—
TWO AREAS OF the restaurant were flawless: first, three café-style tables in the front framed by a large window at the entrance. The tables were set in the day’s changing light. Some people—I mean guests—hated to be next to the entrance, to be sectioned off from the main dining rooms. But some of them wouldn’t sit anywhere else. These tables were often held for the most poised guests—rarely a sloucher or anyone in denim.
The Owner said, “Running a restaurant means setting a stage. The believability hinges on the details. We control how they experience the world: sight, sound, taste, smell, touch. That starts at the door, with the host and the flowers.”
And then, the bar. Timeless: long, dark mahogany, with stools high enough to make you feel like you were afloat. The bar had soft music, dim lighting, tinkling layers of noise, the bumps of a neighbor’s knee, the reach of someone’s arm by your face to take a glittering martini, the tap of a hostess as she escorted guests behind your back, the blur of plates being passed, the rattle of drinks, the virtuoso performance of bartenders slapping bottles into the back bar while also delivering bread, while also taking an order with the requisite substitutions and complications. All the best regulars came in and greeted the hostess saying, Any space at the bar tonight?
—
“OUR GOAL,” he said, “is to make the guests feel that we are on their side. Any business transaction—actually any life transaction—is negotiated by how you are making the other person feel.”
The Owner looked and spoke like a deity. Sometimes the New York Post referred to him as the mayor. Tall, tan, handsome with perfect white teeth, effortless articulation, and gorgeous gesticulation. I listened to him accordingly, with my hands in my lap.
Yet there was a tension I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Something false about making guests “feel” that we were on their side. I looked around the room and suddenly everything looked like currency to me: the silver, the wooden beams, the regal floral arrangement crowning the bar. Jesus, I thought, you can get rich by making people feel good about spending their money. We weren’t on their side; we were on the Owner’s side. All the emphasis on details, all the jargon—it was still just a business, right?
When orientation was over, I wanted to catch his eye and let him know that I got it. I wanted to ask someone how much of that money I would be taking home. Then I approached him at the exit and he looked me in the eyes. I stopped. He said my name though I hadn’t told him. He shook my hand and nodded like he had already forgiven me for all my shortcomings and would remember my face forever.
He said, “We are creating the world as it should be. We don’t have to pay any attention to how it is.”
—
WHEN I GOT the job I didn’t actually get the job. I got to train for the job. And the position was “backwaiter,” which wasn’t the same as being a server. Howard led me up a narrow spiral staircase in the back of the kitchen and deposited me in the locker room. He said, “You’re the new girl now. You have a certain responsibility.”
He left without clarifying what that responsibility was. In the corner of the windowless room sat two older Latino men and a woman. They had been speaking in Spanish but were now staring at me. A small electric fan shuddered behind them. I tried a smile.
“Is there somewhere I can change?”
“Right here mami,” the woman said. She had unruly black hair, held back by a bandana. Rivulets of sweat made track marks down her face. She pursed her lips. The men with their outsized, destroyed faces.
“Okay,” I said. I opened my locker and stuck my face into it, blocking them from my sight. Howard had told me to buy a white button-down shirt, and I put it on over my tank top to avoid undressing. The shirt was as breathable as cardboard. Sweat ran down my back and into my underwear.
They began talking again, fanning themselves, walking to a small sink and splashing water on their faces. The room was stacked with chairs in the back, and along the walls were pairs of Crocs and clogs covered in white splotches, with heels worn down to nothing. There was no air, my chest contracted.
The door burst open and a man said, “Are you not hungry? Are you coming?”
I looked at the three in the corner to make sure he was talking to me. He had an adolescent, tame face, but was irritated, his brows narrowed together.
“No, I’m hungry,” I said. I wasn’t, I just wanted something to do.
“Well family is almost over. How much more primping do you have left?”
I shut my locker door and put my hair back in a ponytail.
“I’m done. Are you in charge of me?”
“Yes, I’m in charge of you. I’m your trailer. First lesson, if you miss family, you don’t eat.”
“Well it’s nice to meet you. I’m—”
“I know who you are.” He slammed the door behind us. “You’re the new girl. Don’t forget to clock in.”
—
THERE WERE tables in the back dining room set with stainless steel sheet trays and bowls so big I could bathe in them. Macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, potato salad, biscuits, an oily green salad with shredded carrots. Pitchers of iced tea. It looked like food for a large catered event, but my trailer handed me a white plate and started helping himself to family meal. He went and sat at a table in the corner without inviting me to follow. The staff had taken over the back dining room. They came from every department: the servers in aprons, people in white coats, women removing headsets, men in suits, tugging at ties. I sat near the servers, in the very last chair—it was the best seat if I needed to run.
Preshift turned out to be a turbulent affair. A frazzled, skittish manager named Zoe was looking at me like it was my fault. She kept calling out numbers or names—things like “Section 6” and “Mr. Blah-blah at eight p.m.” but the servers talked right through her. I nodded deafly. I couldn’t touch my food.
The servers looked like actors—each perfectly idiosyncratic, but rehearsed. It all felt staged for my benefit. They wore striped shirts of every color. They were performing, snapping, clapping, kissing, cutting each other off, layers of noise colluding while I sank into my seat.
Howard walked up with wineglasses hanging like spokes from his hand. A young man in a suit trailed behind him with a bottle of wine wrapped in brown paper. The servers passed around the glasses with tastes of wine, but one never made it to me.
When Howard clapped his hands everyone went silent.
“Who would like to begin?”
Someone called out, “Pinot, obviously.”
“New World or Old?” Howard asked, scanning the room. His eyes fell on me for a second and I dropped my face to my plate. I remembered every time a teacher had called on me and I didn’t know the answer. I remembered wetting my pants in the fourth grade and thought that if he called on me I would again now.
“Old World,” a voice called out.
“Obviously,” someone else said.
“It’s old. I mean, it’s got age—look, it’s beginning to pale.”
“So we’re talking Burgundy.”
“It’s just a matter of deduction now, HR.” This man lifted his glass and pointed it to Howard. “I’m onto you.”
Howard waited.
“A little austere to be C?te de Beaune.”
“Is it off?”
“I was thinking it might be off!”
“No, it’s perfect.”
They stopped talking. I leaned forward to see who had said that. She was in the same row as me, behind too many people. I saw the bowl of her glass as she pulled it away from her nose and then brought it back. Her voice, low, ponderous, continued: