She settled in across from Glenn and Sherrie and folded her hands in front of her like a defendant preparing for castigation.
Sherrie began breezily enough. “Let’s start with the pluses. You only brought the wrong order to the wrong table once. Only one cheese omelet congealed up on the counter and one French dip got cold. You didn’t drop anything. You sold six of the muffins, which is excellent. You didn’t get into any tussles with Giorgio. You got here on time. No one complained about hair in their food.”
Glory began to feel like a first grader who was about to get a star on her chart for participation.
“Now... let’s talk about room for improvement.”
Naturally, this was Glenn’s portion of the program.
“You probably shouldn’t seat a taciturn sheriff’s deputy who just gave a speeding ticket to a movie star on location with said movie star. Eli’s face was so scowly half the time I’m pretty sure he scared a few people from walking in. I could swear I saw a whole crowd back up when they got a look at him sitting in the window. And he wasn’t even in his uniform.”
Glory perked up. “Was it?” she said eagerly. “I mean,” she hastened to add, “I should have thought that through. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want anyone to have to wait, and it seemed to make sense at the time.”
“And Eli kept watching you,” Glenn added, shrewdly.
Glory’s heart skipped a beat. “He was probably just wondering where his order was.”
“Sure, sure,” Glenn said noncommittally. “He’s a big guy. Needs his food.”
He and Sherrie exchanged a speed-of-lightning glance that Glory wouldn’t quite interpret.
“But wait, there’s more,” Glenn added dryly. “We like to apportion equal amounts of time to all of our customers. Even the ones who aren’t as good-looking as Sherrie thinks that actor kid Francone is.”
“Isn’t he, though?” Sherrie asked, laying a hand on Glory’s arm. “Those eyes! That tush! Such a nice boy, too. Very friendly.”
This was almost funny.Friendlyandboywere such homely little words for Franco, but then, Sherrie had an egalitarian spirit and wasn’t easily wowed.
“I swear to you, I didn’t really start it. He was flirting withme.” She sounded like a ten-year-old again.
“Of course he was, hon,” Sherrie said, soothingly. “But just becauseyou’regood at something, too, doesn’t mean you need to deploy it full on all the time.”
Glory tried and failed not to grin at that.
“And I’mjustnot certain how much... oh,substancehe has,” Sherrie mused.
Glory crinkled her brow. This was odd. Sherrie wasn’t the sort to editorialize aloud about her customers.
But Glenn wasn’t finished. It was as though he had a bullet-point list in his head, rather like the one she’d been carrying around about Mick Macklemore before she dumped him. “Mrs.Adler said you brought her a pumpkin muffin in a, and I quote, ‘passive-aggressive attempt’ to imply that she ought to be sweeter. Though she did enjoy the muffin.”
Damn. Mrs.Adler was smart. And of course she was a fink.
“At least it was... passive-aggressive?” Glory offered weakly after a moment. “Notaggressive-aggressive?”
Glenn snorted. “I’ll allow she’s a tough old stick—none of my kids loved having her as a teacher—but you can’t imply anything of the sort while you’re waiting on her, Glory. While our customers are here they should feel like beloved long-lost relatives. A couple more things—you need to get the food out to the tables as fast as possible. Customers shouldn’t be able to lift off the cheese melted on their omelet tops in a single solid lukewarm sheet. Giorgio takes it personally when that happens. And customers shouldn’t have to get neck cramps searching the restaurant for the person who’s supposed to take their orders.”
Glory was silent. Bravado was slowly hissing out of her and she began to feel like she was sinking, as sure as though the ground beneath her chair was made of mud.
She wanted to give a crap. She truly did. Glenn and Sherrie were lovely people who had hired her against their own good judgment, and they loved this business and it was a wonderful business. Glory loved playing music here, and she loved the history and the food.
But she was bad at this and she didn’t want to do it and shehadto, and for that reason it felt less like a blessing than a sentence, which made her feel deeply ungrateful, which made her feel something close to wretched.
Why couldn’t she, from the bottom of her soul, want a job that came with either a rule book or a defined set of steps? Like lawyer or deputy or hairstylist or grill cook?
Sherrie must have seen something in her face.
“You can do it, sweetheart,” Sherrie said stoutly, giving her a motherly pat. “And you won’t need to do it forever.Youare going to be a superstar! And...” She shot another look at Glenn that Glory couldn’t quite interpret. “Mr.Francone asked me to pass this to you.”
Sherrie pushed over a napkin.
