‘Thomas, so nice to see you again.’
‘What brings you onto this side of the dining room tonight?’
‘Just a change of scenery.’ But she gave me a wink. I greeted the other women at her table, then took their orders. But none of them asked for anything special or off menu. When I dropped off their salads and soups, I asked them if I could get them anything else, but they said no.
After I cleared that course, I watched the kitchen like a hawk, making sure I ran out their dinners as soon as they were up. Even then they didn’t ask for anything.
I was starting to worry that the judge – or whoever at the table Natalie had told to ask me for something strange – had forgotten what it was, and that now Natalie’s game was going to continue formonths. I kept an eye on them while they ate, watching Judge Fredericks’s water goblet to make sure it was always full. Then I cleared the table and went back to take their dessert orders.
Oh, please don’t let them ask for baked Alaska.
‘So,’ I said, approaching the table during a brief lull in the conversation. ‘For dessert tonight, we have mixed berry cobbler, the sugar-free dessert is angel food cake, and our ice cream flavors are chocolate, vanilla, butter pecan, sugar-free chocolate vanilla swirl, and lime sherbet.’
‘Just coffee tonight, Thomas,’ Judge Fredericks said with a smile.
I looked at the other ladies, all of whom nodded and flipped over their coffee cups.
What the hell?
I smiled and put my pad and pen away. ‘Coming right up.’
Were they going to ask for a latte when I got back? Honestly, that wouldn’t be so bad. We didn’t have espresso, but I could just use the coffee and have Dante heat up milk. Warm milk wasn’t exactly an odd request from the old folks.
But when I got back to the rear service station, the coffeepots were gone, and the burners had been turned off.
I headed for the casual dining room’s front service station but stopped halfway there when I saw those burners were vacant, too.
No way. Natalie wouldn’t do this.
I headed immediately for the formal dining room’s service stations, but the burners at both stations were empty and turned off as well. I checked the dining rooms themselves to see if Doris or Natalie might be walking around with the pots, but neither of them was anywhere in sight.
This didn’t make sense. Natalie was such a freak about making sure the residents had coffee if they wanted it, why would she take away all the coffeepots as a test for me, knowing more than just Judge Fredericks would be ordering it at the end of the night? I felt like I had fallen into some weird simulation where Natalie had turned off the coffee-craving button for all the resident robots except for Judge Fredericks.
Still, I wasn’t too concerned. Even if she got rid of the pots in the dining rooms, there would be coffee in the giant maker in the kitchen.
But when I arrived, Emma G. was already dumping it down the drain. ‘No, no, wait!’
She flinched and dropped the stainless-steel drum into the sink. All the coffee spilled out into it.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
Emma G. looked indignant. ‘My side chore. It’s six forty-five and my sections all reset.’
‘Well, other people still have tables.’ I picked up the hot stainless-steel drum, hoping there would be some coffee that hadn’t spilled down the drain. Barely enough for one cup. ‘Was this the decaf or regular?’
If it was regular, I could just give them decaf if there was any left. They wouldn’t know the difference. And if I was going to give them one over the other, at least this way was safer. I’d never give regular to someone who ordered decaf, but the residents were going right back to their apartments, so it’s not like they needed to stay up all night.
‘It was regular,’ Emma G. said.
Thank God.
‘I already dumped the decaf.’
‘Emma! You’re killing me!’
‘What? There’re still two full pots out there!’
‘No, there aren’t.’ She looked confused, but I didn’t have time to explain it to her. I went back to the dish room and asked one of the washers for the glass coffeepot. He handed me a clean one, and I went back to the coffee station as quickly as I could. There was no way I could brew an entire batch of coffee – our machines brewed a gallon at a time and it took fifteen minutes. But I could do a fake pour-over with the hot water spigot we used for tea.
