1
THE ODOR FROM THE broccoli in the rigatoni dish overpowered Hailey’s senses as she grabbed the edge of the hot platter in her hands. She couldn't help but grimace.
“What's wrong with the food?” her boss asked.
“Oh, uh, nothing. I just hate the smell of broccoli.”
“How could you hate broccoli? It’s so good for you.”
“But is it worth the attack on my taste buds, Mike?”
Mike snorted as Hailey grabbed her two plates and walked away.
She tried not to gag as she made her way across the busy dining room toward table twenty-two. It wasn't too busy in the restaurant and she only had two tables at the moment, her second table already enjoying their food.
Mike was a decent enough boss. One of the betterones she’d had. A great sense of humor, and it hardly ever became inappropriate. That was a rare occurrence in nature for her. Her last job was as a football reporter for the “Cherrywood Times” newspaper and the boss there couldn't help but make every joke either offensive or gross, a trait she came to loathe so much that it made her rethink her life goals and leave the industry altogether. Perhaps a less male-dominated field was where she needed to be.
It wasn't that Hailey was overly sensitive, but there were only so many times an employee can be asked to go get high and trashed by her pig of a boss that she could stomach. He was her boss for cripe’s sake, not one of the other reporters or even a friend. She also really didn’t need to know about the pussy he was “knee-deep in” each weekend either. He was likely full of shit anyway.
Instead, while balancing a couple part-time jobs, she was writing a fantasy novel about dragons and hoped to become a real novelist. Her imagination always ran wild anyway, so she might as well have started to write it all down.
She adjusted the plates in her hands so the individual pepperoni pizza’s aroma was wafting toward her face instead of the broccoli in the pasta dish. The result made her sigh in relief as she approached the table.
The restaurant tables were mostly booths, which made a lot of the clientele happy. The booths were a richbrown leather with dark wood frames. They lined the wall under a row of windows that the sun poured through throughout the day, with diners begging them to adjust the blinds so they wouldn’t be blinded by the sun’s rays. In the middle of the long restaurant was another row of booths with a partition in the middle and then there were four tables next to the kitchen for bigger parties and anyone that didn’t want to or couldn’t sit in a booth.
The kitchen was open-air designed and diners could watch the cooks work as they walked by on their way to the bathrooms, with a special counter for anyone that wanted to sit and watch the pizza cooks work their magic. The oven was red brick and gave the pizza a perfectly crispy crust. But, the best part about it was it was easy to mess up a pizza and burn it, which sometimes meant free pizza for the servers. No one had made a mistake that day, though, so she was beginning to get hungry.
The pair she approached let go of each other's hands from across the table as she reached them with their food, excited for the coming meal.
“Rigatoni, broccoli and chicken,” she said as she placed the first plate down in front of a woman wearing nothing but red, all the way down to her nails. “And pepperoni pizza. Do you need anything else?”
She prayed they didn't need anything else so she could go check on her other table. The timing wouldbe perfect.
“Oh, do you have crushed red pepper flakes?”
Thank goodness, an easy ask as the shaker was on the kiosk right behind their table.
“Sure, right here!”
She grabbed it and placed it on their table.
“Okay, enjoy your meal!”
“You, too! Crap, I mean, thanks,” the lady in red started to flush in embarrassment and now even her skin matched her outfit.
“No worries. You’ve inspired me to go eat something!” The women chuckled.
Cute couple, she thought to herself as she stepped up to the table directly across from them.
“How is everything?”
A man in a workout tee and one in a polo nodded with full mouths and thumbs up, the best response a server could get.
“Great!” She exclaimed with maybe a little too much energy before walking from the pair. As much as she loved the cash in her pocket at the end of a restaurant shift, she didn't actually enjoy the work to get it, so she was ecstatic when that work flowed easily. She made her way to the other end of the dining room where another server was standing punching in an order at one of the computer kiosks.
“Slow shift, huh?” Anne asked as she approached, then she gave Hailey’s long, dark brown ponytail a lighttug when she reached her.
“About as slow as your mom to leave my house last night. Tell her to hurry up next time.”
