Chapter 1
“Natalie.”
Table 12 had been waiting for twenty-three minutes for a Caesar salad, which was a salad, which was lettuce, which should not have taken twenty-three minutes unless the lettuce was being individually counseled before assembly. Table 6 wanted a refill on their Diet Coke, which I’d said absolutely, one second to approximately four minutes ago, which in restaurant time was approximately a lifetime, which meant table six now hated me, and I would receive a 2 percent tip and a comment card that said service was slow.
“NATALIE.”
I snapped back. Blinked. I was in the back, the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the fountain drinks, Diet Coke in hand, the glass sweating against my palm. Miguel was standing in front of me. Apron already off. Keys in one hand.
“We’re out of chicken,” he said.
“We can’t be out of chicken.”
“Danny says we’ve been out since the lunch rush.”
“Half the menu is chicken. The chicken tenders, the chicken sandwich, the chicken Caesar... that’s like sixty percent of what people order. Did you say since lunch?”
“I’m going to WinCo right now. I’ll be back in twenty, thirty minutes tops.”
“Twenty—THIRTY? Miguel, no. No. You can’t leave. We’ve barely trained on... I’ve done like two shifts as a lead. Two. And one of them was a Tuesday lunch where the hardest decision I made was whether to comp a guy’s iced tea because there was a fruit fly in it. I’m not ready for a Thursday dinner without you.”
“You’re ready. You’re readier than you think.”
“I am exactly as not ready as I think. I am precisely that amount of unready.”
“Natalie.” He said calmly. “Step up. I need you to step up. Handle the floor. Eighty-six the chicken items, push the burgers, push the fish tacos—”
“Miguel—”
“And you need to talk to Danny; he’s been subbing turkey for the chicken tenders without telling anyone.”
“He’s been WHAT?”
“Turkey. For the last hour. Someone orders chicken because they can’t eat something else, and we give them turkey? That’s a lawsuit.”
“Oh my God.”
“So go talk to Danny. Shut it down. Eighty-six the chicken. I’ll be back.”
“Miguel—”
“You got this.”
He left. Through the back door. Into the parking lot, with unbothered confidence of a man who had just handed a burning building to a twenty-two-year-old making eleven-fifty an hour. One dollar more than she’d been making before.
Table 6′s Diet Coke. Right. I still had the Diet Coke. I delivered it to table 6 with the smile, the apologetic one. I am SO sorry about the wait smile. The woman at table six said “finally” in a voice that suggested I had personally wronged her by taking four minutes to bring over her beverage. I said “I know, I’m so sorry, can I get you anything else?” and she said “no” and I said “wonderful!”
I went to the kitchen.
Carlos was at the dish pit, handling sheet pans with unnecessary aggression. The radio was on the classic rock station, which meant Danny was running the music. He had a strong preference for Def Leppard. Danny was at the fry station. And standing next to him, leaning against the prep counter with her arms crossed, was Yael.
They were talking. Or Danny was talking and Yael was tolerating it. This was the type of conversation that happened when Danny was involved. He was saying something about a fight he’d seen last night in the street and I wasn’t entirely sure Yael was listening. She had her kitchen blacks on, towels over her shoulder, her blue hair pulled back under a backwards cap. The tattoos on her forearms peeked out from underneath.
She’d been here for three, maybe four months. Long enough to become part of the team. Long enough that I knew her name and her station. She didn’t seem interested in becoming friends with anyone. Specifically, it seemed not with me.
Yael didn’t talk to people because she was shy, but because she didn’t want to. She talked to Danny because Danny was on her line and the job required it. She talked to Miguel when Miguel talked to her. She did not talk to me.
I had decided, approximately six weeks ago, that this meant she didn’t like me. Which was fine. Not everyone had to like me. I was a grown adult who understood that interpersonal chemistry was not universal. Except that everyone liked me. Everyone had always liked me. I was likable. Likability was my whole thing: oh my gosh, I love your earrings. I had been voted Most Friendly in high school. Yet this woman had looked at me on her first week and decided, without giving me a chance, that I was not worth the effort of a conversation.
It was fine.
“Danny,” I said.
He looked up. Grinned. The Danny smile. The one he gave every female server under thirty.
“Hey, Natalie. Looking good tonight. Is that a new apron?”
“It’s the same apron I wear every shift.”
“Well, it’s working.”
“Danny. The turkey.”
“What about it?”
“You’ve been subbing turkey for the chicken tenders.”
“Yeah. We ran out of chicken. I improvised. Nobody’s noticed.”
“You can’t DO that. That’s a liability. Someone has an allergy; someone can’t eat turkey for whatever reason. We’re serving them something they didn’t order without telling them? That’s a lawsuit. That’s... Danny, that could shut us down.”
“It’s poultry. Chicken is poultry. Turkey is poultry. Same shit.”
“It’s not the same shit,” I said.
“It’s not the same shit,” Yael said.
We said it at the same time. She was still leaning against the prep counter, arms crossed, not looking at me. Looking at Danny.
Danny looked between us. Grinned wider. “Okay, okay. The council has spoken.”
“It’s not funny,” I said. “Eighty-six the chicken. All of it. Everything with chicken comes off the board until Miguel gets back with more. Fish tacos for everyone.”
“The fish tacos are mid.”
“I don’t CARE if the fish tacos are mid. Stop serving people turkey.”
“You’re cute when you’re bossy.”
“I am your shift lead. I am in a position of authority.”
“Yes ma’am.”
I looked at Yael again. For backup, to confirm that this ridiculous thing happening was as I thought, I looked at her, and gave her that “Can you believe this guy?” smile, inviting a connection and acknowledgment that we were in this together, or that he was the worst, or anything, any kind of response that would show that she saw me as a person.
She looked at me. Registered the smile. Did not smile back.
The not-smiling was a complete sentence. A full stop. The period at the end of a thing that hadn’t been written. She looked at me and she did not smile and then she looked away.
“I’m clocking out,” Yael said. To Danny. Not to me. “I was supposed to be off an hour ago.”
“You’re bailing?” Danny said.
“I already stayed longer than I planned. I’ve got shit to do.” She pulled the towel off her shoulder. Tossed it into the linen bin.
She walked past me. Through the kitchen. Toward the back where the time clock was and the lockers were. She walked past me and she did not look at me.
“She’s like that with everyone,” he said. “Don’t take it personal.”
“I’m not taking anything personal. I don’t--I wasn’t—”
“Natalie.” Marissa. In the kitchen doorway. “My table 9 wants to talk to someone. The steak. He says it’s not medium rare.”
“So refire it.”
“I offered. He doesn’t want a refire. He wants a manager.”
“Then get Miguel.”
“Miguel’s at WinCo.”
“Then —”
“You’re the manager, Natalie.”
“I’m not the manager. I’m a child, Marissa.” I hissed. “I’m a CHILD. I don’t know how to talk to angry men about steaks. That wasn’t in the training. Miguel was supposed to train me on conflict resolution and he didn’t, and I can’t... can’t you just... tell him I’m coming? Tell him the manager is on the way? Buy me time?”
“Time for what?”
“To emotionally prepare! To do a breathing exercise! To Google ‘how to talk to angry customers about steak’!”
“GO. To the TABLE.”
I went to the table. Every step a negotiation between the body that was moving forward and the brain that was screaming in the opposite direction.
Table 9. A man. Fifties. Polo shirt. The kind of tan that came from a golf course and a deliberate commitment to outdoor leisure. His wife was next to him, not looking at me, who had been married long enough to know when to disengage from her husband’s confrontations. There was a plate in front of him. A steak. The steak had been cut into and the interior was... medium rare.
“Hi there,” I said. The smile. The voice. Maximum wattage. “I’m so sorry about the wait. I’m the shift lead tonight. What can I help you with?”
“I ordered medium rare.” He pointed at the steak. The pink steak. The correctly cooked steak. “Does that look medium rare to you?”
It did. It looked like the textbook definition of medium rare.
“I understand your concern,” I said, and I didn’t understand his concern because the steak was perfect, but the customer is always right, and the customer is always right, and the customer is always RIGHT even when the customer is pointing at a correctly cooked steak. “What were you expecting it to look like?”
“I wanted it cooked. This is practically raw.”
“I completely understand,” I said. “I can absolutely have the kitchen put some more time in this for you. It’ll just be a few minutes—”
“I don’t want more TIME on it. I want it done RIGHT. I ordered medium rare, and this is not what I ordered.”
“Sir, this is actually... medium rare does have a pink center—”
“Don’t tell me what I ordered. I KNOW what I ordered. Are you saying I don’t know what I ordered?”
“No, I—I’m just—”
“Get me a manager. A real manager. Not a... how old are you?”
“Our manager is... he’s currently... he stepped out briefly to—”
“He stepped out.”
“He’ll be back shortly. In the meantime, I take full responsibility—”
“You TAKE full responsibility? What does that mean? What are you going to DO about it?”
“I can comp the steak. I can have a new one fired for you—”
“I don’t WANT a new one. I’ve been sitting here for forty minutes. My wife’s food is getting cold.” His wife continued to look elsewhere. “This is the problem with places like this. You hire children to run the show and then act surprised when everything goes to shit.”
“Sir, I understand your frustration and I—”
“You don’t understand anything. You’re a kid playing manager at a shithole that can’t cook a steak. How is that possible? Is there anyone back there who knows what they’re DOING?”
My smile was cracking. I felt very small and wanted, more than anything, to disappear. To dissolve into the floor. To be anywhere: my car, my bed, WinCo with Miguel... anywhere that was not here, in front of this man.
“I... I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really sorry. Let me just—”
“You know what, forget it. Just bring me the check. This place is a joke. YOU’RE a joke. I’m going to leave a review that—”
“Is there a problem?”
The voice came from behind me.
I turned around.
Yael. Backpack on one shoulder. Cap off: blue hair loose, the roots dark. She’d changed out of her uniform into a T-shirt and jeans, the T-shirt showing the full extent of the tattoos running down both arms, across her collarbones, up her neck. She was on her way out.
“Yeah, there’s a problem,” the man said. He pointed at the steak again. “I ordered medium rare, and this is raw. And I’ve been trying to get someone competent to deal with it, and instead I get HER.” He gestured at me. “Some kid who can’t do anything except apologize.”
Yael looked at the steak. Then she looked back at him.
“I made the steak. I’m the grill cook. That came off my station. It’s medium rare.”
“I don’t care who cooked it. It’s pink. I don’t want it pink.”
“Then you don’t want medium rare. Medium rare is pink. That’s what it is. That’s what the words mean.”
“I didn’t come here to be LECTURED by —”
“You are a grown man throwing a tantrum in a restaurant because your steak is the wrong temperature, and you don’t even know the right word for the temperature you wanted. You’re a moron. You’re acting like she personally walked back there and undercooked your steak with her bare hands. She didn’t cook it. She’s trying to fix it. And the fact that you sat here and spoke to her—to ANY person—the way you just did, over a piece of meat, tells me everything I need to know about you and the kind of man you are, which is a man who needs to yell at a girl half his age to feel like he’s in control of something. Which is pathetic. Which is genuinely, deeply fucking pathetic.”
“Who the HELL—you can’t—I want your name. I want your name RIGHT now —”
“Yael. Y-A-E-L. You want me to spell it again, slower? I can write it in the juice. Big letters. Rare. Since you can’t tell the fucking difference anyway.”
“This is unbelievable. I’m never coming back here.”
“Cool,” Yael said. “Don’t hurt yourself, Big guy.”
He left. The wife followed. She paused as she passed me. She mouthed I’m sorry as she walked past us. Then they were gone, and the door closed.
The noise came back. Slowly. Like someone turning up a dial. Table 8 resumed talking. Table 10 went back to their appetizers. The world returned to its normal operating volume.
I turned to Yael. She was adjusting her backpack strap.
“You—” I said. “That was—”
She glanced at me briefly. The glance that acknowledged my existence without committing to the acknowledgment.
“What a dick,” she said.
“Yeah, I agreed.
“You shouldn’t let people talk to you like that.”
Then she left. Through the back door. Into the parking lot and the night and whatever her life was outside of this restaurant, which I knew nothing about.
Marissa was beside me. She’d been there the whole time. She was standing with her hands on her hips and her mouth wide open.
“What.” Marissa said, “the FUCK was that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did the line cook just tell off my customer?”
“I believe so.”
“Miguel is going to lose his mind. Are you okay? You look like you’re about to—”
She was going to say cry. And she was right. I was going to cry.
I was a crier. I had always been a crier. I cried at commercials: the ones with the dogs, the ones with the soldiers coming home, the one where the dad learned to braid his daughter’s hair. I cried at church when the choir hit the third verse of “How Great Thou Art” and the sopranos came in, and the sound filled the ceiling and my chest at the same time. I cried when my mom said she was proud of me. I cried when I got a B+ on a paper I thought deserved an A. I cried when Tyler broke up with me, not because I missed him but because being broken up with was rejection and rejection was a thing my body processed through the tear ducts, regardless of whether my heart was involved. I cried at the end of Coco. I cried at the end of Marley & Me. I cried at the end of a podcast episode about a whale that sang at a frequency no other whale could hear and spent its whole life calling out to something that never answered.
I counted as a person whose body leaked when the feelings got too big for the container. The container seemed small, and the feelings bursted through, leaking constantly and embarrassingly and unstoppably. I had learned to live with it by knowing where the bathrooms were.
“I’m fine,” I said. To Marissa. To the dining room. I was staring at it because the napkin dispenser didn’t have eyes and couldn’t see my lips tremble. “I just need a second.”
I went to the bathroom. The single stall employee bathroom that smelled like literal shit and had a lock that stuck. I locked it. I sat on the closed toilet. I cried. Not a lot. Two minutes. Maybe three.
I thought about the man. His stupid polo shirt.
I thought about Yael.
I wiped my face. I fixed my mascara. I went back to the floor.
