Merritt Tierce - Love Me Back

The Dream Café had all those things. I never dropped food but I did lose a credit card once. On busy brunches I could have fifty or sixty covers in two hours and there was no stopping no matter what. The managers told us Don’t be afraid to ask for help, that’s what we’re here for but it wasn’t that I was afraid. I didn’t have time to ask for help. They were a beautiful family. The Dream Café was popular with trainers and athletes and otherwise regular people who spent more than two hours a day working out, because the menu was full of organic and vegetarian and local and whole before that was common. She looked like an aerobics instructor and he looked like a linebacker. She was tiny, and exquisitely proportioned. Every time she lifted a forkful of seasonal fruit to her mouth all of her elegantly defined arm muscles flexed slightly, as if eager and then disappointed that more was not being asked of them. He wore his Oakleys the entire time they were there, and he had to sit in the chair like he was riding a short horse, legs spread, knees almost touching the ground. Excuse me, miss, he said, after I had dropped off the check, picked up the check, run the card, stuffed the vouchers back in the book, and dropped it off again with a Thanks so much, take care, and they had begun the process of packing up their baby, who was undoubtedly beautiful too but could barely be found in the middle of a gigantic machine that looked more like a Bowflex than a stroller. I was seating a table behind them when I felt a light touch on my elbow. I turned around. Yes sir? I said. The woman was lifting the napkins, the plates, the coffee mugs, the sugar caddy. It’s not here, she said. Our credit card, said the man. It wasn’t in here. He handed me the check presenter. I opened it, like he could have missed it somewhere in the see-through plastic pocket that said PLEASE COME AGAIN. I saw that he had already filled out the voucher. Their brunch was seventy dollars, more than you could ever hope for from a two-top with a baby. He’d left me fifteen, indicating firmly that someone had taught him twenty percent. Oh no, I said. Do you think it could have fallen out? he asked. Yes, I’m sure that’s it, I said. Let me go look. I got down on my knees and looked under the table first, hoping they had dropped it, but it wasn’t there. Did you put it back in your wallet? she asked him. No, he said, don’t you think that’s the first place I looked? I’m sorry, I said, I’ll be right back. I ran-walked through the patio, scrutinizing the ground and the potted plants lining the walkway. Fucking shitfuck, I said under my breath. Excuse me, said a young man in a hoodie and flipflops with a party of three other guys in the same hangover brunch costume, could we get some drinks here? I pretended I didn’t hear him. Guess not, I heard him say. No credit card. I crashed into the back station where I’d run their card. Craig was standing there voiding something for someone. What now, he said, as if I were always walking up to him in crisis. Quite a few of my colleagues were, in fact, always in crisis, even when they had only one table, but I was usually able to handle my own shit well enough to help those people out. I certainly wasn’t one of them. Has anyone found a credit card? I asked. No, why? he said. Because I lost one. What do you mean, you lost one? he said, pausing in his heavy poking of the touchscreen to turn his face to me. I mean I can’t find it anywhere. I dropped off the check and it’s gone. What table? he said. Forty-three, I said. The big guy. We looked out the door toward forty-three. They were arguing. I wondered if we would have to comp the tab and there would go one of my biggest tips of the day. You’re kidding, said Craig. They own the Smoothie King up the street. Did you look everywhere out there? Yes! I said. Maybe he put it in his wallet, said Craig, still staring at him. God, I’d love to put something in his wallet, he murmured. He looked, I said. Could you please go talk to them? I have four other tables out there. I can’t go back if I have to go past him without his card, I said. I’ll talk to them, but you better keep looking, he said.

Craig was one of those people who worked out more than two hours a day. He spent at least four in the gym next door to the Dream before he came in to work. Even Sundays. He drank three gallons of water during a shift. His upper body was ripped but he was kind of short and he had bad teeth. He smoked a lot. He had the angular weatherworn cheekbones of a shepherd from a hard land. Managing a restaurant is probably somewhat like being a shepherd. Doing the same thing every day. Same territory, over and over. Watching mammals eat. Keeping everyone in line.

I looked all over the POS while I watched him out the door, talking to them. I saw him laugh. I tried to remember where I was on all my other tables now that an interminable digression had broken my rhythm. I rang up two orders and grabbed a water pitcher and headed back into the breach, squeezing behind Craig to get to my station, putting him between me and the linebacker like a body shield. I’m so sorry, I said to forty-two, have you had a chance to decide?

No one found a credit card anywhere. Everyone was put on the lookout. After the madness Tanya and I looked through every single check presenter. I even got Nacho to check the men’s room. Nothing. When I went to turn in my cashout Craig said Why did you close out forty-three? Because I had the voucher, I said. Yeah but we never found the card. We can’t make them pay the bill if we lost their card, he said to me like I was trying to fleece them and he was their good-hearted defender. So what do I do? I said. I’ll comp it, just give me a second, he said. He was chomping through an enormous pile of steamed broccoli while he entered cashouts in the office.

I sat down in a booth to wait. I felt the clock pressing on me. Now I had less than two hours to rest at home before I had to be at the Italian restaurant where I worked nights. I closed my eyes. Can you help run some stock? barked Marlo. No, I thought. Sure, I said. If it got close to one hour there wasn’t much point in going home, and I kept my other uniform in my car because sometimes that happened. But sometimes even if I could only be home for five minutes I would make the drive. I would sit on the floor in the bathroom and close the door, even though I lived alone. To feel like there was something between me and all that for a few moments.

As I was restocking some coffee mugs Craig called out that he had comped the bill and I could rerun my cashout. Can you back out the sales? I asked. He looked at me again like I was the wolf in the darkness. No, he said. We still had the cost. I know, but I have to tip out on money I didn’t get tipped on, I said. Sorry, he said, refilling his water bottle from a gallon jug under the desk in the office. The office was next to the back door and as I was standing there trying to calculate how much I had paid to wait on them Pedro the busser walked up to the door with a bus tub so full the mound of dirty plates obscured most of his face. I took a step toward the door to open it for him and as I held it I happened to look down. There it was, lodged in the frame of the door. Their black Citi MasterCard. Craig! I yelled. Don’t yell! he hissed from the office. I found it! I said. Look! He stepped out of the office. What the hell? he said. I pointed at the card. Seriously? he said skeptically. No, I said, I’ve had it in my pocket all this time because I just wanted to screw myself, but I changed my mind and stuck it in the door so I could look like a moron too.

What is going on here? said Marlo from behind me. You need to watch your tone.

I didn’t mean it like that, Craig said to me, ignoring her. I just meant — this place, he said, shaking his head.