Page 46 of In A Faraway Land

Waitressing Is A Tough Job

Flicka von Hannover

I was really bad at waitressing.

Flicka stood in front of the desk, looking around the room and wishing she were somewhere else, while the HR manager yelled at her.

A dark stain discolored the dark brown carpet around her shoes and pointed a long tail toward the rickety desk.

“You can’t talk to the patrons forminutesat a time,” the guy yelled at her. “You need to get in there, get the order, and get it back to the bar. It should take ten seconds per customer at a table, tops. In three minutes, you should get orders fromfivecustomers, notoneof them! No more of that negotiation or whatever you were doing out there. No more playing guessing games with your customers. Other customers are waiting, and theyneed to get drunk so they’ll lose more money to the house. Ten seconds with each patron! We’ve got to keep these damned lights on!”

“Yes, sir,” Flicka said, retreating somewhere lonely inside. Nothing really mattered. No one really mattered.

Nothing mattered except that she needed to make three hundred dollars in tips today to cover the bare essentials like Alina’s daycare, assuming that Dieterwon about the same from his poker table. If he didn’t, then she needed more.

“Look, you’ve gotten better with remembering who gets what. That’s improvement. I’m glad to see it. Now let’s improve this part, okay?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, wondering if she had blinked recently. Grit crusted her eyes.

“Now get out there and work those patrons. Get them drunk and stupid, okay?”

“Yes, sir.” She walkedout of his office.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the hiring manager finger-comb his hair back from his face and throw back the dregs of a cup of coffee.

As Flicka plodded out on the casino floor, blue-haired Conni sneered at her. Her crimson lipstick exaggerated her disdain for Flicka.

Yeah, trust Conni to snatch any opportunity to make something worse.

Flicka hit her tables fast.Every time she talked to a patron, a clock started counting down in her head:Ten, nine, eight—

That hiring manager guy was standing in the shadows where the flashing lights didn’t reach, watching her.

Plus, Conni was zipping around her tables with insane efficiency, and she never forgot who had gotten the Seven and Seven versus who had wanted the pilsner.

Flicka wrote down the orders and swipedcards through the reader on her tablet, trying to do it as well as possible.

Dieter seemed to understand and just grunted, “Beer,” whenever she came near him.

That silver-haired guy Bastien was playing Five-Card at his usual table, and he signaled her over.

“Yes?” she asked, her finger hovering over the iPad.Ten.

“What’s good today?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s all good,” she assured him. “All ofit.”

“But what do you recommend?”

Seven, six, five—“All of it is good.”

“My sweetlieblingGretchen, what is goodtoday?”

Flicka whispered to Bastien, “I can’t right now. I’m sorry. Please order something.”

Bastien blinked his pale eyes and announced, “One top-shelf martini, if you please.”

Flicka swiped it in, whispered, “Thank you,” and fled.