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“Eight fifteen, Charlotte,” Maxine said, tapping her watch with a blood-red nail. Her steel-colored hair was pulled so tight in its bun I pitied her scalp.
“I know, I’m sorry,” I told my manager as I threw open my locker and grabbed my waist apron. “You know how the subway is…” I pinned my nametag to my white button-down blouse, poking my thumb in the process.
Maxine crossed her arms over her black turtleneck. “The subway runs on time. You, on the other hand…”
I tied my hair up in a ponytail. “I promise it won’t happen again.”
“Mmmhmm.”
My manager slipped out and Anthony Washington—a graphic artist and my work BFF—peeked his head in. His eyes were the friendliest things I’d seen all day, as brown as his skin and warm with kindness.
“Getting busy,” he said. “Four-top in your section. Want me to take their drinks?”
“You’re too good to me,” I said, stuffing my order pad into my pocket. “Thanks for covering, but I got it.”
Anthony stood over me, towered really, but then everyone did; I was barely five-three. He adjusted the pale-yellow tie we all had to wear. “Bad day to be late, sweetness,” he said. He nodded in Maxine’s direction. “I heard from Skeletor that some shit’s going down today.”
Icy dread filled my veins. “It is?”
But there was no time to talk. The restaurant was filling up.
Annabelle’s was a breakfast/lunch bistro that catered to the leisurely diner—it didn’t even open until eight a.m. But the diners now were more impatient than leisurely; I spent the entire shift playing catch-up while trying my hardest to keep the smile plastered onto my face. Maxine watched me like a hawk. All it would take was one complaint about cold spinach Florentine or a too-slow coffee refill and I’d be toast.
I made it through the rush without a complaint, but I was off my game. We wouldn’t get cashed out until the end of the shift, but I could do the math. It had been a slow March already, and I’d have to have two killer nights—and I meankiller—at my second job bartending this weekend if I had a prayer of making rent.
I smoothed my hair and took a breath, determined to have a better lunch than breakfast…and then my morning was saved. The bussers were moving tables together in my station.
“Ten-top,” Anthony crowed as we watched the group of well-dressed people come in. He clutched my arm. “Girl, that’s Neil Patrick Harris.”
“What? No…”
I looked and sure enough, at the center of the group was the handsome actor, talking and laughing easily with his friends.
Anthony nudged my elbow and flashed me his own brilliant smile. “Your knight in shining armor.”
“You got that right.”
Neil Patrick Harris’ ten-top was going to save my month. I heaved a steadying breath, determined to not make a fool of myself in front of the celebrity and his friends, and readied my notepad.
Behind me, at the register, a young man in a backward baseball cap jabbed an angry text into his phone. “Screw this fucking guy!”
The entire restaurant stopped to look—Annabelle’s wasn’t the sort of place for outbursts. But this was also New York City; the customers went back to their conversations a moment later, unperturbed, as the young man threw up his hands.
“Tell that bastard he can get his own damn food,” he told Maxine and stormed out.
Commotion over, I turned my focus to my table when Maxine’s cold, clipped voice stopped me dead.
“Charlotte, if you please?”
I hurried to the register. “Yes?”
She pushed a short stack of to-go boxes wrapped up in a plastic bag toward me. “I need you to make this delivery.”
My heart dropped. “But…I just got sat…”
“Anthony can take it. This is important.” She jerked her pointy chin at Anthony.
He hesitated, but Maxine waved her hand at him. Anthony looked at me helplessly, mouthingI’m sorry, and I watched him walk up to my table, in my section, to wait on my Neil Patrick Harris.
