four eggs over easy with rye toast and home fries and sausage. When I put down the small plate of meat, the other guy said, “Man, those sausages are bigger than I expected.”

The guy (sheepish smile) got a look like he couldn’t help himself.
“That’s what she said.”

The whole table burst out laughing, and I left with three empty metal carrying platters and a laugh that they seemed to spot without even seeing my face.

Sheepish smile piped up and called after me. “Oh, God. Wait, no. Um, I didn’t mean you. I’m sorry.”

I turned on the heels of my feet, pretending to be a little offended even though I wasn’t. I sure as hell had heard a lot worse.

“Well, I don’t know if I can forgive you. But I’ll tell you what, you can still eat here,” I said with a mischievous smile.

“Good. Thanks. And sorry again.”
“Yes. Well. They’re on a roll today, with the Sinatra. So enjoy the show.”
“Hey, I will.”
“If you don’t get kicked out.”

All of his buddies were too busy eating and chewing noisily to notice that he was blushing a little bit. At least I had spared him that.

Warbling voices filling up the restaurant reminded me I had other customers, that this nice change of pace was only a one time thing. Back to what I knew best, Frank Sinatra and Frank in table two by the window.

I went back to check on the guys about fifteen minutes later for drinks. Surprisingly, almost everyone was already finished. Inhaled everything, gone. Wasn’t used to this either.

Striped sweater and sheepish smile were sort of whispering about something, or rather talking about something in a manner I was not supposed to hear. It got a little testy when I came to take their plates.

“No,” Sheepish smile said to Sweater.
“Come on,” Sweater said. “Is Little Jimmy afraid?”

“Shut up, Mark,” Jim said, clocking his arm and almost visibly upset.
“Just trying to help,” Mark replied. “You know Pam’s never going to--”

“Okay. Fine.”

Next time I came back, Jim asked me for my number. I actually got nervous and double-checked the sequence of the last four digits. I couldn’t believe that my own phone number was slipping my mind. I signed it with my real name, and that was Carla, not Cariann.

After they all left, I went back and sat down with Frank. It was fully light out by then, and the Choir Club was dwindling down to their last two songs.

“What do you suppose a bunch of young guys like them were doing here so early?” Frank asked me as I fiddled with sugar packets and sighed out loud.

“Something about a road trip. To a concert I think. They were taking two cars.”

“Well, hell if I know where that will get them. Nothing but trouble.”

Frank showed me the Saturday comics and I just stared at them thinking about Jim and how funny he was.

He never did call.

The Other Pam :: Applebee’s :: August 2004

The pins were starting to drive me crazy.
I mean, there were so many of them.

All boasting specials and begging the expression: “Ask me about this!” No one ever asked me, and I thought they were the lamest things ever. And totally ineffective.

Nonetheless, as I entered work that day, I was greeted with a hello and another button to add to the collection. This one about “Razzmatazz Ribs, Only $13.99!” I put it under the Weight Watchers one and couldn’t remember when I could actually see that part of my shirt.

“Hey, Brenda, Lisa,” I said almost robotically. They were practically one person, they were so close. I saw them them, standing behind the counter, pricing bills.

“Hey, Pam,” they replied without looking up. Kind of as one voice, and they finished each other’s sentences all the time. I always thought it would be weird to work somewhere with your twin. Or have a twin, for that matter.

People got confused with them basically every time they got a new table-- but they never cared. They always did tasks for each other, brought extra stuff here and there, and split their tips at the end of the day.

Equal amounts of work, equal amounts of tips-- kind of a foreign concept to me. I was happy when I went home with seventy bucks, let alone the multiple one-hundred and thirty dollar nights they’d been known to score.

I went and set up my station for the night. I kept jumping around and forgetting things and steps and a bunch of little tasks that I usually did without a second thought. My mind was on a fast track to somewhere else, and I didn’t know if I could save it.

Another discarded drink next to the soda machine, waiting to be filled.
One more order that had been sitting for ten minutes while I stocked a bunch of unnecessary plastic silverware from the supply closet.

Forgotten salad dressing, no tax added on the bill, unhappiness on a bunch of faces that I would probably never see again.

That was the only good part.

And things were only getting worse for me on my off night. A guy sat down at one of my dirty tables. If there was one thing I hated more than anything-- it was this.

But, even from far away, I could tell this one was going to be okay. He had started stacking the dishes and silverware for me to pick up.

“Hey,” I said, stepping in front of him for the plates. “Sorry about this, I just --” Dropped a fork. “Am not having a good night.”

He brushed off some crumbs and threw them on the plate. And he picked up my fork. “Sorry to hear that. It’s fine. I shouldn’t have sat here, I just don’t like to sit at tables.”

I paused, knitting my eyebrows. None of this really clicked.
“Table-phobic?” I was so confused by this. “Doesn’t look like it’s working out for you very well.”
“I mean, that is, I prefer to sit at booths.”


God, what an idiot I was. I don’t know if my night could have been more off.
“Oh. Right. Well score one dumb blonde point for me,” I said, unsure if I could sound more stupid. I was a full-on jet-black brunette.

He smiled and offered up, “Razzmatazz Ribs, huh?”
I didn’t know how I could respond to that. This guy was good.

“Let’s start over,” I said quickly. “Hi, my name is Pam and I will be your server tonight.”

His smile faded instantly and he buried his face behind his menu.

Now he thought I was a jerk.
“Okay, I will tell you about the ribs--”

“No, it’s not that,” he said quietly. Then, louder, “Did you say your name was Pam?”

“Yep, born and raised Pamela.” Can you say cheeseball?

“This might sound like an odd request,” he said evenly.
“Shoot. I’ve heard more than you think.”

“Okay, um. You think maybe that you could not go by Pam? Just for the, like, half hour I am here?”

“What, are you Pam-phobic, too?” I thought he’d laugh, just because I was so corny and making fun of myself, but I could see that he was serious.

“Um, okay. Hi, I’m Pa--” This was so weird, I had to stop myself. “I’m Katy, and I will be your server tonight.”

He stopped me from asking what he’d like to drink and gestured to all my buttons. “On second thought, I am kind of in the mood for ribs. Pam. Enlighten me.”

What this was, I didn’t know.
Probably just another story to add to the list of crazy waitressing anecdotes I stored in a far off corner of my memory.

Because this one, I couldn’t even explain. Brenda and Lisa asked me what the deal was with this guy and I actually got sort of defensive and said he was having a bad night.
r32;Because this one sort of stuck out.

This guy, as he picked at his grilled cheese sandwich and fries, never looked anywhere but right in front of him. The other side of the booth I had cleaned off and set up under the impression he was waiting for someone else.

That was the place someone else was supposed to be sitting.

I wasn’t sure if that was Katy or Pam.

Frannie :: Panera Bread :: December 2004

This guy came in with a laptop and heavy stack of papers, unfailingly.
Sure, I didn’t really wait on him or anything. But I was there enough to notice things.

He always came in on a Thursday.
He mumbled to himself endlessly about prices and once I caught him swearing under his breath.
Once, right before Christmas, I asked him what kind of plans he had.

After all, he knew me by name (his was Jim) and asked about my kids.

With the way he stared at his computer and silently sipped his coffee, I wasn’t sure about him. Mysterious, I guess. The way my husband used to be before we started dating.

“Uh, just going home. Spending time with the family. My brother has a new baby. My sister just got a new job.” He seemed a little surprised I’d asked.

The next week, two days after Christmas, he came in on an unseen Wednesday.

I got him his typical broccoli cheese soup and extra french bread roll. He supplied the winning smile and asked me how my holiday was.

I didn’t answer, really. Just “nice.” But I was wondering something bigger.
“Jim, you’ve never told me anything about yourself.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I mean, when I asked about your plans..”
“Not much to tell.”

Being older with grown kids and more years than I would have liked to admit filled with heartache and loss--

I had diagnosed a classic case.

Not much to tell, he said.

I thought of my husband and years that had a shadow cast over them-- the years I didn’t necessarily reminisce upon. The years where he was with someone else, where we were “just friends.”

One look at this guy, this kid..

I remembered, like a flood, why those years mattered after all.

I went home that night and kissed my husband on the cheek.
“You know, you certainly put me through a hell of a fight.”
He paused and looked me in the eye, confused.

“But I’m glad I stuck around.”

You had to get through the fight to win.
I hoped that Jim knew that, somehow.

Because it could be pretty tough to block out all the obstacles, shield all the things holding you back, move on.

But he would get there. Even if it took one hundred more bowls of broccoli cheese soup.

Alex :: Martin’s Drive-In :: May 2005

Sometimes, I regretted ever saying yes to “Can you roller skate?”

My feet were killing me, my head was spinning as fast as it could go, people were barking orders at me.

What a life. And to think I dropped out of college and switched to this.. it was almost unbelievable.

I picked up three chocolate shakes and delivered them to car three, an ugly white minivan. They couldn’t figure out how to do the tray-window thing. It must have been the sixteenth person that day, not that I could really argue with it. It was the dumbest system ever. But I guess they kept it in for old-fashioned effect.

Which is the same thing I reasoned for the roller skates.

The best part of the job was seeing all the cars come in. What kinds, what makes, what models, what colors. And the people inside. If you couldn’t tell a man by his car--

God, I was spending a lot of time with my dad.

But I couldn’t help but get excited when a silver Lexus pulled in. Inside, I could see two kids in the backseat and two guys in the driver’s and front seat.


They rolled down the window and I looked like a complete dork. Standard.

“Hey, welcome to Martin’s Drive-In,” I said with as much gusto as I could muster. “Can I bring you drinks to start out with?”

“Uh, yeah. Liv? Max? What do you guys want to drink?” the guy in the driver’s seat asked the kids in the back.

Chocolate shakes. Damn. I may have been the worst milkshake maker on the planet. Another thing to add to the list of “old-fashioned” crap I couldn’t stand.

“Jim?” the guy said to the other guy, who was fiddling with the radio station and finally turned it off.

“I’ll just take a Coke,” Jim said.
“And I’ll have a vanilla shake, thanks.”

Damn it. I liked this Jim guy. He would stay on my good list. Unless, of course, he got a shake later.

It took me an obscene amount of time to make three shakes. Most of the other people working there could make them in half the time with half the mess. The only thing I could truly assure my customers was that their milkshakes were not skimped on with whipped cream-- I used it to hide my mistakes.

I skated back with the tray of drinks, grateful and silently hoping that my milkshake quota had been filled for the day.

Two kids meals and two double cheesburgers later, Jim looked a little bored.

“You must get tired skating around all day,” he said. His brother, which I had gathered, was busy attending to his kids in the back seat.

I collected the tray from their window and not wanting to step out of the conversation, placed it on the ground. He laughed.

“Yeah, pretty tiring. That’s something you can always bet on.”

“I didn’t even know these places existed anymore,” he said. I skated over to his side of the car so we could actually talk. I could have cared less if I were to be fired. In fact, I actually preferred that thought.

“Well, in the flesh. Living proof of--” I couldn’t even think of how to finish this statement.

“Tradition?” he offered.
I smiled and heard the damn bell ringing for me to take an order.
“Crap. Gotta go. Can I get you guys anything else?” I gestured to the whole car, that fancy car.

Jim turned and looked at his brother and niece and nephew. One third of the trio had fallen asleep, and his brother and the girl were arguing over how much she had eaten. My parents always thanked me for being a good eater, and after being in the service industry for so long, I could see why.

“I think we’re okay. I’ll probably be here a while though. Whenever you get a chance, do you think you could get me a strawberry shake?”

I cringed for a second, but all else melted and faded.
This guy must have been something, to get me to not care about battling with another milkshake.


You can always tell a man by his car..

When I told my dad about this, he smiled and said some guys were just unpredictable.

I forgot to tell him it wasn’t really his car.
But I still liked to believe he was a little unpredictable.

He never came back, but he did tell me it was one of the best shakes he’d ever tasted.

Elise :: Chili’s :: September 2005


A party was coming in, which I was absolutely thrilled about. Money, lots of alcohol being circulated and a tab being built up. I needed this after a long week of class and finals for my graduate work.
I was happy-- until I found out that the party was Dunder-Mifflin paper company.

Don’t get me wrong, they were all very nice people, every year-- but, I mean, that Michael guy.

I just didn’t know what to say about him.
He knew me as “the hot girl who used to date that kid who sat in the back part of the office.” But most people called me Elise.

The Dundies could be summed up in a couple of ways: a rousing rendition of “Mambo No. 5” with new names attached, Roy leaving Pam for the night, an inexplicable amount of hurt feelings and mixed messages, an award for things that pretty much anyone would deem inappropriate for work, a kiss that almost no one expected.

Except me.

This years Dundies, well, they were a little different.

I knew Jim and Pam from a long time ago, back when my boyfriend used to work at Dunder-Mifflin. All was well in the world back then. Now, things were changing. Which is to say I had the time to wonder what ever happened to them.

They didn’t remember me, but that was okay. I remembered a few things about them-- the kind of things that stick with you, the ones you want to refer to when you’re having a bad day and all you want to do is smile again.

They were those kind of people.

Though I knew they weren’t really dating, it always seemed that way. She’d gaze at him and he’d gaze at her and both of them were utterly oblivious.

They needed a fresh pair of eyes, to help them see what they really wanted.
Once, I tried to give it to them.

After Connor was done with work one day, I stopped by to surprise him with tickets to a movie I can’t even remember the name of. I asked Jim and Pam if they wanted to come.

Pam spoke first and declined quickly, muttering something about Roy and plans later.
Jim took his time to answer. He listened to Pam, face falling just enough for me to notice. He said no, made some wisecrack joke that made Pam laugh.

And that was their problem.
He never really let her know what he was feeling. She denied everything.

I know that everyone’s not the same, but I couldn’t help but think they were a little crazy. Connor and I had become a couple, easy. Why couldn’t their story be the same, free of complications and just-- the way it should be?

I had more time to contemplate this than I’d bargained for.
Connor dumped me a few days later, with one of those classic lines I never got tired of hearing. “I think we should see other people” was just code to me for “I have no original personality.”

Okay, total lie. I missed him like crazy. I called him once or twice, trying to be discreet, but he just wouldn’t have it. His name was the one I’d hear all the time, to no end, attached with his last name. It was already the same as my own: Jones. It was so common, but we still constantly joked that we had to be related somehow. I always said it wouldn’t be too tough a switch if we ended up getting married...

I had to stop thinking about this. Damn Dunder-Mifflin.

Michael stood making another speech and I worked through the Dunder-Mifflinites with pitchers of cheap alcohol, serving up drinks and more drinks. Pam was especially relaxed, she and Jim were just talking and giggling about almost everything that was going on.

Not hard to do, everything was so ridiculous. Don’t Go In There After Me, Spicy Curry, and Bushiest Beaver. I wondered, like I had many times before, how they ever tolerated Michael as their boss.

Then she got her award.

“Whitest Sneakers,” it was. And the speech may have been about the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

That kiss had been a long time coming.

My mind constantly reverted back to Connor. Dark eyelashes, soft hair, awful taste in movies. He always called me on my break at work, told me stories about Dwight and Jim’s pranks, made me believe that he was going to marry me someday.

There were some things I couldn’t will myself to forget.

And it was probably that way with Jim and Pam. They’d always have this night, no matter the outcome. I was sure nothing happened, and by the looks on the faces of their co-workers, no one really expected anything to.

When Pam fell off the chair, I almost died laughing when Dwight, of all people came to the rescue. No one else laughed with me and Connor just kept creeping into my mind. The first and only Dundies I attended, not served, had been spent mostly laughing at Dwight and Michael.
r32;Now I had to go it alone, if I wanted to laugh at all. There was something about that which made me think of unwanted attention-- maybe I’d seen it somewhere before.

I called Connor that night and regretted it as soon as I heard a girl’s voice answer the phone.

Hopeless romantics didn’t really have a place in Scranton, did they?

It felt like I could learn something even more from Jim and Pam, but last time I heard, Pam was banned from Chili’s for reasons I never found out.

I hoped that, whatever it was she did, Jim laughed about it with her and turned it into something she smiled about.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t have any doubt that’s what happened.

Zoe :: Sarah’s Bakery :: October 2005

Baking had to be one of the best professions that existed, in my own, very biased opinion.

Of course, I didn’t actually do the baking here, I just served up cookies and cakes for the masses to enjoy. But that’s not to say I didn’t dream about it.

The summer between high school and college was so uneventful that I was scouring the streets every day for help wanted signs in obscure windows of shops. I’d been pretty unsuccessful at first, but Sarah’s drew me in.

Love at first peanut butter cookie.

I wasn’t exaggerating, either. I could eat ten of them, easy. Probably easier than I’d like to be able to. But I did walk to work, so I always factored that in for five cookies.

I wasn’t exactly a nutritionist, though.

Summer came and went, and I stuck with the job on weekends home from school. My boyfriend couldn’t see what I was raving about. I always shrugged my shoulders and told him he didn’t understand.

“Because baking is so personal and girlie,” I’d tell him. “And you want none of that.”
“Yeah,” he’d say. “Pretty much.”

Sarah had promoted me to decorating wedding cakes in mid-September. I was in heaven. Crazily nervous, though. Almost to the point where it was unhealthy. I spent my nights worrying about icing roses and placement of little bride and groom ornaments that I always found tacky. But hey, if they made the people happy--

And then, my boyfriend actually came by and tried a few things I’d just baked. I think it was just to get me to shut up about lemon meringues and chocolate chips for a while and talk about something else.

But I always had my ideas.

Sarah was out of town for the weekend and I was in charge of the place, all on my own. I was shocked to see she had that much confidence in me, considering my considerable past. What with the burning things, the eating things all the time, the unbelievable trouble with the rolling pin techniques.

I had a feeling she knew it was going to be slow. There was some sort of festival going on in town, and the bakery-needy were pretty much absent.

I did have four customers, though. All pretty simple.

A guy for two dozen raisin cookies that I despised.
An older woman for just one savory treat. I recommended the German chocolate cake and she nearly got tears in her eyes as she ate.

A younger woman who came to change the date for her wedding cake order. Pam and Roy. P and R. Both of those names rhymed with a lot of things.

Finally, a guy that came in with his girlfriend.

“Jim, I can’t believe you know about this place!” the girl squealed, dragging him a little by the hand. “Oh, boy. They have them today.”

“Hello,” I said cheerfully, as if there were any other way to say it. “How are you two doing today?”

“Good. Even better when I get some coconut macaroons, I hope,” the girl said excitedly.

“Sure thing,” I said. “How many?”

She looked to Jim. “I dunno. What do you think? Do you think you’ll like them?”

“I haven’t met a sweet I didn’t like. Go for it. A dozen,” he smiled at her. “No, wait. A baker’s dozen.”

I laughed and plopped the cookies into a bag.

“I don’t even want to wait!” the girl exclaimed, breaking a cookie in half and handing one to Jim.

He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully.

“The verdict?” I asked, looking up from my wedding cake sketch.
He looked at his girlfriend with a frown. “They’re horrible, Katy. Ugh. I can’t even swallow. Let’s leave. Wow, I can’t even believe you like these.”
Katy stared at him in shock, like she was devastated. Slowly, Jim’s lips spread into a smile and his voice into a laugh.

“If there were ever a prize for being the most gullible person ever--”
“Shut up,” she said, and playfully punched his shoulder.

The two shared a little kiss initiated by Katy and seemed to forget where they were for a second. I went back to my drawing, then Jim remembered.

“Well, we’ve taken up enough of your time. How much do we owe you?”

“Oh! Not at all. Um, twelve oh six. They’re the priciest of all cookies,” I said, not really sure why I added the last part.

“Geez, Katy,” Jim said. “You’re going to make me broke. In fact, I’m not sure if I have enough--”

“Not falling for it,” Katy replied, sticking out her tongue.

“Fair enough,” Jim started. “Though the tongue thing was a little childish..”
Katy was giggling a little and Jim got a little distracted.

“Amazing sketch,” he said to me, drawing my eyes upward to him. “My friend, she’s an artist..”

“Thanks! I don’t really know if I’m any good yet, but I’m giving it a try--”

“Yeah, no. This is interesting,” he continued after trailing off. Katy was busy marveling at the displays all around the shop, content and happy with being gullible.

“I’m coming up with all the words that rhyme with Pam and Roy. And decorating them on the cake. The ideas I come up with when I’m bored, you know?”

“You have no idea.. Hey, thanks. Katy? You ready?” He said, his expression a little more impatient than before. Something about this guy wasn’t the same.

They left the shop and left me to my sketch.

What else..

jam, ram, lamb, gram..
coy, soy, ploy, destroy..

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best idea after all.

My boyfriend stopped by to pick me up and took me out to dinner. I asked if he thought I was gullible. He said no, but I knew, somewhere, that he was lying.

Because, in the scheme of things, everyone is usually pretty quick to believe the first thing they hear.

Possibilities-- now that was something to think about.

If you let yourself consider more than your heart and mind were willing-- you might really be on to something. It was always the best idea to let the chips fall where they may, as it had become evident in so many ways.

And would continue to.

Sarah promoted me to assistant manager the next week.
I never got to make the rhyming cake.

Dana :: Hooters :: January 2006

I didn’t exactly tell my parents-- or anyone else for that matter-- about this job.

Not my proudest achievement, if you could call it an achievement at all.

To think I’d been all psyched in the beginning. I went in to interview with my two best friends and we were all hired immediately. I just saw it as pure fun, not really thinking about what was to come, if anything.

Hooters in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Not even sure if I’d put that one on my resume.

The two girls that were my friends weren’t my friends anymore. They’d stopped just about the second I said I was going to quit.

“Dana,” Beth said to me, piling on platters of hot wings and fries. “What on Earth? I mean, you’re making ridiculous amounts of money.”

This was true. Sometimes two hundred a night, max. It wasn’t like I couldn’t use the cash, it was more like I needed back my peace of mind.

Guys like this one that came in on a random Tuesday..

“I’ll have the chicken breast, hold the chicken.”

I mean, honestly, what was that? I was surprised I hadn’t gone nuts already.

I knew that the job called for sex appeal and “entertaining” and “interacting” with the customers. And that was fine, I knew that.

But everyone has their breaking point. And the false birthday/singing attack to some poor, unsuspecting guy was the tip of the iceberg for me.

“Hi, I’m Dana, welcome to Hooters,” I said to the guy with slicked-back, black hair and the guy who looked like he didn’t belong. It was always a pretty safe bet as to who was conned into eating there in cases like this.

The older guy had a silly, kiddish grin on his face. “We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy.” Yeah. It was going to be one of those ones.

I was going to speed things up, get the drinks as fast as possible, but he kept going. “Hi, Dana. I am Michael, and this is Jim and we are brothers.”

Okay. No need for the introductions, but alright..

“Nope, not brothers,” Jim said without really looking anywhere. Definitely the one conned into it.

“Well, I’m his boss actually. And I treat him well. And I’m taking him out to lunch, because I can afford it. And he can have whatever he wants,” Michael said, happy and giddy as could be.

Jim spoke quickly. “Can I just have the ham and cheese, sandwich? Thanks.”

I did my little standard, “Great. And for you?”

Please don’t try to make a joke. Again.

“Tell me, Dana, how is your chicken breast?” Michael asked, unable to even hide the smile leading into a very, extremely overplayed joke. It was new to him, but I’d heard it a thousand times. Jim looked at Michael with a little bit of disgust.

Sometimes, guy’s personalities would change when they came here. But I could tell Michael was always like this.

I could have steered clear of it, walked away, said I had to go check on something. But I walked right into it, like always. It was what the people came there for. Might as well live out my final, orange and white clad days.

“Oh, it’s great. It’s served with our world-famous wing sauce,” I replied with a smile and that fake sense of humor I used, when averaged out, about 309 days of the year.

“Mmm, sounds yummy. I will have a chicken breast, hold the chicken.”
Ha. Ha. Ha. Good one, sir. That was a knee-slapper, like my dad always used to say.

My dad.

I had to quit this job, I had to quit this job.

I changed my mind and swallowed the prepared laugh.
“Is that was you really want?” I asked, in my best attempt to seem annoyed.

He sighed. “No. Um. I’m gonna have the gourmet hot dog.”

Still automatic, this time grossed out, “Great.”

I turned and put the order in, making special note not to come back to the table more than two more times. I didn’t even care about the tips.

I went back with the check a while later, after I could tell Jim was being peppered with questions.

Finishing with a flair, I did what Michael asked me to on the way in.

“I understand we have a birthday today!” I called enthusiastically.

Put your front side in, put your front side out..

I couldn’t tell if Jim was happy about this or not. Michael sure seemed to be, clapping and giving me a wink of acknowledgement.

You do the hokey pokey..

Over, over, it’s over. The last time I’d ever have to do this.

That’s what it’s all about.

“Thanks ladies! Wow,” Michael chirped.

“Thanks, guys. Thanks, Dana,” Jim said, surprising me a little.

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Jim-- flustered but a smile on his face nonetheless.


Michael was proud of himself. In fact, his pride was maybe even enough to erase his earlier comments, make me think a little better of him. Maybe he was ignorant, maybe he was stupid and full of himself-- but the combined effect of embarrassment and disbelief on Jim’s part had exposed something I hadn’t seen before.

And really, I’d seen it all.

My eyes fluttered at the thought of a bond forming over the course of three beers and a couple sandwiches. Especially here. And especially with these two.

I hoped that they could each learn a few things from each other.
Like how to relax.
And how to know when things have gone too far, offensively.

But maybe they wouldn’t.

They’d keep on being Michael and Jim.
Boy-next-door and Boss-from-hell seemed to sum them up nicely-- but then again, I didn’t know the whole story.

And I never would.

Caroline :: Poor Richard’s :: June 2006

“We’re closed, sorry,” I said to some guy on the other side of the door.

I was exhausted and it was almost two AM. My boss usually made me close exactly when the clock chimed, but he wasn’t there and I wanted to go home.

Thus, the 1:57 close time.

I still had to wipe down all the counters, restock a bunch of stuff, go over receipts and tips as head waitress, and lock the place up. The whole thing was overwhelming, and I wasn’t quite sure if my heavy-lidded eyes were up to the challenge of staying open.

My entire schedule had been backwards lately. Tom, my old manager, had left and gone to manage some fancy-schmancy bar in upstate New York. That left me with a new manager, Phil, and a huge headache.

He didn’t seem to understand that I required sleep and couldn’t work three shifts a week by myself, during the crazy part of the season. The part of the season where people actually came to Scranton. Poor Richard’s was pretty much the only place to get a drink, and we were always busy.

So, most of the time, I wasn’t really working by myself. I was working with undertrained, overpraised, college girls that didn’t have a clue what I was talking about half the time. In over my head didn’t even begin to describe what it was like some nights with Samantha, Joanna, and others I couldn’t recall the names of.

But I was bitter, more than I was willing to admit to being. I figured I was allowed, seeing as I would enter my tenth year of waitressing that fall.

And maybe I was a Samantha or a Joanna once, who knows.

I certainly didn’t.

I’d gone and gotten my bar tending license three years earlier. Tom knew this, but Phil didn’t want to listen. Stuck with crappy sections and usually all the creepy guys thrown along with it. And the guys handling the bar, slow as ever. I could make drinks twice as fast.

God, I had to stop talking like this.

Another excuse started to form when the guy came in and sat down in a booth. I know I hadn’t locked up yet, but it was 1:59. Unless you could drink faster than the speed of light, I wouldn’t have bothered.

I threw all the lingering ones out almost a half-hour earlier, and lied when they tried to bargain with me that they still had a couple minutes left.

“Can I just get a beer?” the guy asked. “I mean, if it’s too late..”

He was really sad. I’d seen him around before. I think his name was Tim, or something similar. Maybe it was the time Samantha spilled a whole tray of drinks and he offered to help me mop the floor.

“I’ll leave,” he said kindly. “You look tired.”

Yes, yes. That was definitely him.

The Scrooge-y part of me diminished, if only for a second, and offered him twenty minutes. “As long as you fill me in with some good gossip.”

“Gossip?” he asked, running a hand through his hair. “Trust me, I don’t have any of that.”

“Why else would you show up at a bar, one minute before closing time, by yourself, then?” He just looked at me. “Okay, wrong word. Not gossip.. just, what’s up?”

Why was I so mean? This guy was obviously hurting. And there I go, rattling off something that could have hit some major, painful memory that he was just trying to forget with a couple drinks in the first place! There I was, with a dirty dish rag in my hand and a bottle opener in the other. And I was cold-hearted, rude, and most of all--

“I don’t even know why I would tell you this, but..”

He launched into a story, making me remember all the things that made this world so insanely crazy and hard to understand, and more importantly, what made people so bitter.

Stuff like this.

“This girl, I told her I was in love with her, put it all on the line. She said no. I can’t ever get anything right--”
I handed him his beer, listening as the tale wove in and out. He’d picked me, confessing in a different sort of way. Confessing that he’d failed.

Even though I knew, deep down, that he hadn’t.

He was so cute, and if I’d been younger, I might have offered him a hug or my phone number to talk. I might have considered being a shoulder to lean on. But I was older, much older. What was he, twenty-five?

I had my other job at eleven AM the next day. I was a part-time hairdresser, working my way up to owning my own business. I was angry and sleep-deprived and heartsick--

And I didn’t even have half the stuff going on in my life as this guy did.

So as I drank a beer myself, nodded my head and watched as his eyes lit up when he said her name, I made a vow to myself.

No more bitterness, only positives.

Then I heard her name again, again. Pam, Pam, Pam. He liked saying it. But the final time he that one-syllable word left his lips, I sensed and reverted back to my original thought.

People were pretty shitty.

“Pam, she let go of my hand. She left.”

I ended up staying at the bar that night until almost four. I slept in the next day, through my twelve alarms, and missed my first appointment.

She was supposed to have her hair curled and styled for some party.
It was one girl I’d never seen before.
I’d never see her.

And I made sure of it, passing her along to other hairdressers in the salon each time she came in.

I’m sure she was perfectly nice, but I just couldn’t erase the image of her letting him go.

Especially from what little I knew.

Hannah :: Margot’s :: November 2006

I wasn’t the best at hiding emotion. In fact, I pretty much wrote everything all over my face with tears, smeared eyeliner, and red cheeks-- and that wasn’t even counting the times it got really bad.

I choked back a few more cries, swallowing them whole. Each time one tried to fight its way out, I’d crinkle a tissue and get ready for battle. But I kept on swallowing, breathing, choking on everything that had just occurred in the course of twenty minutes.

My boyfriend called me and left a message. He knew I would be at work until at least ten. He knew that.

What else did he call to say, but that he wants to break up? After six years, just done. No warning, just over. No longer were we Hannah and Cal, but just Hannah and just Cal.

I hadn’t been “just Hannah” in what seemed like a lifetime.
A lifetime of movie tickets, “I love you’s,” notes written back and forth on programs when we were helplessly bored. A lifetime of being twenty-one, twenty-four, twenty-eight.

I realized that I didn’t have many memories from those years where Cal wasn’t involved. I also had a hard time remembering anything before or after our prolific relationship. After.

Disbelief.. there had to be a better word.

Isabelle kept a thesaurus next to the cash register, which she used to work on her crossword puzzles. Faithfully, she’d spend her entire thirty minute break getting to the root of the problem and solving the clues as they panned out in front of her. A finished product. And she almost never missed one.

I had no idea why, but as I sat on my thirty-minute break, in the corner of the bathroom-- thinking of this only made me cry harder and rush to grab the tattered thesaurus.

I weaved my way through a sea of customers, a few that caught glances at me, a couple stares. Not as bad as I had expected, considering my disheveled appearance.

Nora was working the cash register, fretting over a bill that wasn’t quite right. Me being older and more knowledgeable about certain restaurant-related topics, she begged for me to help.

I grabbed the book and listened to her as I weaved back through the same path. “Hannah, what can’t wait that you can’t just help me for a second!”

I didn’t look back, but I was sure she’d put on her game face and would figure it out. Her mousy brown hair would bounce around and she would talk in her nasal, yet somehow monotone voice. “Okay, folks.. let’s figure things out here.” She would get it right.

Usually, possibly, probably.. not.

The D section wasn’t coming quickly enough. And I’d have to deal with whatever mess Nora had made and fix things and make everything better again. And how could I do that when I was sobbing and I couldn’t even correct things in my own life-- which was obvious because I just got dumped via voicemail and--

Disbelief. Disbelief.

It read as follows: astonishment, amazement, surprise, incredulousness, skepticism, doubt, dubiousness..

Sign me up for all of them, I thought immediately. And maybe even some more at the bottom of the page. They seemed to go on for lines. Probably because a lot of people have experienced it.

I turned through the next few pages, seeing “ditch” had just as many, if not more, synonyms.

I guess it’s all relative.

The crying seemed to have subsided for a fleeting second. I had to give my eyes a rest, after all.

It couldn’t have happened on a worse day either. This one, extremely mean-spirited exchange I had with this old guy..

“Yeah, but I said no pickles. Listen, honey, if you’re gonna to wait on me, I want it done right. I ain’t payin’ good money to come here and have a waitress that don’t listen--”

Was enough to send me over the edge. Most girls would have even quit after that. But not me. Not good old, reliable Hannah. She always took one for the team.

Oh, man-- what the hell was happening to me?

Even though I could have listened to the real thing, I just played the phone message over in my head until it was cemented there.

Stuck. Unmoving. Forever.

“Listen, babe. We gotta think about what we’re gonna do with our lives and to tell you the truth, I really don’t see this going anywhere..”

He sounded a lot like the old guy I almost swore at violently for lack of respect.

Okay, it pretty much was him in about fifty years. I held on to the thought, letting it cement as well.

Hannah! Break’s up! There’s tables! What are you doing!

Everything in this damn place was punctuated with an exclamation point.

I glanced in the mirror without even stopping to look at myself, really. Too scared of scaring the customers. But I just kept telling myself there was nothing I could do about it. At least not right then.

Just smile, smile, smile until my heart cracked open, out of my chest, and flooded the restaurant and really scared everyone off for good.

Breathe. And remember the aged and redone picture of Cal.

And smile. “Hi, I’m Hannah. Welcome to Margot’s.”

Rinse and repeat. And Oh, shit. Fix whatever Nora did.

A guy sat down in my section. Another guy in another table. Two families. My brain was not ready to process this, whatsoever. I secretly wished my mom would call and claim I had to drive home right this instant, but then I unwished because I couldn’t take any more heartache or stress for one day.

I slapped menus down on tables like I was slapping someone’s face. Someone older who ordered no pickle on his sandwiches. Or maybe someone younger who I couldn’t even find a positive thing to say about.

Not right now. Maybe both.

Overloaded with drinks, side dishes, little kids screaming, ketchup spilled all over my shirt by a man too eager to eat-- I’d finally found something I could be at peace with amongst all the chaos.

My table six guy. The only part of the whole “every table comes in at once” deal that I found even partially alright was that everyone was satisfied eating for a while, all at one time.

So I got a chance to actually look at the people I’d been waiting on hand and foot for the past half-hour.

He was the only one that drew me in. Since he’d gotten there, he had never hung up his cell phone. It was a long and involved conversation, as if he wished the person were there eating with him. I had to find out. Sue me.

“Everything okay here?” I asked him, hoping to get a snippet of conversation from the other end. I needed it to be his girlfriend, all “I love you’s” and things that would snap me back into place. Remember that there was going to be life after Cal.

He took the phone away from his ear, set down his fork and looked at me. Red and blotchy faced me.

“Hey, Jim. I gotta go. Bye sweetie,” I heard faintly. The call was dropped.

He snapped the whole thing shut then, and started to say, “Y--”

But then the phone rang again.
I was going to turn around, not wanting to stand there and get all involved in his personal business. (Even though I kinda wanted to escape and find out who was on the phone.)

He glanced at it for a moment and shrugged. “Just a text message. My new ‘girlfriend’.. well, this girl, stood me up.”

I was actually a little thrilled at this statement. Even though I knew I wasn’t the only one, here was living proof that relationships suck.

He laughed to himself. “I don’t really mean that.”

I couldn’t help but see table four was waving their glasses for more water.
But I kept talking, reminding myself of Nora when she waited on her friends, all annoying as she.

“She just, had to ‘work late.’” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you okay?”

Oh, man. Maybe I had started crying again. All flustered, I came up with, “Oh, yeah sure, whatever. I am fine. Fine. Fine. Fine.” And I really said all of that.

He raised the other eyebrow and said, “Alright. Just wondering.”
I was crying. He offered me a napkin from the dispenser on the table. I took it and pressed it to my face, easily.

This was natural. Getting upset over something that hurt.

Earlier, I thought I would be able to relate to this guy. But seeing him truly, with the concern for someone he didn’t even know, and the lack of concern for something I would have been pretty pissed about--

I don’t know, it boggled me.
Me, who wore all her emotions on her face. This guy, who came off as mysterious as the phone call he’d been having throughout his whole meal.

Table four never got their water glasses, so I went back and apologized profusely. The other tables were fine, just fine, fine, fine.

When I went back to clean off lanky guy’s table, I discovered, along with the tip, a note.

My mom (sorry I was on the phone) told me to tell you that she hopes you’re okay. Which I know you are, but this is weird and I felt bad for being so rude. Sincerely, guy who ordered expensive seafood and didn’t eat it.

If Cal had been like this, maybe I would have fought for him.
But instead, I just let him go.

All the days with him flooded together and nothing had really stood out.
But this note, this stupid note, had said it all.

And Nora left me a huge mess to clean up with the register, and I was so oddly relieved that I didn’t mind fixing it at all.

Not this time.

Natalia :: Jamba Juice :: April 2007

“Working here,” I explained to the girl at the counter, who was tapping a pen and smacking her gum. “I don’t know, it’s a job.”

“But, like, is it hard?” she pressed me, now adding hair-twirling into the mix of annoying habits.

“Hard? I don’t know if I would say that, but..”

I looked at this girl, a face I’d seen probably more times than I could count. Little variations here and there, but basically she was the same as all the rest.

I imagined her waiting on people, trying to score impossible tips, attempting to remember the million different kinds of smoothies you can get. I imagined myself, working late, trying to train her, struggling to remember when I was ever this bad .

I could especially imagine her in the uniform. Talking about it with her friends, describing the bagginess and the ugliness of the whole get-up. Or she’d turn it into a fashion statement.

We’d had a few of those too.

She popped her gum again. Definitely the complaining type.

But she would get hired anyways.

Always hiring, always looking for “fresh faces!” and “enthusiastic personas!” How anyone could be enthusiastic about serving blended fruit shakes to the masses of Philadelphia was beyond me. Especially when everyone was all “no this” and “no that” and “make sure you don’t..”

It made you wonder if anyone ever orders anything the way it’s supposed to come.

“Alright,” I started, looking up from to the blonde girl’s application. “Danica. We will, let you know soon. Thanks for coming by.”

“Mmhmm. Yeah. Kay,” she mumbled as if it were a coherent statement. She flipped her hair over her shoulder along with her massive Dooney and Bourke purse and off she went.

And I went back, from my little diversion, to making smoothies.

I piled some bananas and strawberries into a blender, contemplating.
Is the job difficult?

The satisfying whirring of ice chips and the like was the sound that kept me awake at night, and that was no joke. Five days a week and endless hoards of customers really got me thinking about the meaning of life and what the hell I was going to do with myself when I graduated college.

First, I had to pick a major.

I had already ruled out three things:

Doctor. No bloodiness policy.
A Teacher. No patience with kids policy.
Someone who made smoothies at Jamba Juice. (Though I don’t think you can go to school for that, anyways.)


Is the job difficult?

“Umm, yeah. I think I will have the, uh. Wait, no I change my mind. I will have the uh. No, no. Ew. No. Definitely not that. I will take a large.. no, small..”

Is the job difficult?

“Natalia, what on Earth are you doing? We’re like, backed up through outerspace here? And you’re sitting here, humming the Beatles and looking like you don’t give a shit about working, huh?”

Is the job difficult?

“Hello, I’m Rick Wendell. I would just love to buy some stock in your company and if you would be willing to so kindly show me the direction in which the manager would be. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.”

Is the job difficult?

“Maggie, your blah blah blah blah blah smoothie is ready, come get it.” “Maggie?”
“Maggie?”
“Oh, hell, I’ll just drink it myself.”

Yeah, sometimes. It could be pretty difficult.


I fell into place with the rush one Saturday, and just in time to go on my break when we started to thin out.

I sat down with my brought-from-home PB&J and baby carrots and no smoothie in sight. I couldn’t even stand to look at one.

The new girl, Danica (the manager, some 18-year-old named Quinley, had been impressed with her 2.3 GPA at Heatherland Heights) was all set to work while I took a nice, leisurely lunch.

I taught her everything I knew, and probably most things she wouldn’t be able to use until much further in her Smoothie Career. Like how to deal with arguing couples or people who yell at you for making them something too fattening for them.

Halfway through my lunch, the first customer came in. Philly’s Jamba Juice saw all kinds of of people through the doors, daily. But even I had to admit, I’d never seen anything like this.

“Jim, you have never had a smoothie before?” the girl asked him. They were holding hands and the girl was smiling broadly.

“Karen,” Jim started back, “I think you asked me once already. Or maybe seven times. I dunno.”

He smiled at her but she couldn’t resist. “How? I mean, what? What did your mom feed you growing up?”

“Uh, pretty much everything but smoothies, apparently. And radishes. I hate those.”

“You lead such a sheltered life. You know, I am glad we took this opportunity of going to Philly to broaden your--”

“It’s not like I haven’t heard of one before,” he said calmly, interrupting her. “I just haven’t had one.”

“Okay, then. Now we will try. And you will fall in--”

Jim stepped up to the counter and surveyed the menu, quickly.
“What’s the closest thing you have to mixed berries?”

Danica went on and on and rattled off all the kinds I’d told her to memorize, screwing up a few but getting them mostly all right.

He ended up getting a Razzmatazz and she got her claimed favorite, Citrus Squeeze with a shot of Wheatgrass. She said to Danica how she’d been trying to go vegetarian.

Danica seemed interested. But I was only interested in Jim as he drank his Razzmatazz smoothie and looked like he was holding back a couple tears, or something.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Karen asked him, stepping into a booth and flinging down her things. “Much better than the stupid football thing we came for--”

“Yeah,” Jim said, “The smoothies are good.”

Karen grinned affectionately and kissed him on the lips.
“So, I was thinking, we could start at--”

“Something to write home about,” Jim said aloud. I wasn’t sure if he’d meant to or if it had just slipped out instinctively.

Jim gave Danica and I each a dollar and I was very impressed, because he seemed so weird. And weird people usually don’t tip.

When Karen spoke, he watched her and made little jokes and things she didn’t really pay much attention to. She was busy focusing on their trip home and the sightseeing they still had left to do. “You’re not driving home, Halpert. You drive like my grandma.”

Jim was busy focusing on his Razzmatazz smoothie, and he drank it down to the very last drop.

He tossed it in the trash with Karen’s almost still-full one.

Danica asked me if I thought they were married.
I couldn’t tell if she was being serious.

Rina :: Good Eats Diner :: May 2007


The notion that I had helped someone was something I encountered almost daily.

With every, “Thanks.”
With every satisfied expression that told me, without words, that they had enjoyed their meal.
And with every two dollars I found tucked carefully under plates and glasses on tables, I knew I had helped someone.

I had helped them get something to eat.
No major societal contribution, but it was a job. And it was mine.

My profession was basically all there was to me. It was me, in a sense.

A born and raised waitress, from the minute I was permitted by law to work-- it was the force that drove me. It was the one, definite thing I could claim as a talent.

Waiting.

In my thirty years of it, I saw and heard and tasted and smelled and experienced more things than most people ever would.

Taking pride in that fact was almost difficult. Like admitting to being more worldly by always staying in the same place. Strange, but that was how I saw it.

In one day, I’d taken orders from a guy with a purple mohawk, a feuding couple from France who yelled insults in a language they thought I didn’t understand, a man convinced he was a superhero, a husband and wife who had a total of thirteen kids between them and brought them all along for their annual breakfast out..

But the day wasn’t even close to starting. It was only twelve, and it was only fitting that I grow tired already.

My arthritis was flaring up, and I’d been warned not to continue on with my job-- by my doctor and basically every other person in my life.

Customers commented on the haggard appearance of my hands, and they didn’t even know the pain I felt when I delivered them hamburgers or poured them fresh coffee.

The rush started to pour in, and after an exhilarating hour of constant “get me this” and “get me that,” everything, every check, every plate, was gone.

Just like that.

I was alone to clean and restock, all the while waiting for the next batch of people to waltz in. People must have really gotten in sync about random times to eat.

The day cook, Zeke, told me to take a break. I wouldn’t hear him, only focusing on getting every last crumb out from under booth six.

My hands ached and my head was starting to, too. The perfect time for the place to be dead.

Filling salt shakers seemed to make the pain subside. I wished I had brought my specialized gloves that made me look old.

But I didn’t care, as long as I could keep waiting.

The bustle of New York City was just visible outside the tinted windows. Sometimes, I imagined myself dancing, twirling around in all the sparkling lights of the night. Or even the dim sunlight of the day.

Then I had to keep waiting.

I watched people pass on the streets during slow periods. Some looked like they were going to stop in, then changed their minds.

It was just like me to wonder why.

I’d seen that exact scenario that day, when I’d gotten down to my last salt shaker. My eyes kept going back to the man that passed outside, again and again.

I almost wanted to go outside and invite him in.

When he finally decided, pausing before opening the door, I was elated. Another customer, another story, another one to add to the ever-growing, never-ending list of people I’d waited on.

I loved that list.

“Hello, hon!” I called from behind the counter.
The man, tall and skinny, said hello back and took a seat on a swivel chair in front of me.

“Beautiful day today, isn’t it?” I asked him, provoking no response. He held a piece of paper in his hand with something shiny attached. He wouldn’t look up.

I walked over to the sink and rinsed a pile of ketchup-encrusted plates. I walked over to the dish bins and called out to Zeke that they needed to be washed thoroughly.

I walked over to the young man (a baby, really. Must have been about twenty-seven.) at the counter, and he still wasn’t ready.
I gave him his time.

Maybe five minutes later, he looked up from the piece of paper and smiled, almost laughed.

I took in his presence, tried to sort him out by his appearance. Never definite, though. Only possible.

No ring. Not married.
Suit and tie. Successful.
Newly cut hair. Girlfriend.
Smile on his face. In love.

He spoke, taking me aback. I hadn’t expected him to say anything.
“Can I get a glass of ice water?” he asked me quickly, almost rushing the words.

“Sure thing, hon. You betcha.”
I made the glass in record time and didn’t even flinch when my head reacted to the sound of crushed ice.

I set it down next to him, and seconds later, he had finished it in one swig.

Usually, we had a “no eat, no seat,” policy, but I had been known to make a few exceptions.

“So, that’s a nice suit you have on,” I commented after watching him stare into space for a moment, his expression changing gradually to something I couldn’t figure out.

“Going anyplace special?” I looked over from the coffee urn where I was preparing filters.

He looked down at himself, as if he didn’t remember what he had on. Or knew what I was talking about.

“Oh, this?” He shrugged and crinkled his forehead. “Not a fan of it. Really.”

“Well,” I started, running a cloth over spilled coffee grinds and flicking them in the sink. “You sure do look nice in it.”

“Thanks.” He raised the water glass to his lips, and chased down the exact one drop of liquid left. “What’s your name?”

“Me? Well, I’m Rina, hon.”

“Have you ever been in love, Rina?”

I cautioned myself. Had to tell him what he needed to hear.
"Yes.”

“Isn’t it awful?” he said, grinning.

I grinned at him right back, and put a hand, instinctively, on my heart.

“Yes.”

“I am in love,” he proclaimed, clear and concise. “But it’s been awful, and now it’s..”

I took a breath, anticipating the finish of this. It’s awful. A young man didn’t need to say that. He didn’t need to experience that.

Me, on the other hand, well I--

“Now, it’s not awful anymore. Finally. After all this time.”

He surprised me. Intrigued me. Made me forget how worn I was and made me remember, with the glint in his eye, Howard Tellman and his convertible, summer of 1974.

Why people felt so comfortable sharing the personal, inner-workings of their life in restaurants would always be a mystery.

Whether they’d planned on sharing or not, they always did.

But this amazed man in front of me seemed to rationalize the absurdity of it all.

They needed to tell someone-- to know that it was really real.

“I’ve got to head home. I’ve got to ask her,” he said, still smiling. He handed me ten dollars and I instantly pushed it back to him, arguing that water was one of the few things in life you could get for free.

“No, really. Keep it,” he insisted but I refused again and then I realized something that I should have seen before.

That look on his face, the one I didn’t recognize-- was the look people had after they’d finally been accepted.

This man was tired, exhausted, done-- with being refused.

I slid the bill into my pocket and thanked him.
“My pleasure, Rina.”

His name, I’d never know, but his story, I’d carry.

Not only did I add him to the list of people I’d served, but also to the list of people I’d helped.

I’d given him the final push. The final say-so. The final, “Yes.”

He hadn’t told me much, but enough to know that the girl in his life was a lucky one. She had a man who loved her, she had a man confident enough to say what they had was worth the struggle and the pain.

I’m sure, whoever she was, that she would agree with my answer.

Whatever the question may have been.

Naomi :: Cugino's :: May 2007

It was my birthday. Which made me think of one thing, usually.
My name, which was described in the baby books by three adjectives.

Beautiful like a blooming rose.
Pleasant like the easiness of a laugh.
Delightful like surprises-- but only the good kind.

My mom said she saw it in my eyes, the first time I really looked at her.

It was a lovely thought-- someone just knowing, believing in you and what you were going to become.

Of course, my mother thought I grew to fit my name perfectly, truly encompassing the definition of all three words. I had to argue with this, but names were almost always on the brain from the time I was a little girl.

I had ten new names picked every year, no matter I wouldn’t actually have children of my own until much, much later.

The pages of my baby name book were dog-eared and marked with Post-It notes that had lost their stickiness. Some things were highlighted. Even a few had comments written next to them.

I shuffled through the pages quickly, letting the corners brush against my fingertips. I stopped on a random section, like I always did.

“Cheyenne,” I said aloud, my finger tracing the name and its meaning. “To speak incoherently.”

I laughed and read a few other tidbits about it as Paolo chimed in, “Cheyenne speaks incoherently. That’s something.”


“I know, really. The worst part is, I know someone named Cheyenne. I wonder if she knows--”

Paolo placed a piece of graham cracker cheesecake in front of me, complete with a lit candle pierced in the middle.

“Happy Birthday, Nomi,” he said triumphantly. “Do you want me to sing, or do you just want to read me some more names?”

“Thank you, Paolo,” I said, kissing him on each cheek with the European flair he emulated. “I choose the names. I only have five minutes left, anyways.”

“Bella, you could spend an hour talking about just one name,” Paolo pointed out. “You must start actually to use them!”

I just shook my head, always ignoring his nagging to find a new guy. At times, he protested that I “must go out with his friends from culinary school!” And as much as I liked Paolo, his personality quirks made me doubt his matchmaking skills a bit.

Plus, I was still getting over Brian, and that was still sort of new.

Who was I kidding? I was twenty-eight, officially. All of my friends were either married or engaged. They all had respectable jobs, graduate degrees from fancy universities.

And I was stuck at Cugino’s, waiting it out to find work as a writer. My work had been nothing short of sporadic over the past two years, and everyone seemed to know that, whether I told them or not.

But at least I could name my kids that didn’t exist.

“I have my new list. It’s basically the same,” I informed Paolo, spinning around on my barstool. It was marked on the plain edges of a square of newspaper, five girls and five boys.

I saw a table come to my section, with all the usual getting settled sounds filling the air. “Shoot,” I said. “Gotta go. Thanks again for the cheesecake.”

I straightened my shoulders and took a deep breath. I shoved the name list in my apron pocket. Back to the swing of things, a constant motion that was now all instinct. I knew everything there was to know, but yet, I was still learning.

“Hi, Welcome to Cugino’s. I’m--”

Wait a second. I knew this couple.

Girl with the curly hair and the smile and the engagement ring.
Guy who didn’t notice said engagement ring.

With a second glance at the girl’s hands, I could see that all of her fingers were completely free of anything extra. Anything hidden.

Her hands were right on the table, in plain sight, with their bare fingernails and fidgeting palms.

One more glance, and she appeared different, much different than I pictured her before. She had on a deep green blouse paired with jeans, her whole look making a statement of confidence. Just like the blue-cheese dressing, I thought.

I also thought of how scary it was that I remembered everything about that particular lunch shift. They stood out in my memory, almost all the details except for their names, whereas I probably didn’t register with them as anything at all.

“I’m Naomi, and I will be your server tonight.”

I just looked at the two, a little dumbfounded. I fought the urge to say something, bring up the past, even though my mind was racing with little fragments.

I bit my lip. After all, what was I going to say to this guy? “Oh, gosh. Remember the time this girl broke your heart and then I gave you really crappy advice as I wrapped up pasta leftovers?”

But they were back here again, together. What had that been, three years ago, two?

A lifetime had passed since then, or so it seemed. Some might even say that I was a completely different person since then, even though I really wasn’t.

Still Naomi. Still trying to live up to my name, with all its expectations of perfection.

I was totally spacing out, not even sure of where I’d left off. I looked down at my order pad and saw that I had, in fact, not even taken their drink orders. Yet I was still standing there.

But they didn’t notice. They were talking. They were laughing. They were so nervously lovely that I just couldn’t help but watch.

They were just the same, only more certain. More definite and more real. He had found it.

“Um,” I started, voice low. Louder and more interruptive, “Can I get you both something to drink to start out with?”

Their eyes exchanged a smile, a rarity that I always appreciated seeing. And it usually meant one thing.

They were in love, just like Paolo had guessed before. Just like I knew before, assumed before, made an ass out of myself for believing in before.

I felt like a complete idiot, elated and curious as to how this had happened. Usually I didn’t have a vested interest in my customers beyond side dishes and refills and tips, but this was much different.

With just a few more minutes splashed into their lives, I felt a sympathy for the two, raging. This girl who was here again, the one I used to curse for being so ungrateful, was as real as me.

She’d made mistakes. And I’m sure, that in the three years or so since I’d seen him, that the guy had, too.

“Well, hi,” the guy said, completely oblivious to any prior conversation between us. He didn’t recall, didn’t want to. I wouldn’t have either, if I were him.

“I will have a Shirley Temple, please,” the girl said, unrolling her silverware from her napkin.

I scribbled it down, even though I could have easily known without a reminder. The guy raised his eyebrows and looked at his date.

“Woah, Beesly. A Shirley Temple? That’s a little radical.”

“What can I say, Jim? It’s my favorite, because Shirley Temple kinda looked like me as a kid.”

Jim.
I was further getting caught in the middle of something, and I never knew whether to leave or just stand there, grinning like an idiot and holding an anxious pen to paper.

“Don’t you mean you kinda looked like Shirley Temple?” Jim laughed, and in a split second, turned his attention to me.

“Can I just get a Coke? Thanks,” he said after I wrote that down, too, then he looked to the girl. “You know, Pam, Shirley Temple didn’t even like Shirley Temples.”

“Okay, great,” I replied, but it was almost inaudible over the playful arguing they had ensued in.

I went over and made the drinks. I wished I could fill in the blanks, but it was getting difficult.

It was my twenty-eighth birthday, and couldn’t even claim something like this. Something like love.

The way they looked at each other, the way her smile only grew instead of faded as she relaxed. The way he spoke and she listened. The way the opposite was the same.

Later, the blanks started to match faces, words, ideas and new memories started to attach with just a little gained.

“We are going to have a twelve-cut with mushrooms and extra cheese--” Jim started.

“And pepperoni, too.” Pam frowned at Jim jokingly. She grimaced for a quick second and told me, “I can’t stand mushrooms.”

“Oh,” I said in my quick-thinking, waitress persona, “Well, we can put it on half the pizza and then you can put whatever you want on your half.”

“No,” she said. “I think I can stand them enough to pick them off.”

Jim laughed and added, “Oh, the sacrifice.”

I grinned and knew, with the hurt I had seen, that many more sacrifices had been made, in addition to pepperoni and mushrooms.

Later, they proved themselves as an award-winning couple.

“Another Shirley Temple?” I asked Pam. They hadn’t really touched their pizza, just two slices sitting out on plates, ready.

“Uh, yeah. Sure,” she answered, washing down the last bit.

Jim said, “What, no second drink?”

She actually blushed a little and shrugged her shoulders.
“Only at the Dundies. That was a one time thing,” she informed him.

“Oh really? So you have to win an award for those rules to apply?”

She seemed to have forgotten about handing me her drink, so I turned on my heels and started towards the kitchen.

Later, they had dessert and showed me something I would have never expected them to.

A square of newspaper. My square of newspaper, name list.

They were in between shared bites of key lime pie and talking, and I was wrapping up their pizza in one of those trademark boxes with the ribbon, over at the next table. I heard an “Excuse me,” from the other side of their booth.

I turned my attention, caught off-guard. “Sorry. Um, is this yours?” Jim asked me, and I was already embarrassed and ready to snatch it back as soon as I caught a glimpse.

Pam sipped remnants of ice from her drink, a small smile on her face. She seemed so far away in her thoughts that she didn’t notice Jim speaking up.

“We like Aubrey Jane,” he said, even though I hadn’t claimed to be the owner.

Oh, God. They thought I was pregnant. That’s what I get for being so into naming.

“Jim,” Pam said, alert and elbowing him across the table. “We agreed not to say anything.” She looked at me sympathetically. “I’m very sorry. That’s just so personal-- We didn’t mean to interfere, we just found it on the floor.”

Pam stared at Jim expectantly.

He laughed and said, “I’m sorry.”

I laughed, too, letting everything swirl together.

Don’t worry about it. Be bold, ask.

“How long has it been since you were here last time?”

They exchanged a knowing glance and said what most would have considered cheesy, but it just seemed to fit.

In sync, in one breath, “Too long.”

On their way out, I heard them mumbling something about a can of Coke. They paid their bill and Jim told me that he remembered me and my advice. They wished me a happy birthday, though I wasn't sure how they knew.

Pam said that she didn’t usually talk to waitresses much, because she used to be one, and it always made her feel weird.

But it wasn’t weird, relating to people.

And I went to my next set of tables with energy and enthusiasm and I couldn’t exactly recall what had driven me to make those lists, the ones with all the names, in the first place.

Because it was just unfair to place expectations everywhere, especially when things could flourish without them.

I decided that if I didn’t exactly live up to my name, that it would probably be for the best.

Later, I told Paolo to set me up with one of his culinary school friends.

No expectations.

Tiffany :: Chuck E. Cheese :: February 2008

I almost got the job wearing the mouse costume, but in a strange twist of fate, I had actually gotten what I wanted.

And that was to serve the highly priced pizza to little kids and their exhausted mothers. And to serve cakes at birthday parties to what I can only describe as a wide array of hyper, undisciplined first-graders.

And I also serve to be laughed at, mocked, yelled at, stomped on, and the rare occasion of being vomited on.


But that only happened once. And it turned out to be, unsurprisingly, one of the worst highlights of my career.

So many kids came in and out through the doors that it got me thinking about how they acted at home. Wild, unruly-- it was probably just the beginning. Of course, I’d had my share of sweet kids as well, the ones that made it almost worth continuing the job.

Like this one little girl, Tess. She reminded me of myself, when I was her age and coming to these birthday parties that I didn’t want to go to.

“Okay, we will take the--” the man I guessed was her dad looked at the menu, struggling to read the small print, or maybe the fluorescent color. “The Munch and Play saver.”

The woman, presumably his wife, crouched down to the little girl’s level. She held another child, a boy, on her hip. “Tess, don’t you think this is going to be fun?”

“I guess,” the little girl replied shyly. “I’m hungry, though.”

“Good,” the man said, ruffling her hair. “Because Chuck E. Cheese is world-famous for their pizza and atmosphere.”

“Oh, hush,” the woman said, clocking him on the arm. “We will take just a cheese pizza.”

“Okay, that’s going to be $21.86. And it should be ready in about fifteen minutes,” I informed them with a smile.

“Wow, okay,” the man said, obviously and understandably a little shocked at the price. It was probably a birthday party they’d been forced into going.

They paid and went over and sat down. The woman left for a few minutes with the baby and the man just talked to his little girl and it made me think of me and my dad.

Within earshot, I heard, “I really don’t like Carrie that much.”

The man was a little bit surprised to hear her say this, and the only other thing I listened to before tuning out was, “At least I can help you win tickets.”

Little Tess giggled and nodded.

The woman returned to the table with the little boy, who had to have been about two. He was a little fussy and the woman was unsure. “Jim, you think we should take him to my mom’s?”

“He’ll be okay, Pam. We can go if you think we need to. I kind of had my hopes set on that pencil with the bubble wand inside. But then again, I could always count on Tess to win it for me.”

Pam laughed and Tess giggled, though I’m sure she didn’t really understand the whole conversation.

Of course, it had been a long time since I was seven. And I remembered always wanting to feel older, pretending I got things when I really didn’t.

I brought out their pizza and got thanks all around. I also supplied them with their tokens, which Tess begrudgingly accepted.

It was a random Tuesday, and the party had probably gotten a better rate because of the weird date and time. It was the only one that night, which my manager had told me was, “a good opportunity to be energetic and lively and fun, with an extra dose of fun!”

I watched as Tess walked slowly over to the rest of the kids. At least her parents had spared her the eating and show portion of the party. When the party mom came over to ask them why Tess had only attended the second hour, I had some fun that normally I didn’t find at Chuck E. Cheese.

I was cleaning tables and making my usual go-around, restocking things. My face was sweaty and my eye had a definite flake of pepper stuck in it that I had been battling with for the past hour. I moved on to mopping the floors, sticky with soda pop.

I reached the table in between Tess’s parents and an elderly couple, waiting for grandkids to be finished playing. And I heard the unmistakeable voice of an angry soccer mom.

“Jim, Pam, so glad you could make it,” she smiled scarily. “Who are you, by the way?”

Jim raised an eyebrow and Pam looked at the other mom quizzically. “What do you mean?”

The little boy was now happily chewing on a pizza crust and sitting on Jim’s lap. Jim seemed to focus his attention on the baby, so as not to get involved.

I would have done the same thing. Those moms can be larger-than-life amounts of intimidating.

“I mean, you are not Tess and Jack’s parents. You’re not Maeghan and Kyle,” she said, and I wondered what the real problem was. Because that had to be a lie. These people were not liars.

Were they?

“No, we’re not. But I’m Maeghan’s sister, and we’re taking care of her kids tonight. If that clears things up for you,” Pam said sweetly.

Now, I wasn’t an expert on this, but I was pretty sure that what happened next was nothing short of reality-TV quality.

“Well then,” the soccer mom said. “Next time you decide to ‘babysit,’ try being punctual. So as not to hurt another child’s feelings. Or to criticize all of that child’s mother’s hard work.”

“Um,” was all Pam, stunned, could come up with.

Jim stepped in, but I guess Uncle Jim was the better title. “Listen, we were really just trying to enjoy some bonding time. Tess and I discussed it thoroughly, and we came to a joint decision that after her awful day at school-- She fell down on the monkey bars-- that her Aunt Pam and I would spend the first hour with her.”

“Ah-ha. Right. Well--” the mom looked the pair over. “Thanks for the gifts.”

And with that, in a flash, Jim and Pam were laughing as soon as they could.

Jim, “Or to criticize all my hard work.”
Pam, “Well, then.”

Their faces were red, they were completely gone. Even the baby, Jack, was laughing. Now that I was behind the counter, they waved me over.

“Did you-- see that?” Jim asked me, probably unaware that I had been mopping the floor right next to them for the duration.

I glanced behind me, at the party and everything else that I had grown accustomed to seeing. “Yes. I did see that.”

“Wasn’t it-- awful?” Pam asked me, a little embarrassed, but trying to hide it.

“Not as bad as it could have been,” I answered quietly. Just for fun, and because they seemed like fun people, I added a fun bit from the previous month. “She could have called you a bitch.”

Jim furrowed his brow, bouncing Jack on his knee. It was hard to believe he wasn’t his dad. “Are you serious?”

I heard my manager calling me, saying something needed fixed.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, “It gets pretty bad.”

“Promise me we won’t be like that,” Pam said.

I went and attended to the jammed token machine. Tess appeared next to me and said, “Is that easy to fix?”

I smiled and said it was no problem. Then I told her it was okay she didn’t like Carrie.

She giggled and said, “Good. Uncle Jim said that, too. Only I wasn’t supposta tell.”

And that is why I continue to work at Chuck E. Cheese, for those one in a million moments of true happiness. The motto they promise as soon as you walk in the door.

Nicholas :: Primanti Bros. :: October 2008

The Steelers were having a bad night.

All the TV’s in the place just further reminded me that we didn’t have a chance in hell of getting this one.

And people in the place were so involved-- it got pretty crazy. It was hard to keep up with the steady rush of orders, and it always felt like sandwiches took forever to be made.

I delivered a couple beers to table seven just in time to see my team score a touchdown. Finally. The place went wild with screaming and hollering and the like.

Almost everyone was excited except my one table, the ones who had been there forever.

Pittsburgh was a place where you could easily spot tourists, even if just from a few states over, or a maybe just a town. The telling factor was when they said, “Coleslaw? On the sandwich?” And they did, they always did.

My girlfriend and I were supposed to watch the game together, but of course, they put me on the schedule. And seeing this couple together didn’t make things any easier.

And they were tourists. But they actually liked the food, despite their hesitations, which is pretty much the case, 99% of the time. But they didn’t cheer, just talked to each other and didn’t focus for a second on the game.

I went back to their table with a couple more beers, after the chaos had settled down. They asked me to recommend some sight-seeing destinations, but I couldn’t really think of any that would involve not being a Steelers fan.

Or maybe I could-- I just didn’t like the idea of non-Steelers fans taking my advice.

I tried to think of what my girlfriend would say she liked to do. When we went out, it was basically movies, and that was boring. So I came up with the lamest thing ever, and much to my chagrin and my sympathy for the guy, I suggested the Pittsburgh Zoo.

And she was thrilled with that idea.
And, throwing me for a loop, he seemed just about as happy as she was.

“Now we can finally admire creatures and snakes and penguins together,” she joked.

“Finally. Life outside of Scranton. It is just what we need,” he replied.

I told my girlfriend about this, and we referred to the story, from then on, “The Non-Steeler couple.”

I hated to admit it, but it was sort of cool to see a relationship built on more than just sports.

Veronica :: Glider Diner :: January 2009

Booth eleven was crying.

It was cold and dreary and fully winter outside. They had come in with snow dusted on their shoes and dressed in funeral clothes, and I immediately felt awful to be rushing in and taking orders when they clearly just needed to be alone.

I was trying to decide if I should go over. It was tricky, because it was so delicate. I didn’t want to assume that they wouldn’t order anything, but I also didn’t want to upset them any further.

He moved over and sat on her side of the booth, where they were packed in against the plastic coating of the seats. He wrapped his arms around her.

My sensitivity cursed me again, and I felt a few tears welling up myself.

Her eyes ran with mascara. He made an attempt to brush away a few crumbles from her cheek and also to say something sweet, but she only cried.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I obviously couldn’t do much, except bring them a hot breakfast or a cup of coffee. And that wouldn’t help, wouldn’t change things, wouldn’t even come close to alleviating pain.

Luckily, he knew this.

“Pam,” I could hear as I took an order at the next table. “This was a bad idea. Let’s go home.”
“Jim--” she started, and I couldn’t hear the rest.

But I could see. They left, hand in hand, the black material of her dress swishing as the two folded into the unmistakeable pattern of loss.

Luckily, they had each other.

“Veronica,” my best friend and best co-worker, Jasmine said to me after they were out of sight and we were filling maple syrup containers. “What was going on with those two?”

I smiled with a little ache. I thought about life and its fragility, the way it could just be gone. You had to hold on to the “right nows” and the “this moments,” and even though it always seemed cliche, you had to admit that it made you a little happier, more appreciative.

“They love each other. They’ll figure it out.”

Jasmine put a sticky hand on my shoulder.

“You’re really weird when you get all sentimental like that, you know.”

It might not have been the right thing to say, the right time.

But she was my best friend, and there were certain conditions to that.

Starting with letting some things go without argument, and ending with continually, unfailingly, and most importantly-- being a shoulder to lean on.

Sadie :: Dairy Queen :: June 2009

I always talked to Lizzie after work. We had our traditions. In fact, we still had a lot of the same habits since our friendship began, way back in fourth grade.

Friday-night sleepovers, Sunday-day study sessions, Wednesday-afternoon after-school matinee. It had all been the same since we were ten.

But it was summer, and all the rituals changed then. The phone calls were the sole constant, because I worked at my first job and Liz was always gone for gymnastics or track meets.

That night, I was especially excited. Overwhelmed, a little. It was by far, the coolest thing to ever happen at Dairy Queen. I mean, we sold ice cream. Not exactly the definition of excitement.

Naturally, I had to tell Liz.

“Liz!” I exclaimed, instantly recognizing her voice with the whole, “This is the Bateman residence,” line.

“Hey, Sade! I was just going to call you. Oh my god, you will never guess who I saw today at the mall!”
“Wait. I have something really cool to tell you,” I said, sure she would freak out at the news. She was a total sucker for this stuff.

She was a little let down, but said, “Okay.”

“Today,” I began, “At Dairy Queen--”

“You made three Blizzards and fifteen sundaes?”

“No. I saw--”

“Jeffrey Reynolds from Geometry?”

“No. Listen for just a sec. I’ll get to it.”

She sighed loudly.

“Fine. If you don’t want to know, then--”
“I want to know!”

I smiled and could almost see the expression on Liz’s face in my mind. Never one to stray away from gossip, even if she had no idea what I was going to say.

“Before I was so rudely interrupted,” I said, clearing my throat for effect. I could hear a, “Hey!” starting to fire back, but I kept going. “I was going to tell you that I saw a guy propose to his girlfriend. Like right in front of me. At Dairy Queen.”

“That’s cool, Sade. How did he do that?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, at Dairy Queen? That has got to be the most unromantic thing I’ve ever heard..”

I replayed the scenario over in my head, so as to assure myself that it was, in fact, one of the most romantic things I had ever seen in my life. And probably, ever would see.

I fidgeted with my hat and adjusted my name pin. I eventually took the name pin of, it was poking me. I settled back with my hands on my cheeks, trying to pass the coolness of the metal counter to the warm flush of my face.

It was my first job. My goal was to save enough to buy a car by my seventeenth birthday in September. A year late, but it was dream. So far, I had gotten about one/one thousandth of it covered.

But it was work. And it was teaching me responsibility and the value of a dollar and blah, blah, blah..

It was really only busy at night, and I constantly got day shifts. Which was okay, I guessed. Everyone had to start somewhere.

I ate an ice cream cone (just the cone) to pass the time. I would never figure out why they thought anyone would come in for ice cream at eleven ‘o clock in the morning. Especially on a day like that, when it was cold, like sixty-three outside.

Breakfast sundaes. I usually didn’t even wake up until one during the summer, and here I was serving people who had already had at least two meals during the day.

I picked at the crumbs under my fingernails and almost didn’t see a pair of customers walk up. A guy and a girl, and apparently, both fans of the breakfast sundaes.

“Hi, what can I get you?” I said, chipper and anxious to finally be doing something.

“I will have a Butterfinger blizzard,” the guy said. They were holding hands, and she nudged him with a reminder. “A medium one.”

They smiled at me and added one more thing.
“StarKiss,” the guy said. “Do you guys still have those?”

“Yup, do you want me get one of those for you as well?” I answered.

“Yeah, a cherry one,” he said, turning to the girl as she grew a little giddy. He slid me a ten-dollar bill and I made change, careful to count as my brain always took a little warming-up so early in the morning.

“Jim. This is so great. My mom brought them in for my class when I was ‘Star of the Week’ in second grade. Get it, because they’re shaped like stars,” the girl said. “I didn’t think they made them anymore.”

“ ‘Star of the Week’?” he questioned her.

I slid back the change and he said thanks. I didn’t get to hear the rest of this, as I turned back to the Blizzard machine and started blending together the Butterfinger concoction.

I handed it to him and I guessed they were still talking about Star of the Week. I had done it, too. We probably even had the same teacher, as I was one of the last ones to have the ever-famous, ancient Mrs. Smith.

“And then I had a display of my cursive writing,” she said.
“I bet that was nice,” he said sarcastically. Then, more serious, “I bet the whole thing was nice.”

I grabbed the StarKiss from the freezer in the back.

They were all set to go.
But not really.

They sat on a bench, just catty-corner to where I could see them. They sat there for a long time, it must have been, because before I knew it, it was time for me to go on break.

Fred from the community college down the street took over for me, during this awkward period of no customers.

I sat down at one of the picnic tables, far away from the couple as possible. Far away, which actually turned out to be practically right next to them, due to the fact the third picnic table had no benches.

I had intended to give them their privacy, as I texted friends and munched on a bag of pretzels and sipped a diet Coke.

But, for some reason, I had been meant to see something spectacular.

I didn’t hear much, but what I did was almost breathtaking.

“Pam,” Jim said, a little bit of nerve in his voice. “You know that I love you, right?”

Oh, man. If I had seen one romantic comedy, I’d seen them all. I had to know what was coming.

“Yes,” she replied, feigning intense seriousness. “You have made it clear. As have I.”

“I just, um,” Jim began.

Want you to marry me, I thought. Or maybe he’d go with the whole Want you to do me the honor of being my wife bit.

I tried to look discreet, clicking away on my cell phone, but really only anticipating a finish.

“I just-- um,” he said finally, totally taking it in a direction I did not expect. They were sitting across from each other, so I could only really see Pam’s back and Jim’s face.

“Uh-huh,” Pam said, clearly confused. “You are such a dork.”

Right then, Jim’s whole look changed. His nerves turned into a smile.

“I know,” he said, stepping off the bench with both of their ice cream containers in hand. Her fingers, I could see, were sticky with cherry-red popsicle.

“Ugh, why did I even buy this? It’s everywhere! And now I’ve got brain freeze,” she admitted with a laugh.

He threw his stuff in the trash can and walked back over to her. I now could see both of them, standing side by side.

“God, you’re right,” he said, examining her hands. “You’re a royal mess.”

“Hold on a sec, didn’t you get any napkins?” she asked, waving her hands in the air.

“Yeah, they’re in my sweatshirt pocket.”

Clearly not thinking, she dove right into the pocket with her messy hands and revealed about sixteen paper napkins and exactly one small jewelry box.

Her mouth was agape, and his was for a split second, too.

He pointed out, clear as a bell, “I’m pretty sure I had something planned. And it didn’t really involve Dairy Queen.”

She was still shocked, the ring was still sitting on the picnic table, still hidden, though not really.

I got up from my table and headed back inside.
Whatever happened from there, I didn’t need to know.

Because I kept envisioning myself as her, and I decided that I would rather not have some teenage girl lurking in the back of my engagement story, told to all my friends.

But I got the main idea, and usually, that was the best part.
Of course, the details were always nice.

“It was romantic,” I said to Liz. “You had to be there.”

“Yeah, well. I guess so. My engagement is going to be one of those sports arena ones. Or fireworks..”

She rambled on about how memorable the setting would have to be and I figured that for that couple, Dairy Queen would fit the bill just fine.

It was cool.

Epilogue :: Pam

I wasn’t a waitress anymore.
In fact, it was almost funny, going through anything that told me I was, at one point.

A bunch of boxes full of almost ten years surrounded me, and I felt exhilarated and exhausted and young and old all at the same time.

Most things would be pitched, and the things I held on to were carefully selected and thoroughly reviewed.

Jim came over to help me load things into my car. He was amazed at all the stuff I had accumulated, but I just smiled and said it was because of my tendency to want to feel nostalgic.

“Kind of like your yearbook,” I teased him, but a little serious. “Only ten or fifteen boxes worth.”

“Well, I have to say, I’m impressed at how much you compacted this,” he said, nodding towards my “get rid of” pile. “But, you know I’m a little interested in the treasures you’re throwing away.”

I sighed, but happily. I was glad I had gotten rid of the “Roy” stuff a long time ago. The chapter of my life Jim would be searching through was predominantly high school, minus-Roy. I was a little shocked at the fact there was so much there, if only because being with Roy seemed to define who I was for almost eleven years.

We spent an hour or two laughing at notes I had passed to my friends, most of them written in codes that I would then decipher.

At first I thought it was a little weird, sorting through my past together, going back over things that I did and said even before I had a clue that a guy named Jim would even be in my life. Let alone be my fiance.

But, aside from the weirdness, I realized that he was, no matter which way you looked at it, an enormous part of my past. It was more recent than macaroni necklaces and albums of goofy photos taken on disposable cameras, but it was more important than anything.

Because the recent past, alone, had helped me become me. Helped me learn, accept my flaws. Assisted me in finally coming to a realization, to take a stand, to know. Even though knowing wasn’t really the problem.

The problem was always being.

We fit together, and I denied that for a long time.
But as I settled back into his arms, breathing deeply and laughing at a first-grade journal entry along with him, I was more sure than ever.

The ring on my finger, with Roy, was a blur of before.

The ring on my finger, with Jim, encompassed everything I wanted to be, my hopes, my desires, my dreams.

I used to think that getting married meant giving up all those things.
And while I realized that almost every aspect of my life was set to change with something as simple as “I do,” I also knew that it was getting straight back to our roots.

Straight back to just being.

Jim found a folded piece of paper in the back of a book. He asked me if he could look. I shrugged and said I didn’t have anything to hide, not anymore.

He cleared his throat and read:

I swear, if Roy doesn’t start leaving good tips when we go out, I will dump him. This is serious! I’m folding this up because I’m hoping it won’t come true. But I’m keeping it because I kind of think it will.

I promised myself: no bad tippers!!!!!!!

“No bad tippers, huh?” he whispered into my hair.
“I was seventeen,” I said wistfully.

Certain, I said the one remaining thing. The thing I was still, even after a few years, getting used to being. The thing that I was learning to not be so surprised at.

“I was right.”

I kissed Jim and my doubts slipped away, amongst a sea of what I used to be, what I was in that moment, and all that I looked forward to, eventually.

Everything’s okay here.