“Then bring me a bottle of red,” Mark said.
“He’ll have a glass,” Stacy said quickly. “No bottle.”
“Chianti,” Mark said. “No, wait—rose.”
He pronounced it like the flower.
“Unless—is it like a wine coola?” Mark asked.
“It’s dry,” Greta said. “And chuggable.”
He seemed to appreciate that. She started to walk away but stopped.
“One of you guys have a cig, by any chance?” she asked.
“Pahdon?” Stacy said.
“A cigarette,” Greta said.
“A cansa stick?” Mark said.
“I prefer ‘stick of joy,’？” Greta said.
“Well, but I have cansa,” Mark said. “In my lungs. Stage three.”
“Mahk,” Stacy said. “Don’t staht.”
Mark shrugged. “Just bein honest.”
“Sorry,” Greta mumbled. “I quit last week. Never mind.”
Mortified, she strode past the waitress station and straight into the kitchen, making a beeline for the walk-in. The light had burned out in there, so it was pitch-black and very private. She liked to put her face in front of the fan, which fucked up her bangs, but it was freezing and nearly as restorative as a first drag. Plus, the dessert tray was right there.
Ricardo, the dishwasher, entered the walk-in as she was piping cannoli cream directly into her mouth. He was hungover, as usual, and holding a flashlight. Greta was holding the pastry bag over her face, squeezing it with both hands. Ricardo looked scandalized, as if he’d caught her jacking off a customer.
“Sacame la leche,” she said with her mouth full.
He scowled. “A woman doesn’t say that.”
“Mamarme la verga,” she said.
He shook his head in disgust. Yesterday he’d caught her licking frosting off a donut, which wouldn’t have been a big deal if the donut hadn’t been in the trash. Granted, it was only a big deal to Ricardo, who hated having his own behavior reflected at him. Instead of saying “Right behind you,” he always sang out, “Coming inside you!”
She returned to the dining room and delivered their drinks. Something skittered peripherally. She looked around for the busboy. He was right behind her, wiping down a table.
“Manuel,” she said softly. “Lobster, table thirteen.”
Mark perked up. “You have lobsta?”
“Lobster” was code for “cockroach.” The owners exterminated regularly, but the roaches seemed to mate every five minutes. Last week, as she was delivering food to table 2, a visibly pregnant one had fallen out of a ceiling panel and landed down the front of her shirt. Somehow, she’d walked away from the table without screaming, but she’d been rattled for the rest of the night. The owners had given her three days off to recover, paid, which amounted to $126.
“We did have a lobster special,” Greta said. “Earlier. But we sold out.”
Mark squinted at her and ordered the gnocchi.
“How about chicken pahm?” Stacy asked her.
“We have chicken,” Greta said.
“No pahm?”
“We have Parmesan,” Greta said. “But, you know, it’s grated. On the side.”
“Any chance you can pull up a chair and join us?” Stacy asked.
She laughed. “I can’t sit down. There’s… cameras.” She waved her hand around, as if the cameras were everywhere. “But you want the chicken? It comes with pasta.”
“Yes, please,” he said. “Thank you very much.”
At the waitress station, she casually poked through his bag with her foot. It was full of nerdy library books, including G?del, Escher, Bach. Maybe he had Asperger’s? But he made a lot of eye contact and his face was full of emotion. Which emotion, she couldn’t begin to guess. Maybe she had Asperger’s? Why was she bothering with his bag, anyway? You learned everything you needed to know about a person by waiting on them. Manners, preferences, habits. Were they a little too comfortable being waited on or, sometimes just as troubling, not comfortable enough?
She delivered their food and then sat a few tables away, folding napkins and eavesdropping. Stacy went on at length about a tiya fiya that had been burning since Septemba. He talked about naycha, the enviament, sola powa. In the monning, they would drive to Santa Bahbra and do some light laybuh on his friend’s apple orchid. There were hosses on the prahpetty, so maybe they could go hossback ridin? The guy, his friend, was an ahtist who made sculpchas out of metal and eyein. Stacy wanted one for his den and anotha to bring home to his mutha. From there, they would visit various state pahks, maybe make it as fah as South Dakoter or Wyoming.
His voice worked on her like a salt bath. It seemed rich in minerals, including iron—or eyein—and relaxed her deeply, almost to the point of sleep. All her muscles, including the ones in her face, seemed to slacken. In fact, fuck, was she drooling? She wiped her mouth and sat up straighter. Then Stacy called her over and pointed at the pasta on his plate.
“I’m not sure this is, uh, angel heya,” he said.
“What?”
“Angel hair,” he said slowly.
Greta leaned over and peered at it. The hair in question was dark and could’ve belonged to anyone on staff.
“It’s just my hair,” she said.
“It’s yaws?” he said.
“Yeah,” she said, and smiled.
“Well, then,” he said.
“The kitchen is closed now, but your dinner is on the house, obviously.”
He laughed and touched her elbow.
A few minutes after she dropped the check, he approached her at the waitress station. She passed him his bag. Can we get on a plane, she wanted to ask, a long flight, so I can sleep on your shoulder?
“Sorry about Mahk,” he said. “He’s been hittin the bottle pretty hahd.”
Stacy’s eyes began leaking all over the place, but he didn’t seem embarrassed or surprised, and neither was she. He calmly wiped his face with his sleeve.
“You can’t tell by lookin’ at him, but he’s full of toomahs,” he said. “And he’s never been west of Ohio. Listen, I hope I’m not bein too fohwid, but you feel like hanging out sometime?”
“Yes,” Greta said quickly. “I wish we could hang out right this second, but those people just ordered another round.” Greta nodded at her other table. “They’ve been camped out for hours.”
He shook his head. “No regahd.”
“Sorry?”
“No regard,” he said carefully. “People got no regard for service workers. Everyone thinks they’re VIPs.”
When he pronounced his Rs, he sounded like Richard Pryor impersonating a white guy, but he couldn’t maintain it for more than two sentences.
“I used to tend bah,” he explained. “Thing to do is, cut the music and staht sweepin.”
Greta smiled. “Your accent.”
“You hate it,” he said.
“It’s comforting.”
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’m gonna leave my numba, and maybe you’ll call and allow me to comfit you.”
Dear Mom, she wrote later that night. Finally, a non-flake. A man with a code. Sober but not humorless, outspoken but not obnoxious, well-mannered, unmaterialistic, able to produce tears, won’t abandon me if I get cancer, might in fact drive me around the country. A dream.