“Stop, he’s great,” Hailey said with not much sincerity. She was getting tired of defending him.
“He never visits you here and the one time he did he was an absolute dick to the hostess and me. Are you still not allowed to talk to guys?”
She sighed. She tended to do that a lot when talking about Gage. Of course she wasallowedto talk to guys. Gage just didn’t like it and was super jealous, so it was way easier when he wasn’t around. She didn’t complain when he stopped visiting her at work after just one time.
“This is why I’ve been considering women.”
“Do it! The heteros are not alright.”
“You’re not wrong, but I’m mostly kidding.”
Although she wasn’t totally kidding. Sometimes she wished sexuality actually was a choice. Men had done nothing but disappoint her so far in life and every relationship she had had ended badly. This current relationship seemed like it was doomed but Hailey didn’t think she could get out of it just yet. She loved him, for one thing. Could she really do any better? Probably not. It didn’t help that she sucked at quitting things. Andgiving up on a one-year relationship felt like quitting, no matter how much she spent her time crying. Women were so much nicer. Especially when you were drunk in a club bathroom. Best place in the world for free therapy and new friends.
Hailey’s family absolutely adored Gage. He was charming, had a stable job in finance, owned his own place, his family had an Italian background just like her mom’s side of the family, and he went to church. She liked to think that some things were more important, like respecting her needs, letting her be herself, listening to her, but what did she know, apparently? Who needs mutual respect when a guy can buy you nice things? Gag.
She snapped out of her thinking and realized she had to check on how her tables were doing. Andrew made his way back to the kitchen while she made her way back to her tables. Her newest table needed some more rolls and drink refills so she headed toward the kitchen to grab everything. The stainless steel counters stretched the entire length of the kitchen with the cooks directly behind it.
As she walked in, Mike grabbed her attention.
“Hey Hailey, 86 eggplant. We’re all out.”
“How’d we run out of eggplant? Hardly anyone ever orders it.” When a restaurant ran out of a product, it was considered 86ed, which was always annoying because that’s when customers would order it most.
“A bunch was wasted during prep today. Something to do with emojis. It’s better if you don’t ask.”
Hailey blinked at Mike a few times and then turned around to continue what she was doing. She wasn’t going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.
She walked to the end of the counter and used tongs to grab some hot rolls out of the giant basket while repeating in her head that she needed one iced tea and one lemonade. If she didn’t repeat it, it wasn’t gonna happen. She always laughed at the servers who tried to take orders without a notepad, relying on their memory to take every request down. The way she figured, the amount that the patron would be impressed by memorizing their order, is nowhere near as good as getting the order correct every single time. The less mistakes you made as a server, it was just a fact that the better you did.
There was an exception when the kitchen messed up a dish. Maybe it’s too salty, too cold, too burnt. The customer would end up getting to keep the messed up dish as well as a new version of it. Double the food! She actually liked when that happened because guests usually made the connection that they were getting more food for their money and sometimes that reflected in her tips.
What she did not like to do, however, was rush around and be “in the weeds” with too many tables forher to handle. Rushing just wasn’t her favorite.
She made her way back to her tables and dropped off the bread and drink refills. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Andrew waving at her so she made her way back to the computer at the back of the restaurant.
“What’s up?” she asked as she approached.
“I just got a call from my mom. My dad had to be rushed to the hospital. I just cleared it with Mike. Do you think you can cover my tables for the rest of the shift? You can keep all the tips, all of them have already ordered.”
“Oh my gosh, yeah no problem! Is he okay? Are you okay?”
“I dunno yet, I just need to get there.”
“Of course, go, go! I hope everything is okay!”
“Thanks, I owe you one.”
He began untying his apron and untucking his shirt as he headed toward the door, understandably flustered.
She looked up at the tables in his section, all three of them, and realized she now had five tables to worry about.
Fuck.
There were only two hours left in the shift so the rush was over but taking care of those five tables had her running around like a chicken with her head cut off.
By the end of the shift, her feet were killing her, but at least she made an extra thirty bucks from Andrew’s tables.
She looked at her ending profits and was thankful for the extra money, but she was damn tired.
