The Witch and the Huntsman Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t exist for them—a few of them went out of their way to be unnecessarily rude or demanded things we couldn’t provide them or loudly insisted I’d made a mistake or threatened to talk to ‘your manager’ because they didn’t like the caviar. As if they were scoring off me—like a big, weird game of chess. As if I was a threat or something! I could understand it when the women acted that way, but some of the men did it, too. I guess it was just reflex action on their part. They were the lords of this jungle, so they gave a swipe of their claws to any lesser creatures they saw skulking around.
    Like me.
    But I guess that’s how you stay on top.
    One of the papers on Mr. Schreich’s desk was a sort of bullet-point list of what I was supposed to be doing on the job. I taped it to the inside of a serving napkin and used it as a kind of cheat sheet whenever Brittany and Kev weren’t around to tell me what to do. Mr. Schreich didn’t even bother to—except to clap his hands at me, which always startled me into almost dropping something—whenever he happened to pass by. Which wasn’t often, thank God; he was too busy bowing and scraping and ass-kissing a few of the most important guests. Read: richest .
    So, given the fact I was more or less totally winging it, I was half-expecting to make some major mess and get canned from the job my first night. Hell, my first hour. But amazingly, it wasn’t me who got into trouble.
    It was Brittany.
    I was helping her with the dessert course when one of the late-comers, a large, very red-faced man dressed in what had to be the world’s most expensive Givenchy sweat suit, started hassling her.
    “ What do you mean you’re out of it ?” he was demanding. “It’s right here on the menu!”
    “ But it’s—”
    “ I don’t want to hear any excuses. Either you have it or you don’t—if you don’t, it shouldn’t be offered on the menu. My guests are extremely important people who have traveled a great distance in order to sample your Langschweinefleisch . That’s what I promised them tonight—and I won’t allow your incompetence to reflect on me.”
    His guests were another man and two women who all looked straight out of the Addams Family , if you can imagine the Addams Family including a Steven Spielberg lookalike and pair of Playboy centerfolds. These three didn’t look so much embarrassed at their host’s tantrum as just plain envious. And hungry.
    “ Sir, I’d be so happy to bring you anything else you might want tonight, but I’m afraid it’s just not possible—”
    “ Just bring me your manager, please!”
    Brittany turned pink and looked like she might cry. She was a skinny, kind of gawky brunette, probably just out of state college, who was about a head taller than me. I figured we looked a little funny together because of the height thing, so I’d been careful not to stand too close to her. But now she looked like she could use some support.
    Too late. Brittany ducked her head so nobody could see her face and said, “I’ll go find Mr. Schreich.” She took off, leaving me to deal with the table.
    “ Would you like me to get you anything else for now?” I asked them.
    I was holding a tray of crème brûlées. One of the blondes—the one I thought of as ‘Kendra’ because she looked like the Playmate chick who had her own reality TV show—just snickered at me and said, “Not that , anyway.”
    After a few minutes, Mr. Schreich came up, wringing his hands and cringingly apologizing. All I could hear was something about being sure to have it in stock tomorrow night.
    Meanwhile Kev came up behind me and said in a sort of loud whisper over the roar of clinking cutlery and dinner-table conversation, “What was all that about?”
    “ They wanted some dish called Langschweinefleisch ,” I told him. “I’ve never heard of it.”
    He shrugged. Kev was even taller and, if possible, younger than Brittany. He was also good looking and so