Merritt Tierce - Love Me Back

Same thing with these types in The Private Room, the unpredictability. Sometimes they want a girl with their steak — a rival establishment across town employs only women — and sometimes they don’t think a girl can do the job, or they seem embarrassed for you.

I won’t be talking much from here on out, and with the look of them I’m glad of that even if it might have worked out better for us with me up front. I fill their wineglasses and pick up the cocktail napkins they’ve brought with them from the bar. Are you ready for another, sir? I say. One of them has already downed three Jack ’n’ waters and the hors d’oeuvres haven’t even arrived. His nose is red and his eyes are pushed deep into a big waxy face. I ring up another for him and when I head into the well to pick it up DeMarcus is there, loading some other cocktails onto a tray. I point at the Jack and ask him if he’ll take it with him so I can prep some mise en place. Who’s it goin to? he asks. You know, I say, Lushie. Ah, he says, big fella? They’re all big, I say. Well, they’re all lushies too, he says.

Back in the room Lushie is standing, whiskey in hand, inviting everyone else to sit. He starts talking about their colleague who passed recently, due to an aortal aneurism. You can tell the others think this is a downer. They just got going on their buzz and they have to tell it to hold on a minute because it’s making them want to laugh when they should be serious, so they start playing with their forks and staring at the tablecloth and they start drinking even harder. You look down the table and the arms and glasses are going up and down quietly but nonstop like derricks. Lushie is using long medical terms with the somber educated air of a preacher bringing the word. The word is — what? I think. Heartsick? Moderation? Death? Quit it all right now?

Finally he drains his glass and sits all in one motion and the chatter folds back in around us and I can tell some of them feel like they barely made it out. Now they’re talking merger, due diligence, cash flow, liquidity, execute, and the deadly amortization. I have my language too, so though I think about asking Lushie if he wants me to mainline it for him I put it the nice way and say with a prompting lilt in my voice, Would you like me to keep those coming for you sir? and I start making them double-talls to slow him down, something Cal taught me. He wants to drink let him drink, and make him pay for it too — he feels that second or third double hit his ass and he don’t slow down, more power to him. But you don’t got to be running around for him like his goddamn lil bitch .

We take the order, DeMarcus on one side of the table and I on the other. We have an unspoken rivalry about who can get from position one to position fifteen the fastest. The pros get the order taking down to a call-and-response that reads each guest’s mind and draws out his selections for three courses with all pertinent temperatures and modifications in forty-five seconds or less, without letting him feel the slightest bit rushed. You expand your intake words, like Certainly and Absolutely and That won’t be a problem, sir, you let them hang rich and pillowy in a smile and the guest thinks only of how accommodating and efficient you are, he doesn’t hear the ticking of the giant railroad clock in your head that is Chef, waiting on the line for this order because a big party will affect the cook times for everything in the house. I’m one position behind DeMarcus, since one of my guys takes forever to acknowledge me, even though I’m standing there next to him saying Sir? Sir? Have you had a chance to decide? At some point you have to give up and wait for the friends he’s talking to to advocate for you, give him a sign with their eyes that he’s being rude to you. I hear DeMarcus talking to his seat eight about what vegetables he wants on the table for the party. This guy calls him Mark — DeMarcus is sensitive about his name, at least in the restaurant, and I don’t blame him. He’ll truncate it like that if he feels he needs to, though I think his name sounds regal and hip in the parking lot late at night when his brother swings by to get him and they ask me to climb in for a puff. On my side, on Lushie’s right, there’s one black guy. Guess he’s their EEOC compliance. He’s the only one of the lot who doesn’t order a steak — he asks for the salmon, well-done, and wants to make sure some greens will be on the table. Then I bend over by Lushie’s ear to get his order, and he does that thing fat people do where they sit facing forward but they tilt their head back and up toward you like a flower looking for the sun. He says he’ll have the ribeye. Maybe he’s thinking the same thing I am about that because when I ask him what he’ll have for dessert he pauses piously and says, I don’t believe I’ll have dessert tonight. I’ll pass. You’ll pass, okay, I say seriously while making notes like a doctor.

I leave the room to ring up my half of the table and while I’m at the POS my friend Asami comes up behind me. I’ve got some fucking Martians tonight, she says. I know, I say, they’re everywhere, and I debrief her about The Private Room. She’s telling me these stupid Botoxies at her table are doing the Sandra Oh thing to her again. It always goes down the same way. The ladies see her and she’s taking their cocktail order and one of them says to another, Oh you know who she reminds me of? and then turns to Asami and says You know who you look just like? and Asami usually gives them this big gorgeous grin and says I bet I know exactly what you’re thinking , or No! I have no idea, who’s that? but she’s telling me that tonight instead she kind of lost it and she said to them, I don’t look anything like Sandra Oh, she’s Korean! But I don’t look anything like her anyway!

Back in the room I’m clearing the hors d’oeuvres and getting everybody cleaned up and ready for the salad course when the boss stands and starts telling jokes. The boss is the one DeMarcus spoke to at the beginning about the wine, the one who ordered the vegetables — he’ll be paying the tab and apparently the reason for this fête is some deal he signed with Lushie. I’d lent them my pen earlier when they set the contract down in front of him and he started patting his pockets. So two doctors are banging this nurse, he says. She gets pregnant but she doesn’t tell them till she’s seven months gone, so they send her to Florida to have the baby. They’re gonna figure out how to raise it and do right, and of course she’ll come back to work at a much higher salary than before because they both have wives and kids. So she delivers and one doc calls the other and says he has bad news. What’s that, says the other doc. Well, she had twins, says the first doc, and mine died!

Grinning, he lets the laughter die down and then he goes, Okay, how bout this one. So one doctor says to the other, Are you fucking the nurse? The other doctor says No, why? And the first doctor says, Good! You fire her!

Now he rides the laughter, shouting How do you know your wife is dead? Sex is the same but the dishes start to pile up!

I catch DeMarcus’s eye across the table and I can see the laugh he’s stifling pulling at the corners of his mouth. He gives me a look like What are you gonna do? It’s funny , and I shake my head like he’s a traitor. I wonder, if he and EEOC weren’t here, would the boss be telling nigger jokes too. The boss continues with the jokes and the room is getting stuffy. I tell DeMarcus I’m going out to get Danny to check the thermostat. It’s hot as fucking hell in here, I say. The har-har-haring is so loud I don’t even have to whisper.

When I come back I’m moving around the table, setting out steak knives and crumbing, and when I get to the boss he puts his hand on my elbow and says affably, We’re not offending you with any of this, are we? Ha! I say to the boss. You think I haven’t heard this before? I give him a matronly smile with this but he’s already patting my elbow and turning away.