The waitress had been watching from a distance. They were her last table of the night and she had been impatiently waiting for them to order for over an hour. She watched as they made small talk and eventually picked up their menus. When the last menu was closed, she pounced like a puma asking, “Are you ready to order?” She took great care to leave the intended “finally” out of the sentence.
David and Kerry placed their orders and the waitress pivoted slightly toward Thomas. He was gazing deeply at her and waited for her to look up from her order pad so he could make eye contact. The look on his face was disturbing to her and she shifted her weight to her left leg and placed her pen hand on her hip.
“Do you know what you want, sir?” She asked with a harsher tone.
“Before I ordered I wanted to apologize to you. I know you’ve been very patient with us while we waited for our friend to arrive and I know you want to go home and shower before you meet your friends at the bar. You hate smelling like this place. That’s why you used your own money to buy extra uniforms so you could have a fresh set every day without having to go to the laundromat all the time. We’ll eat quickly and find somewhere else to hang out so you can go about your business. Now, the answer is yes. I am ready to order. I would like the green salad with Italian dressing on the side, the New York Strip; medium well, and a loaded baked potato. I would also like a refill on my Pepsi.” He looked down at her hand, still propped on her hip and said, “Are you planning to write that down?”
She was staring at him in utter disbelief as she lifted the pen to the paper. Despite her shaking hands she wrote quickly so as not to have her eyes off him for long.
“Okay, I have it. I’ll have your drinks to you shortly.” She turned and practically leaped from the table. The puma had been transformed into a deer in the headlights.
“Bet you fifty bucks someone else brings our drinks, David.” Thomas snorted, quite pleased with himself.
“Suckers bet. She’ll have someone else bring our food too if she can manage it. Why do you find the need to scare the shit out of people? I mean really, Thomas.” Kerry said in her best disapproving tone.
“I might not be able to break boards with my bare hands or throw the winning pass but every once in a while I enjoy reminding myself what true powers are. Is there any harm in it? She’s gonna have two or seven drinks tonight and tell the whole bar about the freaky guy at her last table. What’s the big deal?” Thomas waved his hand as if to blow the whole thing off.
No comments:
Post a Comment