Page 35 of The Chef

And then the customer arrives, and that’s when my second shift at Rockpool goes from bad to worse.

* * *

It’s a table of six, and they come in through the restaurant door about halfway through the shift. The particular customer is the male of the group, the Dad of the family. He leads his family of women through the restaurant door. His wife and four teenage daughters.

“Six,” he barks at me.

“Do you have a reservation, sir?” I ask, tapping at the computer terminal to find his booking.

“Six.”

It’s just another bark from him. I can find him a table anyway, but it would be helpful, if he does have a reservation, to cross his name off the list.

“Have you booked with us?”

“No.”

Finally, an answer.

“No problem, just this way.”

I usher the group towards a table. When we arrive the Dad stands still, not taking a seat.

“I’m not happy,” he says.

“Pardon?”

“Not this table.”

“Um, okay where will you like to seat?”

Without answering me, the Dad storms off towards a corner booth on the other side of the restaurant. The same table the Finn family sat in last night. I hastily follow behind with the menus, flustered at the Dad’s sudden movements.

He’s a thick man, built like a short bulky tree. Bald and sweaty. He’s shorter than me and he doesn’t have a neck. I’m being serious, no neck. It’s like his head joins into his shoulders. He doesn’t smile at me at all, in fact, I think his only expression in life is a disapproving frown. That’s certainly all he’s giving me, anyway. He just looks like a giant egg. An egg-shaped Dad.

The family sits around the booth and I hand out the menus. I turn to leave them to peruse through when the Dad lifts up his hand and clicks his fingers at me.

Clicks. His. Fingers.

I’m so shocked by the action that I don’t get angry. I just turn back around and blink at him. Confused.

I should’ve been angry. In fact, I should’ve been irate.

But it’s so callow, so rude of an action that I’m in complete shock at this man.

“Beer for me,” he barks as if clicking his fingers at me was a perfectly normal and reasonable thing to do.

I scuttle off, back to the bar to follow his order like a loser.

I’m such a coward.

I stand behind the bar, inputting his drink order and trying not to cry.

Don’t you dare cry, Bay. Not in front of this customer. Not in front of Cliff.

I can’t believe that man has done that, it was like he’s treating me not as a waitress but as his personal slave.

I don’t know what to do.