TR Grand's "Smile"

The sous chef held up two lemons. “Do your nipples look like this, or like this?” he asked, staring intently at my breasts. I glared at him as I grabbed the plates from the pick-up line. He rubbed his thumbs over the nubs on the end of each lemon and licked his lips. The other cooks laughed while the dishwasher grabbed his crotch and thrust in my direction. The manager leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, leering. He winked as I walked past him through the swinging doors into the dining room to deliver my customers their meals; grass-fed aged porterhouse steak, medium-rare, with potatoes lyonnaise and garlic butter mushrooms for him, and a winter salad with three kinds of locally grown microgreens, fire roasted root vegetables, crumbled house-made goat cheese, and maple balsamic vinaigrette for her.

I plastered on a smile, trying to appear like a welladjusted human who enjoyed her work and wasn’t at all sexually harassed every time she walked into the kitchen. I passed another waitress and we shared a knowing look—they were in a mood tonight. After the meals were delivered—happy smiles all around—I picked up the empty dishes and pocketed the tip from a table that had just left. Only $8 off a $96 meal, despite my busting my ass to make sure they had great service and a good time. I knew as soon as they’d sat down that they’d be cheap, I should have trusted my instincts. I certainly wasn’t working here for the ambience. I needed the cash in a bad way, and usually tips were much more rewarding for the shit we had to put up with.

Taking the plates into the kitchen and dumping them at the dishwashing station, I kept my head down. The cooks were chattering amongst themselves, seemingly unaware of my presence. If I could just get out without them noticing me—“hey how come your skirt is so long tonight, mama? I wanna see those thighs!” the prep cook yelled as he clinked beer bottles with the fry cook and they each took a sloppy drag.

They’d helped themselves to several bottles earlier from the bar, without paying. The bartender had complained about it, she’d had to comp them and was worried she’d be in trouble later at cash-out, knowing it would likely come out of her tips. I kept my head down, careful to avoid any exaggerated movements, and fled the kitchen to the relative safety of the dining room.

The manager was at the hostess station. I noticed he had his hand very low on the back of the new hostess and was murmuring something in her ear. The poor girl couldn’t have been more than 16 years old and she looked terrified. I’d have to talk to her later, try to soften the blow of reality in the food service industry— or at the very least, warn her to the particular nuances of this seemingly “nice” restaurant. What things look like on the outside are very rarely, if ever, what they actually are behind the scenes. Better to tell her now than have her learn it the hard way later, the way some of us did. I grabbed the water pitcher from the hostess station, shooting the manager a dirty look as I did so, and made my way to the table that had just been sat. I found my big fake smile and made small talk about the evening and the weather, then told them about the specials. “Our specials tonight are an elk carpaccio with wild berry mustard, locally grown arugula, and housemade potato chips to start, and for the main a glazed pork belly with cumin and brown sugar glaze, roasted bok choy and scallion, crispy kale, and smashed baby potatoes. Although personally, I recommend the butternut squash ravioli, the chef has really outdone himself with this recipe and there are only 3 servings left. It has been a big hit this weekend.” I took their drink orders—prosecco to start, followed by a wine to be paired with their meal selections—and headed for the bar.

As I punched in the drink order I made eye contact with the bartender, and I could see she was fighting back tears. I held her gaze, and she whispered that the manager had pushed her up against the wall in the storeroom a few minutes earlier, when she’d gone back to get more clamato juice. He’d grabbed her ass and tried to kiss her, and as she turned to get away she’d knocked a large jar of pickles over and it had broken. Not only had he forced her onto her knees to clean it up, he’d yelled at her the entire time for being clumsy and wasteful. She had a red welt on her upper arm and sticky pickle juice on her tights and shoes. I gave her a reassuring smile—or the best I could come up with that resembled reassuring—then made quick rounds of my tables to make sure they didn’t have any immediate needs.

I passed the manager and he grabbed my wrist, twisting it slightly. “What was that look for earlier, huh?” he hissed. “Don’t put any ideas into the new one’s head, she’s still a good girl." He let go, patted me on the shoulder, and gave a huge grin to the room. Boomed “great job tonight kiddo, one of our best servers!” The customers within earshot smiled, nodded, yes, they had heard this was one of the best restaurants in town, just look at how happy the employees were, yes, it must be true, validation.