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

previous two months in my journal. I also wrote Steve a series of long letters filled with yearning and declarations of love. When he proved to be a less than reliable correspondent, I turned my letters into short stories and folded them into notebooks at school, where they could be viewed over and over again.
    My parents had quite a different reaction. My father spoke of going on a spiritual retreat after his experience running the lun cheonette. In fact, he did something similar; nine months later we all moved to Oregon, a state considered so rural my friends couldn’t even pronounce it properly. And after sweating over roast pork and chicken all summer, all seven members of my family became vegetarian.
    Although Steve and I had sworn to remain close, we drifted out of touch within a few months. I’ve never seen him again and so he remains forever the cute boy in tight white pants, smiling into the lens of a Polaroid camera. As for Maxman’s, it no longer exists. We had come into the luncheonette at the tail end of an era. Almost all of the bungalow colonies shut down and faded away shortly after.
     
    I am jolted out of my reverie now by Gold Chains and his date, who are frantically waving me over to their table. Beside me is a stack of folded napkins a foot high. I’ve drifted far afield remembering the luncheonette. But I know once again why I am still here. There is the same underlying thrill of excitement and movement to this job now as when I was sixteen. To be sure, I have changed and the landscape is considerably different. I no longer feel I will live forever. Yet I can still remember what it felt like when every night was a new adventure. Gold Chains and his date are as much a part of these feelings as Sophie Zucker or even Steve. In the end, my relationships with all of these people (however short) are what have kept me coming back for more. There is still the thrill of a good challenge for me here. More important, perhaps, there is a certain romance inherent in making human connections.
    As I head over to Gold Chains and his date, my attitude toward them shifts once again. They are my last table, and cash ing them out will finally allow me to go home. When Gold Chains asks for the check (they are now in a tremendous hurry to leave), I am actually grateful. I don’t even care what or if they tip. I’ve already written them off and moved on.
    The tip, in fact, will be the last piece of this adventure. Will I be rewarded for my efforts? I suspect not. The check is fifty-four dollars and change. Gold Chains pays with a hundred-dollar bill (somehow I’m not surprised—he just doesn’t look like the credit card type). I make change at the bar, which consists of a five-dollar bill and two twenties. I don’t bother breaking the twenties down. As far as I’m concerned, the smart bet is on a five-dollar tip. So be it. From a distance, I watch Gold Chains take some money out of the check cover and push the remainder toward the edge of the table. It’s my cue to come pick it up. After waiting a decent interval, I do just that.
    “Thanks again,” Gold Chains tells me.
    “Thank you, ” I respond.
    I wait until I’m out of view to open the check cover and look at the tip. Nestled there safely is one crisp twenty-dollar bill.
     
    [ ]
tw o
     
    tippin g (i t’s not a city in china )
     
    My last year of high school was an exercise in homoge nized boredom. In the spring of my junior year, my family moved from upstate New York to a suburban area outside Portland, Oregon. It was pretty and it was green, but I found absolutely nothing to connect with in my new school or my new class mates. I’d gone from a scrappy, decidedly multicultural environ ment to one that very closely resembled Ira Levin’s Stepford. Everyone at my new school, it seemed, was given a car for his or her seventeenth birthday. The highest social achievement for boys was a spot on the football team. For girls, it was the pep squad. When,