splat chapter seven

That afternoon her patrol took her up 75 North. It was too hot to keep the windows halfway up, and after a few minutes she leaned way over into the passenger side to reach the crank, driving with her left hand stretched all the way to the wheel, her head barely above the dashboard, steering from the passenger seat. The car next to her honked and she discovered herself drifting into the next lane. Oops.

Traffic hit a construction zone and stopped.

There was no air conditioning, no breeze, super intense sun searing her elbow and leg. No crosswinds, just ionized overheated noxious gases from a million tailpipes. Every thirty seconds the car in front of her would move most of a car length, and Suzie would inch her way up to the guy's bumper again.

She took her right hand glove off and started in on the second Krispy Kreme, now wonderfully firm and glossy but still lighter than air and still with that crisp fresh-from-the-fryer taste. She sipped on her coffee, and thought of turning the radio on but didn't, then found a paper bag from Zesto's, and leaned over to clean up all the junk on the floor of the passenger side.

She could feel sweat pooling behind her knees, squeezing through the mesh of her tights. It was sticky and gross. She hated nylon. She hated polyester. She hated sitting in fucking stopped traffic. Maybe her choice of uniform was interfering with, rather than enhancing her sense of mission. She licked her fingers of flakes of glazed sugar and decided to rethink the whole uniform concept.

Merge Right 500 Ft. Suzie began to feel a little nauseous. She could feel tiny globules of fat on the roof of her mouth. Sugar and engine fumes don't blend very well. The coffee helped a little, maybe all that cream neutralized the chemicals. Lots of engine fumes.

By the time traffic sped up to normal around the Mount Paran exit, a mile and a half up the road, Suzie noticed with frustration that it had taken half an hour. And then brake lights came on again. And everyone slowed back down to thirty. And then came to a stop.

Suzie and half a million of her best friends sat there, and inched ahead, and sweated. At least Suzie did. Everyone else was using their air conditioning. She steamed as traffic heading south on I-75 went by hugely fast, seventy, eighty, whistling by on the other side of the concrete barrier.

She looked with longing at the lane next to the barrier, wishing for some of that breeze. And it was still only spring. The first thing to go are the tights, she thought. I've got to wear shorts in this heat, and in summer maybe I'll go with some sort of skirt. But the tights thing is only for winter. And I really don't like wearing shoes when I'm driving, either. Can't feel the pedals as well, and these shoes are small, and they make my feet hot. All she could think of was the tears of sweat rolling down her neck, her sides, her legs, her back.

Eventually they crossed over the Chattahoochee River, with its soft green hills, and mounds of trees dropping down to overhang the smooth, brown water running under the bridge and bending away in the distance.

Suddenly inspired, Suzie abandoned her fruitless quest, got off at the Cumberland Parkway exit, snaked thru the surface streets to the park, and went to dip her feet in the water, tights and all.

That does it, she thought. She took her keys out of her pocket, bent over, and used the scissors on her army knife to cut the feet off her tights. Suzie sat on the bank and wiggled her toes in the mud, sighing contentedly, her back resting against a tree, sitting in the shade, watching the water flow by.

They held a raft race every year on the Hooch, back in the 70s. Rubber rafts, rafts made of milk jugs and pallets, rafts made of logs strapped together, rafts that immediately took on water and sank, rafts made of cardboard boxes, blow-up pool rafts, bike inner tubes, truck tires, huck finn rafts, rafts made from bathtubs; you name it. The largest party in Atlanta, in May, just about this time of year. Promoted by the radio station that served as the model for the TV show WKRP Cincinnati. 60,000 people floating down the Hooch. 300,000 people sitting on the banks with blankets and coolers. Clothing optional. There were halloween costumes, gorilla suits, swim suits, and half-naked people, all drinking and smoking and eating and having one hell of a time. Of course they banned it. But Suzie wished theyd reinstate it, even illegally. Her dad and Uncle Daddy used to talk about the years theyd gone down the river. Uncle Daddy had a very old, leaky canoe, and theyd put in at Morgan Falls and divide their time between pulling naked women out of the water and diving in themselves to join the fun.

The Chattahoochees water was probably more polluted then than it is now. At least, thats what officials like to say. But I dont know. All the development, all the woods bulldozed and the streets paved. All the cars leaking oil and radiator fluid. All the carpet factories up in the moutains. And all the chemicals the farmers dump on their fields way upstream, and the seepage from piles of chicken and cow shit. Anyway, even if it might be cleaner now, the sewers are older and the population has fourpled, and when it rains, water flows into the sewers, and then into the waste treatment plants, and then overflows from there right into the river, along with millions of gallons of untreated sewage. Its not pretty. Youre not supposed to swim in the Hooch now because the e coli content is so high. Youre really not supposed to eat any fish you might catch. Frankly, you shouldnt even be drinking water out of the tap around Atlanta without filtering it first. 

So Suzie just dipped her feet in, after examining her toes for cracks or wounds. And she did spend some time worrying if she could catch anything from the mist that rose off the water, some airborne virus or noxious vapor. Mainly, tho, she watched the cranes and geese that were hanging out between the shoals, and fantacized about a shoal out in the middle of the river, a natural-looking wier of rocks that looked like the Creeks might have caught trout way back when.

On the way back downtown to go to work, the road was doing seventy until she approached the Connector, and then, coming up to the Brookwood join of 75 and 85, traffic stopped. Whoever designed the Connector was a sadist, Suzie thought.  Whose idea was it to blend two streams of car energy right through the middle of town?

She took the exit for Fourteenth Street and escaped from the traffic jam that ran from Brookwood to below I-20, all the way through town, twelve lanes of parking lot . Pulling off onto the exit, she was suddenly going faster than all the cars on the highway.

Suddenly, unable to contain himself, some idiot cut up behind her, rode right out onto the shoulder, and zipped around in front of her to take the exit first, honking at her. She was instantly angry, and screamed at him all the way to the top of the ramp, where he turned right, and she turned left. But not before fumbling the gun out of her bag and getting a shot off in his direction. He never saw it, but Suzie left a big psychotic yellow splat on the ramp wall.

A cop drove up the same ramp while it was still wet. He mentioned it in his report.

 * * *

 She got to work with five minutes to spare. Woohoo. The line cooks were busy; members with small children were arriving for early dinners. Waiters were running in to leave orders and bustling back up the stairs and looking unusually harassed for the beginning of the evening. Casual Dining was in full swing, a plated dinner was set for 350 in the Southern Sportsman Ballroom, there was a buffet for 100 in the large dining room.

Miss Charlene was over in the corner stirring up a big batch of tapioca pudding. Finding it on the menu tonight, most of the members and their guests in Casual Dining would order it, and there'd be none left to eat when the porters raided the pastry cooler with spoons at the end of the night.

Suzie looked longingly at the tapioca, still warm from the double boiler, but she didn't dare ask for any. 'Afternoon, Miss Charlene. Are you enjoying your day?'

Miss Charlene handed her a tablespoon. 'Go on, tell me if I've got enough vanilla in it.' Suzie scooped up a big mouthful and blew on it for a few moments, taking in the rich aroma, feeling her mouth water.

She slid the spoon into her mouth and the taste of hot custard, yellow-tasting solid air, permeated her nasal cavities and wafted right into her brain. 'Mmmmm.' More like a purr than a hum. 'What's Chef up to?'

Miss Charlene stood back and folded her arms. She almost harrumphed. 'Oh, he's off moping around his office again; probly working on his resume.' To be kind, he could have been doing a lot of things. Maybe he was building next month's menus, writing kitchen procedures, reviewing timesheets, checking on purchasing orders; researching restaurant trends; other stuff too arcane to mention.

The blinds were open so Chef could look out on his people, but he was sitting back there like he was hiding. His hat was off, his head was bent, his long lanky hair fell over his eyes. He was scribbling something down and not paying any attention to what the staff was doing.

The cooks had seen several chefs come and go in a short space of time. Chefs were hired away from a Hilton or a Marriott, offered a king's ransom, and promised a royal dominion all their own. But when were handed the keys to the kingdom, they found that all the locks had been changed and the serfs were surly and didn't know nothing. Few highly trained chefs want to put up with a staff of ignorant layabouts, but if they don't want to fire everyone and start over, they either reluctantly accept the way things really work, or they leave. The bet was for this one to be gone within the month.

Miss Charlene let Suzie have another spoonful of tapioca, and then went back to stirring the heat out of it. Then she covered it with plastic wrap and wrestled the bowl onto a small cart. Suzie wheeled it off to the dairy cooler, and resisted dipping her finger in it, but made a mental note to come back before it was all gone.

The Garde-manger caught her coming out of the cooler. 'Are you doing anything? I need someone to chop some onions.' Suzie protested that she'd never chopped onions before. 'It's easy. I'll show you. Grab a knife.' And he marched off to the prep table where there was a fifty-pound bag of yellow onions leaning up against the counter. Suzie rummaged in one of the drawers under the table, and found an almost-sharp ten-inch kitchen knife.

The Garde-manger stabbed a hole in the net bag with his knife, and reached out half a dozen onions, then grabbed one, held it down on the counter top, and holding the knife high above his head, came down with a resounding thwack, and the top of the onion flew off onto the floor some distance away. The Garde-manger loved to use his knife like a ninja. Never mind that it dulled every time he touched the steel counter top with it, he wanted to hear it ring out. He looked like he had a few Rambo movies in his collection. And lots of Jackie Chan. He took another onion and decapitated it. And another. Suzie thought how happy he looked.

A Latino porter came by carrying two large, rectangular food storage boxes stacked on top of each other and spanning most of his reach, and tripped on an onion top lying out in the middle of the floor. He recovered, silently, still holding the Cambros. The Garde-manger said nothing, but shook his head as he peeled the onions, like the stupid porters should watch where they're going.

'Here, pay attention.' He showed her how he was holding the onion near the root end with his fingernails. His knuckles were folded over, covering his fingertips and protecting them from the knife. 'Now I rock the blade.' This was not like the ninja scalping technique he had used to take the tops off. 'Not a chopping motion, but a levered motion, like a guillotine.' He made a couple of thin slices. 'And see how I'm bringing the side of the blade against my knuckles? I'm using them as guides, and I can make as thin a cut as I want this way.'

He quickly sliced the whole onion into half-inch rings, walking his fingertips back toward the root end. Snick snick snick snick snick. Missing his fingers with the blade every time. Then he stacked the slices. 'Again, use a rocking motion with the knife. Keep the point down, and swing the heel of the knife instead. It lets you make your precision cuts. If you chop it with the point in the air, you're just hacking, and you end up with random sized bits of onion.' He displayed a formerly whole onion, now uniformly chunked, flourishing his hand - voila. 'Think you can do that?'

Suzie shrank inside. No, she did not think she could do that. The Garde-manger had just taken all of seventeen seconds to turn produce into ingredients, in a show of technical mastery that he'd paid good money to learn in culinary school, and she here was still learning how to hold a big knife. 'Um.'

He thrust an onion into her hands. 'You try.'

She grabbed her knife about where she'd seen him holding his, halfway down the handle. It was a steel knife with a three inch blade at the heel tapering down to a point. A white plastic handle, nubbly textured, with indents for fingers a whole lot bigger than hers. All those nubs made it feel wet, even though she'd been wiping it with her apron just a moment ago.

She held the onion down on the table. It was all the could do to stretch her little hand around the grapefruit-sized, slippery, peeled bulb. Carefully putting the point of the knife on the table, she aimed the heel of the blade at the greening top of the onion, and brought it down wobbly. This top didn't go shooting off onto the floor; it fell over still half-attached to the onion.

Suzie felt very nervous as she put the knife down and tore off the top with her hands. She really wanted the Garde-manger to take it away from her and show her how to do it right again, and was willing to be extra inept in an attempt to exasperate him into it. But he was watching her, keeping up a stream of corrections; cursedly resistant to taking her knife away and doing it for her.

She made a fist over the roots and levered the blade down to rest beside her knuckles, then came straight down through the bulb. She pulled her fist back a fraction of an inch and made another cut, then moved her fingertips back a little and made another one. Not exactly even slices, but she wasn't in any danger of cutting her fingers. She could see where this might be a nice technique for knife work. The Garde-manger's breathing down her neck was a little uncomfortable, especially since he was actually breathing down her neck. The smell of the onions was beginning to irritate her, too.

'I think I have the hang of it now.' She said, putting the knife down and wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist. The Garde-manger nodded and left, telling her to do three dozen and give them to the Sous-chef. Suzie turned back to the work table, piling the slices on top of each other to cut them into pieces.

Miss Charlene waved at her, so she put the knife down and ran cold water over her hands to dilute the onion smell. 'Idiot,' Miss Charlene stated. 'He's always got to do things by the book. There ain't no reason to go chopping through all those onions. You'll be crying and weeping in a minute. Now you just get hold of Manny and ask him where they got the onion chopper at. Go on.'

Suzie found Manuel. He whipped a metal brace-like contraption out from under a counter, and showed her how to use it. And once she peeled them and got rid of the tops and roots, she had several dozen onions in little chunks in just under five minutes. With no tears.

Suzie put them in a container and handed them off to the Sous-chef, and then made sure to go and thank Miss Charlene for being so kind to her. 'It's nothing, girl. You just got to know a few tricks round here, is all. Don't let them complicate your life if you can help it.'

Chef got up and came out of his office, standing in the door scratching his head, surveying the room. Everybody tried to look a little busier. 'Hey, you,' he called out to Suzie, who had another spoon in her hand, ready to taste Miss Charlene's apple crumble fresh from the oven. She put down the spoon, wiped her hands on her apron, and approached hesitantly. He sure looked like he was mad about something. Maybe the way she did the onions was considered cheating. Maybe he'd write her up for it. Or fire her.

Chef wanted her for something else. It was worse than being in trouble. 'They don't have enough help upstairs. I don't have a problem sparing you. Go be a waiter for tonight. See the Service Manager.' He was dismissive, almost cruel.

She looked at him in horror. 'Serve dinner? To the members?' She'd never waited tables before. She'd always avoided jobs that had anything to do with customer service. And she had absolutely no waiter skills at all. She almost said, 'You're shitting me,' but Chef was not the kind of guy you could say that to.

Chef looked down to see her still trying to organize her protest. 'Why are you still here?'

'But I don't know anything about serving.'

He shrugged. 'I don't give a fuck. Someone'll show you. Now go.'

Suzie felt cold dread slither down her neck and into the pit of her stomach. Impending doom. A cloud of toxic chemicals constantly threatening rain. Why did she always feel like she was on the verge of being fired from every job she ever had? Always the junior member, always the clueless one. And such a learning curve. It's not like she was incompetent, it was just that she was always in over her head.

She turned around and took the stairs beside the dumbwaiter: narrow, dark, redolent with cooking fumes at the bottom end and cigar smoke at the top. Stand around waiting on them hand and foot with not even a chance of a tip? Act as mute witness to their conspicuous consumption? She said a quick prayer that she not make an ass of herself and get fired.

She came up into the pantry. It was a big empty storage room, with a big gray ice chest and a couple of shelves lining the walls and filled with all sorts of dining room stuff. Suzie went out into the hall looking for the Service Manager. The hall was a dark, paneled place under the stairs with dark shiny floors and subdued lighting. Beyond it was the vast marble and glass breezeway, glaring with lights. The Service Manager was standing in the shadow alongside the stairs with his back to her, looking into the empty ballroom through open double doors.

She stopped next to him and waited until he noticed her. 'Um, Chef sent me upstairs to help out.' She put out her hand. 'I'm Suzie.'

He was a tall, rangy white guy from the Midwest, with soft-looking, saggy skin and sad eyes. He shook her hand briefly, looking over her head, then turned and headed back toward the pantry with her. 'Ever do this kind of work before? No?' He looked at her, sizing her up. 'You'll do okay. But you need a uniform.'

They ducked into the stairs and went up to the third floor servant's quarters, a dingy place with trash and dust in the corners. paint peeling from the ceiling, industrial gray carpet, sprung couches not fit to touch ladies' bottoms but good enough for the staff, and a musty stale smoke odor made worse by the heat of the roof right above their heads.

He looked through a locker just like the one Suzie had used in high school, and fished out a black knee-length skirt, a black vest and a white shirt with tuxedo ruffles on it. From a box in the corner, he produced a black bow tie and a cummerbund. 'These should fit. Look for a pair of shoes up on top of the lockers there. Then come get me when you're dressed.'

Suzie struggled into the new clothes. He was wrong about the shirt size, so she rummaged around until she found something smaller, and slipped into a pair of black runners that weren't half uncomfortable, and didn't smell at all.

She went back to find him, pulling her just barely too-long hair back into a ponytail. The Service Manager stifled a grimace. He walked her over to a corner of the ballroom where half a dozen waiters sat around the tables folding napkins. 'Here, you can do this for awhile,' he said. ''Yolanda there will show you the ropes.' He indicated a Latina over on the couches filling sugars. She looked up at her name, and winked at Suzie, and the Service Manager left her to find a seat and get to work.

It was six-thirty. The waiters were in the seats the members and their guests would occupy at eight, folding napkins into hats and talking. Suzie sat down between a black gentleman whose nametag said Suliman, and a white woman from North Georgia with her blonde hair in a very long ponytail; the only other white person in the room. Everybody was in tuxedos and vests. They were all sitting up straight, looking good.

The napkins were piled up flat in the middle of the table, and everyone was working off a short stack of a dozen or so pulled in front of them. Suliman taught Suzie how to fold, gently shaking the napkin out and making her do it over a couple of times. It was fairly simple, but it took practice to get it right.

Suzie looked around at the room. The tablecloths had been laid and the centerpieces were placed. Two tuxedoed waiters worked from plate dollies that had been wheeled to the top of the room, setting the tables with one article at a time. The huge ballroom was strangely muffled and quiet, and everybody spoke softly.

'You can tell a place by the cleanliness of the kitchen.' Suliman commented, continuing the conversation. 'The condition of a kitchen reflects on the Chef. It shows how sharp he is.'

Suzie objected. 'But the customers never see the kitchen.'

'And a good thing, too.' They all laughed.

Suzie thought about how clean their kitchen was, which was not very. Not that there were safety or health hazards. Just that there were little corners where things piled up - cookbooks, pots and pans under the tables, bowls and implements, jugs of this and that with runs of dried liquids down their sides; and grotty stuff you didn't want to know about behind the equipment; and condensation on the walls that had hardened into stalactites near the floor.

The staff at the Club took care of everything that was legally required by the health codes. You bet. They cleaned the grease traps, they hosed off the floors at night, they used bleach to sterilize all surfaces and implements, they used proper temperature control and practiced the required separation of foodstuffs.

It's just that there was the absence of a Passion For CleanlinessTM kind of attitude in the kitchen. Nobody thought totally sterile antiseptic conditions were necessary. The craze for antibacterial soap was judged to be a bad idea. They held the same standards of cleanliness that applied to their own family kitchens. Chef was working to change that, but he'd been having trouble getting employee buy-in on his vision.

The waiters all looked professional and sophisticated. Suzie felt like an imposter. They all looked like they knew what they were doing, even though they were only folding napkins, and they sounded like they'd seen it all. Everything was new to Suzie. She felt the learning curve loom over her.

A Latina told about a kitchen fire at some club, caused by waiters lighting cans of sterno over the flame on the stove. They all made faces, like they'd never be that stupid themselves.

A gay guy told about a chef in some other club, who was coming around the corner and slipped on a filthy, scummy floor, and stuck his arm into the deep fat fryer. Everybody gasped. 'They moved that fryer to the middle of the hot side,' he said. 'And they saved the arm.'

The descriptions horrified Suzie. Grease traps that had never been cleaned. Range hoods that dripped oil. Rats that came out and waved at you from behind the sinks.

The Service Manager held a meeting at 7:15. They all piled down to the employee break room in the back corner of the kitchen, known as the Kudzu Room, snagging leftovers out of a couple of trays left out for them. Hot wings, cocktail wieners, ham biscuits, and macs and cheese. The Service Manager smiled at the waiters stuffing their faces. He felt benevolent. Suzie ate reluctantly. If she hadn't gone upstairs, she'd be too full from picking at food to eat the crap they were serving.

Then he began roll call. It was like high school. He was all business, trying to get through his agenda, but he was organizing a troupe of clowns, not a disciplined team of waiters.

The Service Manager spent time ragging one guy he accused of doing everything wrong the last time they'd had one of these gigs. The waiter made a face behind his back. There were about twenty waiters, most of them temps. Suzie didn't know any of them. She felt lost and friendless.

The Service Manager was busy looking for the function sheet. It was a different world to Suzie. A waiter put his head down and went to sleep, another waiter read a book, several shared baby pictures. One waiter took his copy of the function sheet and tore and folded it into a paper pincer schoolkids tell fortunes with.

The Service Manager patted his pockets. 'Does anybody have a copy of the function sheet?' They handed him the pincer. There was an uproar, and several waiters crumpled up their copies and tossed them at the Manager. Unperturbed, he went over who had what tables, who was whose partner, who was responsible for filling the salt and peppers after, filling the sugars after, cleaning the lounges and bringing all the plates out of there after. He assigned Suzie to partner with Yolanda after leaning down to whisper something to her. Then he straightened up and addressed the troops. They pretended not to listen.

'We're going to light the candles at 7:45. Then we're going to ice the water glasses and we're going to start at the top of the room and work back toward the pantry. Everybody got that?' Nobody said anything. So he repeated it, and repeated it, until everybody was repeating it with him. 'Start at the top and work back.' Then he repeated it some more. And then everybody got up and filed upstairs to the banquet.

Yolanda came over and said hello. Yolanda had her hair in a thick ponytail high up on the back of her head and it swished attractively when she walked. She was about thirty-five and trim. Lively, quick, smart. You could tell from looking at her face. And competent.

'OK. You've never worked here before? Let me show you the pantry while we have all the time in the world. Once the guests are seated it'll be nonstop.' Suzie wasn't sure if she was being ironic.

They stood in the middle of the pantry. It was 7:23. Yolanda pointed her finger at a pantry sink, next to the dumbwaiter. Lined up on the sink were colored plastic glass racks; she pointed to each one. Wine, water, big bulb wine, highball, tumbler, coffee. 'Don't mix them up. They run them through the dishwashers in those racks and it messes up the count if you put stuff in the wrong racks.'

She pointed to a bunch of plate dollies in the corner. 'Extra plates,' at a rack full of black bus tubs. 'Silver.' She neglected to refer to the giant ice maker, or the coffee and tea boiler, or the rack of metal coffee pots and steel water pitchers.

Yolanda turned on her heel and walked out through the galley. On one wall was a drink dispenser over an ice chest, and a refrigerated table with dressings and sauces covered with plastic wrap with spoons laid on top. 'Salad unit.' She went on, pointing. 'Emergency stash of silver, condiments, pitchers, staging area for your tray.' Under the table, 'Tray.' She didn't bother to point out a narrow work sink with water pitchers lining the counter.

Once out of the pantry itself, there was a short corridor crammed full of dispensers and assembly stations; a hot, airless galley.

She pulled out the function sheet and showed Suzie a plan where thirty-six tables were spread evenly through the ballroom. Each had a number, and every group of three was a different color. There was Yolanda's name in red, with a question mark for her helper.

It was hurry up and wait. Suzie decided she liked the look of the waiters. Everybody had such nice manners in their tuxedoes. They seemed noble, dedicated, watchful, resourceful, obliging, accommodating. They looked like delightful people to spend an evening with. They did not look like servants. They didn't act like servants.

They were very gracious with each other. Among servants, everybody has dignity. They stood around waiting, and spent the time telling tales on other waiters; talking about famous bad waiters, bragging about how much food and drink they could imbibe on the sly, listing things people have gone home with.

It impressed Suzie that there was no end to what a slick waiter could do. 'Half bottles of wine are nothing,' one of them observed. 'How about opening up the liquor closet and having a buddy out back with a van?'

At 7:45 the candles were lit, a lone black fairy flitting to each table with a grill lighter. Then it was hurry up and wait some more. The waiters sat at the tables, ready at any moment to spring up and act like they were doing something should a guest or the Service Manager walk in. But the guests were still in the bar and out in the silent auction room.

They went into the pantry where a table had been set up in front of the ice maker. Large oval platters were spread out, water goblets were set up a couple of dozen to a tray. A couple of waiters threw a slice of lemon into the bottom of each glass. Three waiters scooped up the ice and poured it over the glasses. The ice went everywhere, but mainly it filled the glasses to the brim. Waiters were lined up with smaller trays, and bAllenced them at the edge of the table with one hand, grabbing glasses as fast as they could and packing them on.

In moments the oval platter had only loose ice cubes on it. They lifted the platter and dumped the ice into the sink, then put more glasses on, and started again. Waiters took trays full of iced glasses, marched up to the top of the ballroom, and laid them out on the tables, working back toward the pantry. It was like worker ants. Then waiters filled up pitchers with tap water and went to the top of the ballroom, filling each glass, going in a clockwise circle around a table and working their way back.

Yolanda came to stand with Suzie, and they stood in the doorway of the Southern Sportsman Ballroom admiring their work. Circular tables were set up in rows throughout the ballroom, thirty-six tables crammed close together, covered in white linens, formally set. What had been an empty expanse of beige and green rug was now picture perfect and ready for action.

Suzie thought it was a gloomy place. The drapes were closed for the banquet, and the chandeliers were turned down low, and the light disappeared into the dark green and brown wallpaper. And the heavy dark green velvet curtains right out of Gone With the Wind. And the huge cabinets full of guns and rifles. The ducks and dogs wallpaper. The rug. The candles on every table glittering. The acoustical tile ceiling disappearing above them. Suzie recalled her dream. It would be easy to plug a pencil into the ceiling here.

It was after eight. Diners began drifting in, standing in bunches, holding drinks and handbags and wraps. The men were in black ties and tuxedoes, the women were in evening gowns. Mostly black dresses, some color. Some quite dowdy. Some fat. Most skinny and blonde or brunette, or older and stouter with dyed hair piled up on their heads. Dripping with jewelry.

Only gradually did they find their tables and sit down. They'd bought seats for the exorbitant sum of $2,300 each, which was for a good cause, and tax deductible. And they were all discussing the things they'd bid on at the silent auction.

A bunch of waiters gathered in the pantry for a big cart full of plastic-wrapped bread baskets that made their way up in the dumbwaiter. A couple of waiters ripped off the wrap, kicking any bread that fell to the side of the room. Other waiters waited patiently in line with their trays while baskets were unwrapped and handed to them, and they skipped out to the room to start at the top and work back. Then a bunch of waiters opened a coldbox and brought out tray after tray of little ramekins full of butter, which other waiters transferred to their trays and dashed out to start at the top.

The guests ran through their bread and drinks at an appalling rate while they waited for their dinners to be served.

At each table there were ten people. The wives were all differently dressed, and spoke softly with their heads close together. The members themselves looked like clones. They all had short hair on balding heads, most of them wore glasses, most of them were running to fat and looked uncomfortable in their tuxedoes. They even seemed to be all the same height. It was very WASPy.

Suzie shadowed Yolanda fretfully.

One guy stood in the middle of the floor drinking with his buddy. 'Her brother is my business partner,' he nodded toward his wife.

The other guy munched on a roll. 'I'm working all weekend.' He sounded proud.

'I can't do this,' Suzie whispered to Yolanda.

Yolanda slapped her on the back and said, 'Yes you can. It's not hard. You're lucky your first time's just a banquet and you don't have to take menu orders. Come on.' Yolanda led the way back to the pantry, bouncing as she walked, swinging her ponytail.

The salads were up. They'd been plated and put into racks down in the kitchen, and the food elevator brought them up. Waiters brought the trays out and removed the plates onto big oval trays, waiters grabbed them and marched them out to tray jacks covered in tablecloths stationed around the edges of the room. People were sitting down now in a hurry, crowding in the door. Waiters were going around the outsides of the room and cutting through clear spaces, with radar out to avoid hitting any guests.

Yolanda squatted down under the edge of her tray and slid it off the table onto her shoulder, then rose up and stalked off to the banquet room. Suzie followed her, impressed, and helped her pass out salads. Then they went back to the pantry for more.

The guests started to eat. Some of them. Some were not even seated. Some were going back out to have another drink. Some were standing around talking. A lot of them were doing this. Some were already eating. Devouring the bread. Gnawing at the salad.

The diners never saw the staff. They pretended they didn't notice when a plate went missing right beneath their eyes. They pretended not to see a waiter walking behind them with a loaded tray. They pretended they had the automatic right of way when it came to crossing a room. They were loud, and they were petty, and they may have been the best and the brightest, or the richest and most powerful, but they ate like pigs.

Most of them were sitting and eating at this point, and now the waiters hovered, lining the walls, two of them assigned to three tables, doing tag-team waiting, seeing if anyone's wine glass was empty, if anyone was done with their salad, if they were running out of bread or butter or water, if they'd dropped a fork or a napkin. The empty salad plates got whisked up, the wine glasses got topped up, more bread got eaten. People got up and wandered out to the bar or the bathroom.

Some lady got up and made a speech. Raising funds, a good cause, hard work, blah. They clapped. The waiters couldn't do anything while this was going on, so they stood there, trays clasped to their chest, or hands behind their backs against the wall, or hiding in the pantry. Some guy got up and made a speech. The guests clapped. The waiters stood stony-faced. They didn't have to clap. They weren't foolish enough to sacrifice a couple of months' wages for the privilege of being there.

Neither were the members and their guests. They earned the price of a ticket in less than a week, some of them in a couple of hours. It was only a hardship for them because they were already tapped out anyway, just paying the bills for their opulent lifestyle. But it wasn't like they couldn't afford it, strictly speaking. And it was expected of them.

When you make tons of money, you're expected to live at a certain level, attend a certain number of functions, have a certain circle of friends, belong to a certain country club, go to a certain church, send your kids to certain schools. The more money you have, the more you are obligated to live according to everyone's expectations, the more people have hooks in you to compel you to follow a prescribed path. Suzie was glad to be poor.

She fantasized herself in their place. Put a slinky evening gown on her and get someone to do her makeup, and she could fit right in with the crowd of rich philanthropists, social climbers, and party animals. She heard the same jokes she heard from her friends, they talked about the same topics. They were as insecure and dependent on what others thought of them, and as directionless and self doubting as she was.

They pretended to know it all and to be in control of their lives, but once they'd had a few drinks, they started talking about their problems, gossiping, grinding axes. They sounded just like the black cooks downstairs, just like the boys in the garage, just like Auntie Mae and her friends. The only difference was how they'd been raised, and what they felt entitled to think of themselves.

Suzie's feet stuck to the floor when she went into the pantry. Squidge squidge. This was evidently better than a slick floor, which could pull your legs out from under you, causing you to drop and break every dish on your tray.

The hotboxes were arriving in the food elevator, and so the rush started all over again, except a little slower because the plates were hot and heavy. It was a madhouse in the pantry. Suzie, standing there unsure what to do, caused two almost-collisions and a pirouette. Waiters reached for plates and brought them over each others' heads, and turned until there was space enough to lower their arm and put the plate on their tray. They scurried and danced around each other, grabbing things and dashing out, talking to other waiters who were answering back without stopping. Suzie kept her eye on Yolanda and waited for a break in traffic.

They waltzed out to the first table, and laid the plates down clockwise. They served the hungry table first. They'd eaten every scrap of salad, and weren't being very talkative. One of the members looked a little miffed about something. The girls hoped it would keep them from eating each other.

They were in a good mood at the second table. One of the members was telling the others some story. The wives listened rapt, smiles smeared on their faces. Like the rest of the room, the evening had started out in the bar, and would end there.

They were also needy. 'Waitress, I need some steak sauce.' 'Waitress, I need some mustard.' 'Waitress, I want some more bread.' 'Waitress, I need another napkin.' 'Waitress, get me some more wine.' Ketchup, pepper, mayo, sour cream, another fork, more wine.

The third table was different. The men were discussing business in low tones, then breaking out into knowing grins and nods. The wives drank and gossiped about what they heard at the hair dresser's that afternoon.

They broke it up when the food came out. One of the men, a pudgy guy with glasses and short sandy hair, took notice of Suzie. 'Who do we have here? A new waitress. What's your name, Darling?' She told him. He winked. 'Suzie, eh? That's nice. I'll call you Suzie Q.'

Suzie froze up. Suzie Q was her superhero name. It was her dad's nickname for her. It was her CB handle. She felt a stab of fear. How could he know? But then he started singing the old Credence Clearwater song in a low tone. 'Oh, Suzie Q.' Another member, a fat guy with sandy hair and contacts joined in, louder. They both sang to her, the one with the glasses winked. 'Baby, I love you, Suzie Q.' Diners at other tables paused and looked in another direction.

Suzie relaxed. 'Just Suzie, please.' But they were off, and whenever she approached the table, the two of them sang or hummed or whistled, and the other men sang along. The wives began looking daggers at Suzie, so she stayed away to avoid setting the wives off.

The waiters spent much of their time leaning against the wall with their hands clasped. They spoke quietly among themselves, sharing observations and comments on the scene. It was obvious to Suzie that they considered themselves the superior beings in the room, and the diners domesticated animals. They were more graceful and dignified than most of the privileged guests who wandered in front of them all evening.

The guests behaved like brutes, drunk and slobbery. They acted like squirrels, diving into the food and stuffing their cheeks. They pecked at the food, preening and making nuisances of themselves like cocks roaming the yard. One guy was like a bull in a china shop, careening from table to table into selected bare shoulders and staring down into cleavages while bending over to talk to the men.

And then it gradually became a constant in and out as plates and glasses were emptied. Every now and then, Suzie had a quick hand put out to stop her from taking a plate. 'Thanks, Sweetie, I'm still working on it,' a woman in strapless silk would assure her.

Waiters took trays full of dirty dishes and glasses into the pantry, put the trays down on the bus table, scraped food off the plates with the silver, then tossed the silver into a bus tub, stacked the plates by size in another bus tray, emptied the glasses into a slops bucket and inverted them into their proper racks. Then it was back out for more dirty dishes.

Every now and then an edible piece of the main course came back, big enough for someone to grab it off the plate and pop it into their mouth. Everybody did that at one point, relishing their favorite part of the meal. A tomato from the salad. A chunk of beef. An uneaten pastry. A shrimp.

Squinch squinch. Suzie's feet stuck to the floor and slowed her down as she walked. It was getting worse every time she came through the pantry door.

Dessert was served, the same clusterfuck in the pantry followed by a dramatic entrance into the dining room. It was like being crammed with a troupe of actors in a tiny dressing room, exploding onto the stage with all those lights and the audience hanging on their every word. It creeped Suzie out.

The end was in sight. Some of the diners didn't wait around for dessert, but headed back to the bar. Several women left their handbags and their wraps lying on the floor next to their table, or slung over the back of their chair, and only fetched them an hour later, when they'd had more than enough to drink and needed to be off home to bed now.

The waiters had developed quite a rapport by the end of the night, not even needing to speak to each other in order to coordinate every little thing. Everybody treated each other with the utmost respect and courtesy, ignoring the diners, looking down their noses at the lack of breeding. They couldn't wait for them to go home.

Every time it slowed down even a little bit, the waiters complained that the members weren't eating fast enough, that they wouldn't go home; complained about their feet, their fatigue, that they weren't being paid enough. Suzie's feet hurt, her back hurt, her shirt collar was too tight. She had sore knees. She scarfed down a plate of uneaten chocolate cream cake that came back. Some plates weren't even touched. Everything got tossed into the trashcan. Tons of food. Hogsheads of drink. Suzie thought of the waste and cringed.

Some guests dawdled over their dessert. Some changed tables to chat. Some came back from the bar with fresh drinks and went to talk to someone they knew. The waiters discretely whisked empty plates and glasses away. People left for the bar in droves after dessert, and soon the ballroom was almost empty of diners. All the shiny women had departed. Most of the waiters were in the pantry. They cleaned up whatever they could while the diners were still there, and then stood around with their hands behind their backs. Looking pointedly at the members. Who ignored them.

Several tables evidently intended to stay all night. The members gathered at a couple of tables in the back and undid their jackets and loosened their ties. A strolling bartender came around pouring brandy and taking bar orders; a server went around with more coffee. Cigars were whipped out and lit. Ashtrays appeared. The conversations got louder.

'Come here, honey,' called the wiseass singing member she and Yolanda had served. 'I want to talk to you.'

Suzie turned around, dishes piled up in her arms, and gave him a put-upon look.

He waved her off. 'Go put that stuff down and get back here.'

She came back, wiping her hands on a napkin, and stood at the other side of the table facing him. 'Yes sir?'

He took his cigar out of his mouth and rolled it with stubby fingers. He was sitting back on his chair, its front legs off the floor. His jacket was off. His starched white shirt tugged at the buttons, showing triangles of skin over his belly. It looked like he was using those Georgia Bulldog suspenders as straps. 'Oh, nothing,' he said. 'We was just wondering what a pretty little thing like you's doing working with all these colored waiters and Mexicans. We ain't never seen you round here before.'

She laughed, surprised. 'Are you for real?' Can I be hearing this? she wondered.

He puffed up, then, looking around at the other men, sat straight in his seat and brought his fists to his chest. 'I sure am for real. Missy, I've got the world in my pocket.'

She didn't know what to say. She really didn't like interacting with these people. So she made a flippant remark and grinned. 'Oh. I thought you were just happy to see me.'

'I certainly am,' he agreed readily. 'Want me to show you?'

She backed away, flustered. 'Gross.' Everybody laughed. The guy guffawed. Suzie felt queasy. She hated having strange men come on to her. She couldn't bring herself to flirt back, she couldn't scream at them to get away from her. She decided to be rude. And they loved it. Whatever. She sighed in resignation.

'I'd need a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass,' she misquoted from some movie.

The whole room broke up. Suzie turned around without looking to see how the guy took it. And went to find Yolanda.

Yolanda was taking a break in the servants' quarters upstairs. She was standing next to a clothing bar where various uniform parts were slung up on hangers, watching herself smoking a cigarette in a cracked mirror. She looked green in the glaring fluorescent light. A big bottle of similarly green mouthwash sat on the sink in the corner, next to an industrial-sized trashcan on wheels, festooned with cleaning supplies, a broom and mop sticking up out of the can.

Suzie stormed in. 'Oh my God, they're sexually harassing me in there.' She clutched her arms and paced up and down the room. Yolanda moved to the open window and stood taking quick puffs of her cigarette and waving the smoke out nervously.

'It's not that bad,' she reasured Suzie. 'They're not very drunk yet. And we're done now, anyway. They'll go back to the bar in a minute, and we can finish up and go home.'

'Jesus, I don't like serving. It's so much safer in the kitchen. You don't even make tips, do you?'

'Well, the members are not allowed to tip us, but they do. Some of them are pretty generous.' She took another drag. 'It helps.'

Suzie shook her head sharply. 'Yeah, you couldn't pay me to do this job. I hate being at someone's beck and call.'

Yolanda shrugged and tossed her cigarette out the window. 'Let's go back down. Oh yes, the Manager told me to remind you to bring your uniform back clean.'

Suzie muttered.

When the guests were good and truly gone, they closed the doors to the ballroom, and then the waiters broke the place down.

They scurried out like roaches, antennas quivering, and picked over everything on the tables until there was not a speck left. In no time flat, the remaining plates and glasses were clinked onto trays and taken to the pantry; the centerpieces and candles were lined up on a sideboard; the tablecloths were stripped off the tables, separated into top and bottom cloths, and piled into linen baskets to be taken to the chute in a closet under the stairs.

The tables were ugly underneath, round plywood tops on a single spindly metal leg. The room was still elegant, with mirrors and wood and crystal and stuffed stag heads and guns displayed in huge cabinets, and a very large rug. But it looked shabby.

Suzie saw no more of the guy with the glasses. Or any of the members. Or their wives. She helped wash down the counters in the pantry, and polished clean glasses and dishes when they were sent up from the kitchen. And then she trooped downstairs with the rest of the waiters and clocked out.

 

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next chapter, suzie gets a krispy kreme