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

tearfully shouting, “But I didn’t do anything wrong!” My father didn’t exactly forbid me to see Steve any longer, but disap pearing with my boyfriend was no longer possible. My father and I didn’t speak to each other for two weeks, which made working together in the heat of the luncheonette quite unpleasant. (To my father’s credit, he never confronted Steve about his misgivings, preferring to keep it strictly within the family, saving me from what would have been a supremely embarrassing scene.)
    Naturally, this family feud only helped to make the relation ship more intense, and as September crept into view, Steve accel erated his efforts to take it one step further. Although I dreaded to think where she’d gotten her information, it appeared that Lori Zucker’s predictions were coming to pass. Tired of rounding the same two bases after six weeks, Steve sought creative arguments to entice me into going all the way. We’d soon be separated, he told me. He loved me, he said, didn’t I love him, too? Finally, he added, he’d be gentle. Despite a healthy curiosity on my part, I took the lesson of Valerie Grossman to heart and remained clothed from the waist down. Steve persisted. This struggle reached a feverish pitch over the Labor Day weekend. Aware that Steve and I would shortly be torn asunder, my father (he wasn’t heartless, after all) let me take Saturday night off so that I could spend it with Steve. While his parents enjoyed the last show of the season in the casino, Steve and I huddled together in his darkened bungalow. After an hour of endearments, persuasions, and passionate petting, I finally yielded.
    “OK,” I told Steve, “let’s do it.”
“You mean it?”
    “I mean it,” I said, wondering if I did.
    Over the years, I’ve often wondered what happened to Steve in that moment because what he said next truly surprised me.
    “No, I don’t think so.”
    “What?”
    “You’re not ready,” Steve said, “and I don’t want your first time to be a bad experience. I can wait. I want to wait until you’re ready.”
    Could he really be this sensitive, I wondered, or had his body been temporarily overtaken by an alien being? At any rate, I was astonished, amazed, and, from that moment forward, completely in love. I burst into tears of joy. Steve, too, was moved by his own gallantry and shed one or two of his own. We declared passionate and undying love for each other and then stumbled out into the brightness of the luncheonette, arms wrapped around each other. My father looked relieved that we’d emerged so early, and I helped close down dinner with a complacency that must have totally confused him.
    In the last twenty years, I have rarely experienced moments such as the one I did that night in 1978. I had a devoted boyfriend who had just demonstrated his love for me in the most touching way I could have hoped for. My father was smil ing at me, totally contented with my behavior for the first time all summer. Even my sister seemed unusually energetic and lively. I had everything I wanted and I was so happy I began weeping all over again. I felt I would live forever. Perhaps when one is sixteen this feeling is not such a difficult one to come by, but there have been precious few times since then when all seemed so right with the world and the future felt so full of life and promise. The color and bustle of the luncheonette were an integral part of all this, and it became, in my memory, forever fused with danger and delight, first love and triumph.
    Over the next few days, we packed up the luncheonette and watched our regulars drift back to the city. My sister and I both received unexpected bonuses: many of our customers gave us chunks of cash for our devoted service throughout the summer. Sophie Zucker was among them.
    School, when I returned the following week, seemed gray, uninviting, and terribly quiet. I missed the excitement horribly and spent the evenings writing down every moment of the