The Waitress

by Melissa Nathan

  “Oh dear,” she said to him ever so sadly. “I would have liked lasagne.”

  Matt felt the pity of her situation thoroughly. In the nano-second before he was about to offer to go and buy her one, or failing that learn how to make one, her friend broke in with, “So you’re not really taking proper orders then.” He turned to her and concentrated on her for a moment, reminding himself who she was and where they all were. “Are you?” she demanded. “Strictly speaking.”

  “No,” he answered slowly. “No.” He turned back to the fox, hoping that none of what was happening inside his body was showing on the outside. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t take your order today. We’ve got a restricted menu.”

  She stared at him.

  “Will you have lasagne tomorrow?” she asked.

  His eyebrows leapt up hopefully, like two Yorkshire terriers whose owner had just come home. “Are you coming in tomorrow?”

  She leaned forward slightly. “I will now.” And then she gave him another grin. He grinned back.

  “Good,” he said, wiggling his sweaty toes inside his shoes. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  The ringing in his ears almost deafened her parting “So will I.” He remembered to nod at the ugly friend before turning back and giving the fox another smile, just so she got the message, before she turned round and walked out.

  He watched them make their way down the road, and took in every little bit of the fox’s perfect proportions. He only just heard the wolf-whistles coming from the kitchen hatch. He turned to see Sukie and Patsy holding up score-cards. Apparently, he’d got an average of 8.5 out of a possible 10.

  “You weren’t there the whole time, were you?” he mumbled, nausea creeping up his body.

  “Only from when you started talking,” assured Katie.

  “Tell me you’re taking the piss.”

  “They’re taking the piss,” said Katie, looking at Patsy’s 8 scorecard. “You were a nine. Easily.”

  “You were so cute back there,” said Sukie. “Like a little puppy.”

  “Oh shit,” moaned Matt.

  “Of course they weren’t!” rushed Katie.

  “We had the hatch closed,” added Sukie.

  “Katie kept closing the hatch!” concluded Patsy. “She’s so mean!”

  Next day, Matt was in the kitchen washing up when the girl arrived. He walked out, wiped his upper lip and brushed his hand through his hair. Now he knew why some men grew moustaches. It stopped the sweat showing. There she was, sitting facing him, opposite her nasty friend, her eyes flitting round the café. As he came level with Katie, he heard Katie say in his ear, “No one’s taken her order yet, Big Boy. Go get it.” Sukie handed him a pad and pen but his hands felt numb and cold.

  He walked onward, ever onward, his eyes fixed firmly on her. Just as he reached her table, she looked up at him and gave him a dazzling beam.

  “Hi there!” she said. “We were just wondering where you were.”

  His insides galloped at the word “you.” One simple syllable, just a consonant and a couple of vowels, and yet, oh so full of glorious meaning. They had wondered where he was. These two grown-up women had discussed him enough to actually wonder where he was. They had actually—

  “Are you all right?” The nasty one was staring at him.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Only you look ill.”

  He let out a strangled laugh to give him time to think of the perfect response. Then he laughed some more.

  “Want to join us?” asked the fox.

  “I can’t,” he replied. “Too much to do out back.”

  “Oh.”

  “But—”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “But…”

  “Yes?”

  “We could meet up some other time if you like,” said someone from inside his head.

  “That would be great,” grinned the fox. “Where?”

  “The Gnat and Parrot? Wednesday, eight o’clock?”

  “Great!” she laughed. “It’s a date.”

  “Oh, what a shame!” cried her friend. “I’m busy.”

  The fox smiled across at her and then looked back up at Matt.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me then,” she smiled. “I’m Jennifer by the way.”

  “I’m Matt,” said Matt cautiously, only too aware of the significance of the moment. He didn’t want to get it wrong and say Pat or something.

  They smiled at each other.

  “I’m Eva,” said the friend.

  He looked at Eva and she looked back at him. Then he looked back at Jennifer.

  “Right,” he said.

  “Next Wednesday,” said Jennifer, with a big grin on her face. “Eight it is. The Gnat and Parrot. See you there.”

  “Well, I’ll see you here first,” he said. “Unless you stop coming, coming here, I mean, but I’ll see you there too.”

  “Great.”

  Matt turned slowly and walked back to the kitchen a different man from the boy who’d walked out. He was on cloud nine. He was king of the world! He pitied everyone else for their small, inconsequential lives.

  He grinned a little shakily at Katie and Sukie.

  “Well?” asked Katie.

  “Gnat and Parrot,” he whispered. “Next week.”

  They waited until they were in the kitchen to do high-fives. Then Matt took a beer out of the fridge. His hands were shaking. This would go down in history as the day his life changed. He had to be careful not to get run over before next Wednesday.

  When Dan arrived back from the store cupboard, neither Sukie, Matt nor Katie took much notice.

  “What are we going to do about next weekend?” he asked after a while.

  Sukie and Katie stopped tousling Matt’s hair. They frowned over at Dan who didn’t elaborate.

  Eventually Sukie shrugged. “I say we just let it happen,” she said.

  “Yeah,” agreed Katie. “Chances are we can’t stop time, however hard we try. I go with Sukie’s suggestion.”

  “I second it,” laughed Matt. “’Cos that means I’m even nearer my date.”

  The girls started tousling his hair again and he pretended to bat them away.

  Dan rolled his eyes. “I mean,” he said, “what are we going to do about the personnel situation that morning?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Matt.

  “Well, I’ll be at a wedding all weekend,” said Dan, “as will Katie.”

  “Eh?” she asked.

  Dan looked at her.

  “Sandy’s wedding. I take it you’re going. You were at her engagement party.”

  Katie felt for a moment as if Dan was speaking in another language. Then slowly it all fell into place, and her jaw fell into what felt like a ravine. She had completely forgotten Sandy’s wedding. How on earth could she have? After all, she’d met Dan at Sandy’s engagement party! The hen party had been last weekend, but she’d been unable to go because of work duties. She’d even bought an outfit for the wedding which usually helped her visualize, and therefore look forward to, an occasion—and she’d even bought a present off the wedding list (but because that meant making one phone call to the store, it was very easy to forget). She just hadn’t thought any further about practicalities such as how to get there, or where to stay overnight. It had felt so far off. And now the horrible truth was dawning. It was next weekend. And Hugh would be there. As would Maxine. And Dan would be there with Geraldine. And she’d be on her own. It would be the first time she’d be in enforced proximity with Geraldine and Dan since her aborted date with Dan. Would Geraldine keep her distance? Or would she wear Dan like a medal? “In fact,” said Dan, “Geraldine’s going to call you and ask if you’d like to travel down with us. There’ll be plenty of room in the back.”

  Excellent. She mumbled something about not being able to wait and felt all her will to live seep out of her body. She couldn’t remember much about the following discussion except that everyone around her finally
managed to work out suitable cover for the weekend and she said “mm” a lot. Where the hell would she stay? Inside the invitation Sandy had given out details of the hotel where the wedding was, but that would be far too expensive for her and was probably booked by now anyway. She told herself she’d sort it out first thing tomorrow and felt better immediately.

  By the time she was ready for her date with Hugh that night however, she was probably more depressed than he was, especially as Hugh was doing the man thing and pretending all was normal. They met at a local Greek restaurant where their mezzes sat uneaten for three hours because they were too busy finishing the wine to remember to eat. Katie found it surprisingly pleasant being with Hugh, like searching through an attic full of childhood memorabilia and finding all her favorite toys in one box. She found herself watching his lips as he spoke and remembering how it had felt to kiss them. And whenever he sat back she remembered nestling into his Aran sweaters and sniffing their Hugh-smell. She didn’t want to now, but it was unexpectedly comforting to remember. She started wondering whether she’d felt like this when she’d been with him and had just forgotten because she hadn’t felt that level of comfort for so long.

  When she’d left her flat that evening she’d been prepared for lengthy, in-depth discussions of all-things-Maxine, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Hugh was not indulging in self-analysis; quite the opposite. He was determined to stick firmly to small-talk. The only problem was that, due to the depression he was pretending he didn’t feel, he kept plying Katie with questions but was then completely unable to process the answers, so he would either just ask her another question, or more frequently, the same one again. It was like being on Mastermind, with her chosen subject being Katie Simmonds, The Surface, 1990 to the present day.

  “So how’s The Café?” Hugh asked again.

  “Café/restaurant/bar,” she corrected again.

  “Café/restaurant/bar.” Hugh bowed his head reverentially again.

  “It’s good thanks.”

  Hugh nodded. “And working for the new owner? What’s that like?”

  “Oh you know, like most bosses. Good points and bad points.”

  Hugh nodded. “Good,” he said.

  “And bad,” helped Katie.

  “Where do I know him from?” he asked suddenly. “Haven’t I seen him before?”

  “Dunno. More wine?”

  “Thanks. Absolutely positive I’ve seen him before. What’s his name again?”

  “Dan.”

  Hugh shook his head. “Could have sworn it.” He drank some more wine, while Katie tried to see what time his watch said. It appeared to be quarter to three. Did that mean quarter past nine? Or was it three in the morning and she’d been answering the same questions for nine hours? Difficult to tell.

  “Are you going to Sandy’s bloody wedding?” asked Hugh.

  “Oh God.” Katie slumped. “Yes.”

  “I know. All those bloody people,” said Hugh, with more genuine emotion than he’d shown all evening long, “being so…” he waved his arms about, trying to find the right words, “happy.”

  Katie slumped some more.

  “Bloody…” he paused for thought, “hell.”

  Katie couldn’t agree with him more.

  “Bloody Maxine’ll bloody be there.”

  It was the first time he’d mentioned her all night. Then, suddenly, he sat bolt upright, his eyes focusing the most they had all evening. He had either had a fantastic idea or sat on something sharp. “Oh my God!” he screeched. Possibly both. He started clapping his hands and pointing at Katie and then pointing back at himself. She winced and frowned at him but she still couldn’t understand what he was getting at. He pointed at her again and then at him again, while making a strange, excited sound.

  “You and me!” he finally managed. “It’s perfect!”

  “What is?”

  “Let’s go together!” he cried, staring at her fanatically. “I’ve got a suite booked in the same hotel as the wedding, Maxine insisted. I’ll sleep in the lounge on the sofa and you can have the bed. My treat! You’d be doing me a favor. It’s a four-poster!”

  Ooh, thought Katie. Beats sleeping on a park bench, which was probably where she’d otherwise end up.

  “You have to,” said Hugh, filled with a sudden determination to win her over. “You have to agree,” he insisted, “You have to. You just have—”

  “All right!” cried Katie.

  Hugh started laughing. “Fantastic!” he almost sang. “That’ll piss her off!”

  “Oh Hugh, how kind!” laughed Katie.

  Hugh joined in the laughter until it sounded as if he was dangerously close to tears. Then he suddenly got all serious again. “I’ll pick you up first thing on Saturday morning and we’ll pootle down there in good time, maybe take in a spot of lunch.” He started laughing again. “Maxine will be absolutely livid.”

  “Hold on a minute,” said Katie, “I don’t want her to think we’re a couple or anything.”

  “No, no, of course not.”

  “Good.”

  “Mind you,” reminded Hugh, “she did paint my whole house the color of old wee and then take all the furniture.”

  “No, Hugh.”

  “OK.” He held up his hand, as if swearing an oath. “‘Caran D’Ache’ will not think for one minute that we are an item,” he said. Katie had to bite back a sudden tear.

  “Promise?” she coughed.

  “Promise,” he said and then belched to close the deal.

  He gave her a shy glance. “Just like old times, isn’t it?”

  She had to agree, it did feel somewhat cozy.

  And then the whole evening shifted gear, Katie’s subject changing to Katie Simmonds, Beneath the Surface, 1997 to 1998. He asked her why, after ten happy months and without warning, she had finished with him all those years ago. “Don’t get me wrong,” assured Hugh, “I’m not having sleepless nights about it or anything, but it was rather sudden.”

  And Katie found herself rewriting the past and her personality to fit his bruised ego.

  “It really was more about me than you,” she finished, “and the proof is in the pudding.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I haven’t had a long-term relationship since then, so I clearly have relationship issues to iron out, but you and Maxine have been together forever.”

  Perhaps it was not the best thing to say. Not only did it catapult them straight into the danger zone, but once she’d said it out loud, the truth of the situation suddenly hit Katie with some force. She hadn’t just said a cliché, she had just told him the truth: her finishing with Hugh really had been more about her than him. Jesus. While Hugh collapsed into squeaky, sneezing tears, Katie wondered if she was perhaps, the first person ever for whom that cliché was actually true.

  Chapter 18

  THE NEXT MORNING WAS DECEPTIVE IN ITS LAZILY BEAUTIFUL START. Katie woke up to sun streaming in through her curtains and the reassuring sound of the kettle softly boiling. She found Jon pacing the kitchen, yawned a hello and joined him at the kettle.

  “I have got to get on with my work,” he muttered to the wall.

  “I have got to stop drinking,” she muttered next to him.

  They stared at the wall together.

  “I’ll help you if you help me,” said Jon suddenly.

  “OK.”

  “So far,” he said, “there’s a very clever twist with a parrot and a dwarf, but I need another twist.”

  She ran through yesterday’s customers and remembered the woman with unfeasibly large hands.

  “Why not put in a transvestite?”

  He gave her a sideways look. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “Because you can have someone thinking the murderer’s a woman until you realize one of the characters likes dressing up in women’s clothing.”

  Jon started nodding slowly. “Hmm,” he said, pouring boiling water into their mugs.

  “OK,” said K
atie. “Your turn to help me.”

  He gave her a long look. “Stop drinking,” he murmured, and left the kitchen.

  By the time she’d walked to work, the sun was already burning hot. She opened the café door and once inside opened all the windows, which let in a delicious through-breeze. Then she offered up a prayer to the ceiling and crossed her fingers before calling out to Nik. After two beats, she got the response she was hoping for, thanked the ceiling and went into the kitchen to find him. Nik must have lost half a stone, most of which was tan, and Katie had to hide her shock at his pale, wan appearance. She also had to hide her shock that they hugged.

  Everyone else got in early today too, just in case Nik wasn’t in again, and the first commuter queue and menu preparations were well under way by the time Dan arrived. In fact, all seemed to be going extremely well until mid-morning, when Katie and Sukie were sorting out the last of the morning queues and Patsy was helping Nik. Dan noticed a puddle by the freezer. His eyes doubled in size and his breath shortened. He pointed wildly at it.

  “What the hell’s that?” he demanded in a voice that stopped all chatter. Patsy and Nik followed his finger and stared.

  “The…floor?” asked Patsy.

  “What’s that on the floor?” cried Dan.

  “The…freezer?” she asked.

  “Oh no,” breathed Nik slowly. He had seen what Dan had seen. “I hope that’s not what I think it is.”

  “Not as much as me,” said Dan.

  “What’s going on?” asked Patsy, eyes wide. “You’re frightening me.”

  “Are you going to open the door or am I?” Dan asked Nik.

  “You are mate,” replied Nik. “You’re the boss.”

  Patsy started whimpering while Dan slowly opened the freezer door. She stepped back slightly toward Nik who instinctively grew an inch taller. Dan squinted in and slowly started to take out Tupperware boxes to put them on the counter. It took him a while to decide that all the food was defrosted, then much less time to have a nervous breakdown. He started pacing while Nik inspected all the food and Patsy rushed out to tell Katie and Sukie. After the last of the commuter queues had left, they all congregated in the kitchen.