Carlos mimes checking an invisible ticket and replies, “Sayswell donehere, Twinkle Toes.” And then he goes back to lazily adding garnish to the salmon. We both know he got the order wrong. He’s going through a cringe divorce, so we’re all cutting him some slack, but he’s been getting at least one of every server’s order wrong every shift lately.
We’re nearing the end of the lunch rush, but the suit who ordered this strikes me as the type who’d make a fuss and send a burger back. “Right. Well. Despite myheinousmistake, the gentleman definitely ordered medium rare. Would you please remake it? I am ever so sorry, Chef.”
Carlos makes a big show of pondering my request as he places an order on the pass half a second before Milo swoops in to pick it up. “Fine. I’ll do it for you, Twinkle Toes. But you needto shape up—you hear me?” He winks at me, and it’s the saddest wink that ever was winked.
“You’re the best, Chef. I’ll comp him an app.”
And so it goes. I don’t have time to sweat the small stuff when the big picture is that I can’t lose this job. Not until the end of August, anyway.
Committing to the life of a ballet dancer requires passion, discipline, perseverance, rigorous perfectionism, repetition, a high tolerance level of physical pain, the ability to work as part of a team, and balls-of-steel-confidence in the face of adversity. I’m happy to say that I possess all these attributes, and they’ve served me well in all other areas of life too. Especially waitressing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally wake up annoyed every summer when I have to wait tables. It certainly doesn’t mean that I’m not immune to fantasizing about dropkicking any spoiled-brat colleagues who’ve never had to supplement their modest dance-company salaries during the unpaid off-season.
I ask the manager if we can comp the suit’s calamari, but in my mind, I’m visualizing the choreography for “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” fromThe Nutcracker.
I start my second season in the corps de ballet at the Bay Area Dance Company at the end of August. It’s July. The summer hiatus is a welcome break for my overworked body, but it’s a vicious blow to my bank account. San Francisco is approximately one million times more expensive than Pittsburgh, where I was an apprentice, and a gazillion times more expensive than Cleveland, where I grew up. To make money during the off-season, I’ve always done a lot of waitressing and a few modeling jobs here and there. I can make a lot more money waiting tables in San Francisco than I could in Cleveland.A lotmore.
And I need a lot more to pay down my student loan debt.
Iwason my way to making pretty good supplemental income from my YouTube channel until a couple of months ago, when I was informed that I had to shut it down.
That was, as we say in the ballet world, a total fucking bummer. I had spent eight months postingWhat I eat in a day as a ballet dancerandGet ready with me–type videos twice a week. Staying up late to edit the videos and reply to comments. With just over 80,000 subscribers and tons of views, I was making enough money from ad revenue that I would only have had to wait tables part-time during the off-season. Once I’d reached 100,000 subscribers, I could have made even more. But alas, I was ordered to cease and desist. Not in those exact legal terms. I made all of my videos private so I could keep my subscribers, but I might as well have deleted my account as far as the algorithms go.
It was bullshit company politics, but I’m not a victim. I’m still making ends meet. I’ve got my eye on the prize. That’s the good news.
The really good news is that I work at a great restaurant within walking distance of my apartment. The less good news is that the last modeling job I had involved a creepy photographer with sticky hands, so I’m limiting my modeling work and picking up more shifts here. Which is why I’m working the lunch shift today, of all days, when Kennedy Sloane is having lunch with her dear old daddy. Which is, as we say in the ballet world, monumentally shitty.
Kennedy is in the corps with me. She is an adequate dancer whose bony ass I can literally dance circles around, but she was featured in the festival of new works last season because her father made a major donation to the company. She also got her father to encourage the artistic director to make me take down my YouTube channel. For a totally bogus, unfair reason that I had absolutely no control over. She was just jealous that I hadmore YouTube subscribers than she had followers on Instagram and—oh my God, it sounds so petty and stupid even when I say it in my head.
The good news is I’m not bitter!
Okay, I might be a little bitter about this one thing.
But I’m not the bitter girl. In a movie about dancers, I wouldn’t be the scrappy girl from the wrong side of the tracks either. My family’s smack dab in the middle of the tracks. As middle class as they come. At least I’m not the spoiled rich twat character, because no good ever comes to that girl. And I’m certainly not the naive small-town ingenue. But how am I supposed to be the sassy hustler if every attempt I make to create a revenue stream outside of a dance company will get shut down once the petty, pointy-faced twat gets wind of it?
The fantastic news is that Kennedy wasn’t seated in my section, so I didn’t have to serve her. But as she returns from the ladies’ room, she spots me and does the most affected double-take I’ve ever seen. Approaching me wide-eyed, as if she hadn’t clocked me when she entered the restaurant over an hour ago.
“Olivia?! Oh my God, hiiiiiii!” Phony high-pitched voice. Three air kisses. Such baloney.
“Hi, Kennedy. How are you?”
“I am so good—thanks! What are youdoinghere? I had no idea you were here, or I would have invited you to sit with us.”
“Oh, thanks, but I’m working right now.”Hence the black three-pocket apron around my waist that’s branded with the restaurant’s logo.
“You mean you’re here for a business lunch?” she asks. “Like, with an agent or something?” She knows I don’t have an agent.
“No. I mean I’m working here as a waitress.”
She looks genuinely stunned that I would even admit this to her. “Oh! Oh, that’s so great! It’ssucha nice restaurant.” Wow. Someone give this woman an Oscar for Most SupportivePerformance by a Non-Actress. And now she gently places her cold hand on my shoulder for a brief, condescending moment and says, “You should be very proud.”
“Okay.”
“Seriously—I just posted a picture on Insta, and my followers are all like: ‘LOVE that place!’ I should post a picture of us! My fans will love that!Ourfans, I mean.”
“I actually have to get back to serving my customers now, but it was so great to see you.”
“You too, sweetie.” Three more air kisses. “I’d introduce you to Daddy, but we’re in such a rush because we have to pack for Paris!”
“Kay. Buh-bye.”
