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Pan? I had no idea what pan was. But being the gung-ho student of Spanish I am, I asked Alfonso, the cook. Pan, so it seems, means bread. Bread. Okaaay. This is a Mexican restaurant, not a bakery. But who was I to argue with tattooed Lux Luther on steroids? If that frightening man wanted pan, I was going to give it to him. Lucky for me, I found some rolls in the kitchen—probably used for employee lunches or something on the breakfast menu. I replaced the greasy tissue paper in the chip basket with a clean one, filled it with rolls, and brought it to the customer.
He was not pleased. Actually, he was quite livid, shouting at me in Spanish—which I didn’t understand except one word—the one word Ignacio specifically warned me not to repeat.
I’m beginning to see the wisdom in that.
Rosa calmed the man down and took over the table for me. All in all, not a bad day.
I think the tips were pretty good. I’ll have to wait until the end of my shift when I balance my book. But I’m hopeful. Most of the customers gave me a little extra just for spreading joy with candy canes on my leggings.
It’s quiet now. There are a few stragglers that will take me until my shift ends. The side work helps me pass time. I think about Ignacio, the way he practically threw the cash at me. My tips are probably enough to buy a pair of pants once I pay my rent. I’m two weeks overdue. It’s a miracle my landlord hasn’t evicted me. But he's a sweet old guy despite how hard he tries to hide it. I think he has a soft spot for me, being from Jersey himself.
“Can you take another table?” Rosa asks me, finding me in the server station, doing my roll-ups. Fifty roll-ups per server—that’s the rule. I usually end up doing seventy-five because I’m a can-do kind of girl.
“Sure, I don’t mind,” I say. Technically, I should be done taking new tables for the day. But I need the money, and Rosa knows it. She’s giving this one up for me.
“They have menus,” she says, pouring two Cokes. “And I took their drink order. Here. Table thirteen.”
I smile gratefully and take the drinks from her, heading to table thirteen with a bounce in my step. I could really get the hang of this, and hopefully I’ll be able to make rent on time next month.
But my happy steps slow down and become dreadful slogs when I come upon the two people sitting at table thirteen, waiting for their Cokes. My ex-boyfriend, Aaron and the blonde hussy he left me for. The one with cheap perfume and too much eyebrow liner. The one who has the gall to smile at me while Aaron just stares, slack-jaw, face the color of paper.
“O-Olive.” He gulps. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m still holding the Cokes, two feet from the table. My stomach completely bottoms out, seeing them together like this, all smushed side by side on the same seat of the booth. Yuk. She’s practically on his lap.
“Hi, Olive,” she says with her slimy voice. “Are you going to give us our drinks?”
I’m frozen solid, unable to form a syllable. Oh, there are so many things I’d just love to say to them. Things I may have rehearsed. Witty, salty things. But in my mind, I’d always thought I’d be super successful at something, like maybe I’d be meeting a super important client for my super important corporate job. I’d be like, “Oh, hey. Starbucks on me.” And then we’d glide out the door of the Starbucks, expensive coffees in hand, and there I’d run into Aaron and Eyebrows. In this scenario, they’d be begging for coins with a dirty, used coffee cup they’d found in the trash.
“Alms for the poor,” they’d say, or something pathetic like that. And I’d toss them a quarter with pity on my face and Aaron would see how successful I’d become without him. And he’d beg me to take him back, groveling at my feet.
Sometimes I’d toss them a hundred-dollar bill, saying how I just don’t have anything smaller. But then I rewind my daydream and make it a penny because they don’t deserve a hundred-dollar bill from me. Not after I walked in on them doing the deed—on TOP of my favorite quilt. No. They don’t even deserve the penny. They owe me a new quilt, dagnabbit.
“Olive?” Aaron shifts his eyes from the Cokes in my hands to the table. Like now he’s instructing me how to do my waitressing job? “Are those our drinks?”
And something in me just goes pop. A tiny water balloon in my head. Pop. This isn’t Starbucks. I’m not a successful business lady. Aaron and Eyebrows aren’t begging for coins, and these two drinks in my hands are not fancy coffee drinks.
Don’t do it, Olive. Don’t even think about it.
The little voice in my head is a wise sage. But she’s not the one holding two tall glasses of cola.
I’m at war—like a force outside my body is holding me in place while I struggle to break through so I can douse Aaron in Coca-Cola.
“Wow, Olive,” says Aaron, clearly noticing my eye twitch. It’s one of my tells. “You got yourself a service job. Good for you.”
It’s the “Good for you.” that does it. So condescending. So smug. So… Aaron.
“Good for you,” is what he said when I tried to learn Ukulele and sucked at it. Or when I took that karate class. It’s what he always says to remind me I’m not good enough. That no matter what I do, I’ll fail. I try and try and try, but at the end of the day, I’m just spinning my wheels. I’m not like Aaron… everything comes easy for Aaron Lipshitz. Especially blondes, apparently.
My hands make their move, going for that ‘ol splash-his-face-with-water schtick, like in the movies. Except it’s not water. And so, that force outside me, which was holding me back completely before, decided in that moment to only hold me back… partially.
I must pause here to say I’m not one of those vindictive people. I could never understand women who slashed their cheating boyfriends’ tires or even slapped them. I always admired the women in films who, instead of resorting to rash actions, would have a smart and witty one-liner to really put the guy in his place—or a power speech. But I’m not clever enough for that, always coming up with something to say hours after any confrontation. When I caught Aaron cheating, I didn’t say a word. I didn’t cry. I didn’t break anything. I held up my chin, grabbed a random house plant, and left without letting them see how much I was shaking. I left that horrific scene with dignity.
But right this second, well, my dignity can just shove it.
Just a little splash. Maybe it will look like an accident. Then I see Ignacio in the corner of my eye, chatting with a customer at a nearby booth. And that’s when it all falls apart. Not only do I not want to get fired, I don’t want to disappoint this man who’d given me a second chance. He may be a curmudgeon, but he’s a fair curmudgeon.
Much like the wedding cake fiasco, my brain is too slow to stop action already in motion, and instead of a triumphant spectacular splash in the face, my hands clonk the glasses on the table, letting them tumble over, spilling sticky cola onto the laps of both Aaron and his horrified trollop.
