Waiting; The True Confessions of a Waitress Read Online Free PDF Page A

swimming pool and drew ini tialed hearts pierced with arrows over the game-room jukebox.
    Like every other teenage couple that summer, we had our own song. Steve cared very little about this detail, so I chose G4, “You Belong to Me.” Since I was on call for all three meals in the lun cheonette, Steve spent a lot of time waiting for me to take breaks. He rose late and drank coffee in the mornings and played pinball through lunch. He’d stay up with me on Saturday nights as I worked, stealing me away for frequent make-out breaks on the paddleball courts. Sometimes he’d come in with his friends for dinner and they’d tease me when I came over to their table. No matter what meal I was serving, though, he was always there, smiling admiringly and whispering vaguely obscene com ments as I passed by serving fruit plates and wiping down tables. Although I served breakfast and worked into lunch, my day didn’t really begin until I glimpsed the sight of Steve walking through the door, tossing his quarters, and heard him say, “Morning, babe. When are you getting out of here today?”
    Steve’s mother, a flaming redhead with a Brenda Vaccaro voice, thought I was “adorable” and took several Polaroids of the two us posing, Grease style, at the pool. My father was definitely not as enamored with Steve. He kept a constant watchful eye on me, his eldest daughter, and grimaced every time he saw us flirt ing. To avoid confrontations with my father, Steve and I would hold hands under newspapers on the counter and sneak short kisses behind the soda fountain. Every time my father disappeared into the kitchen, we’d hurry to brush past each other to touch, however briefly. But one afternoon, my father came back to the luncheonette early after picking up some produce and found me sitting at a table next to Steve, who had his hand resting on my naked knee. I knew I was in for it when my father’s gaze shot immediately to my leg. Steve yanked his hand back as if he’d been burned and I jumped up at the same time, but it was too late. My father was absolutely horrified and demanded that I “cool it with that boy” immediately. Of course, his disapproval added an element of the forbidden to the whole thing and made it infinitely more appealing.
    As the summer progressed, I got better at the tableside par rying that was so integral to the job. I learned to carry more than one item at a time (although it would be many years before I could balance three plates on one arm while I carried a fourth in the other) and I learned to anticipate what our customers would order. I began receiving tips. Even Sophie Zucker left some crumpled dollar bills on her table after a meal.
    (I also became aware of a fact that continues to be true. New Yorkers tip well. To this day, when I find a New Yorker seated at my table, I breathe a sigh of relief. No matter what the demands or how blunt the comments, I know there will be a nice reward waiting for me at the end.)
    My liaison with Steve heated up as July moved into August. After one particularly late Saturday night, my family decided to spend the night at Maxman’s instead of driving home. I snuck out with Steve and two other couples and we spent the hours until dawn sitting on a cliff overhanging the freeway. This kind of make-out party was old hat for Steve and his buddies, but for me it was the most daring and exciting thing I’d ever done. I watched the sun rise in slow streaks of gold on the horizon as Steve dozed on my shoulder and knew I’d be in deep trouble for staying out all night, but I couldn’t have cared less at the moment. What I was doing just seemed so daring. The taste of that riskiness and its attendant freedom was truly sweet.
    When I strolled into the luncheonette a few hours later (alone—I insisted that Steve not accompany me out of fear for him ), my father was practically apoplectic. We had a tremendous fight over where I had been and what I had done, which ended with me