The Cocktail Waitress

3

The Garden of Roses is on Upshur Street in Hyattsville, across from the County Building, which is on Highway No. 1 at the south of town, “The Boulevard,” as it’s called. It’s one story, of brick painted white, and with its parking lot sprawls half a block. It’s in two wings, with a center section connecting: one wing the restaurant, the other the cocktail bar. The center section is half reception foyer, really a vestibule as you go in, with a hatcheck booth facing, a half-door in its middle. Sergeant Young handed me down and walked me to the front door while Private Church waited in the car.

“This is very kind of you, helping me when you didn’t need to and had no reason-”

“I didn’t need to, but I had reason.”

I caught his eye running over my clothes once more, and I thought perhaps over what was beneath my clothes as well, and I stiffened slightly, which he must have seen because when he next spoke it was with a greater formality. “Mrs. Medford, I have an idea what you have been through. I saw the records from when you brought your son to the hospital to have his arm seen to. I can see the marks on you, and in your home. If you’ll forgive me saying so on the day you buried him, your husband was a brute, and you’re well rid of him- provided that it doesn’t cost you your child as well.”

I nodded my thanks. We stood a moment longer, and it appeared to me that Sergeant Young would have wanted to say more, but not with his partner looking on. He returned my nod and walked back to his car.

When he and Private Church had driven off I went inside to the foyer. No light was on and for a moment, after the sun, I couldn’t see. But then a girl, a waitress, popped out of the dining room, and said: “We’re closed till five o’clock-try the Abbey at College Park.”

“I’m calling on Mrs. Rossi.”

“What about?”

“That I’ll tell her, if you don’t mind.”

“I got to know what you want with her.”

Now my temper, as perhaps you’ve guessed, is one of my life problems, and I stood there for a moment or two, trying to get myself under control, when suddenly a woman was there, middle-aged, no taller than I was, but big and thick and blocky. The girl said: “Mrs. Rossi, this girl wants to talk to you, but won’t say what about. I tried to get out of her what she wants of you but she won’t-”

“Sue!”

Mrs. Rossi’s voice was sharp and Sue cut off pretty quick. “… Sue, curiosity killed the cat, and what’s it to you what she wants of me?”

Sue vanished, and Mrs. Rossi turned to me. “What do you want of me?” she asked.

“Job,” I told her.

“… What kind of job?”

“Waiting on table.”

She studied me, then said: “I need a girl, but I’m afraid you won’t do-I don’t take inexperienced help.”

“… Well-since I’ve barely said three words, I don’t see how you know if I’m inexperienced or not.”

“The three words you said, ‘Waiting on table,’ were enough. If you’d ever done this kind of work, you’d have said ‘on the floor.’ …Are you experienced or not?”

“No, I’m not, but-”

“Then, I don’t take inexperienced help. Have you had lunch?”

“… I wasn’t hungry for lunch.”

“Breakfast?”

“Mrs. Rossi, you make me want to cry-I’ll tell Sergeant Young, who suggested I come to you, that at least you have a heart.”

“… You know Sergeant Young?”

“I do. I think I can call him a friend.”

“And he sent you to me?”

“He said you might need someone.”

“What made him think I could use you?”

Well, what had made him think she could use me? I tried to think of something, and suddenly remembered. I told her: “He was struck by my sureness on names. He thought in this work it might help.”

“What’s my name?”

“Mrs. Rossi, Mrs. Bianca Rossi.”

“What’s the girl’s name that was here?”

“Sue.”

She put a hand in the dining room, snapped her fingers, and when Sue reappeared asked me: “What’s your name?”

I started to say, “Mrs. Medford,” but caught myself and said: “Joan. Joan Medford.”

“Miss or Mrs.?”

“I’m a widow, Mrs. Rossi. Mrs.”

Then to Sue: “This is Joan, and she’s coming to work on the floor. Take her back, give her a locker, find a uniform for her-from the back-from-the-laundry pile, there on the pantry shelf.” And then to me: “When you’re dressed, come back to me here and I’ll tell you what you do next.”

“Yes, Mrs. Rossi. And thanks.”

“Something about you doesn’t quite match up.”

“It will, give me time.”

Sue led through the dining room to a kitchen with a chef and two cooks in it, chopping and slicing and stirring, to a corridor that led to a room with lockers on one side and benches down the middle. She opened the locker with a key she took from a rack, then disappeared, and by the time I’d taken my things off was back with my uniform, the short skirt and apron in one hand, the jersey in the other. She watched while I hung up my clothes in the locker, and put on the things she had brought me. The key had a wrist loop on it, and when I had locked up and slipped it on, I must have made a face at my legs, which of course were bare, as she said: “It’s O.K.-some of the girls don’t wear any pantyhose. On some things, like fingernails, Bianca’s strict as all get-out, but on others she don’t care.”

She led on back to Mrs. Rossi, who was still in the dining room. But with her was a gray-haired, rather good-looking woman perhaps in her forties, in peasant blouse, crimson trunks, and beige pantyhose that set off a pair of striking-looking legs. “Be with you in a minute,” Bianca told me, and went on talking. But the woman asked: “Hey wait a minute-who is she?”

“New girl,” said Bianca. “But about the imported bubbly-”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute! Why’s she dressed for the dining room?”

“It’s where she’s going to work.”

“Oh no she’s not. Here you’ve been promising me a girl, and now when she’s here you put her to work on this side.”

“She’s new, she’s never been broken in, she can’t work in the bar, she’s not qualified.”

“Oh yes she is!” And then, to me: “Show her your qualifications, to work in the cocktail bar. The gams, I’m talking about.”

I turned to show my bare legs, and she went on: “And, by her looks she’s been broken in.” Then to me again: “Haven’t you?”

“If you mean what I think you mean,” I admitted, “yes. I’m a widow, so happens. A recent widow with one child.”

“So, Bianca?”

It wasn’t the first time, and wouldn’t be the last, that I’d see her take a position and then reverse herself when pressed. “O.K., take her over.”

“Come on,” said the woman to me, leading me back toward the lockers. “Name, please?”

“Joan. Joan Medford.”

“Liz. Liz Baumgarten.”

I couldn’t help liking Liz, I don’t think anyone could, but suddenly I asked: “When does the cocktail bar close?”

“One o’clock. Why?”

“How I get home is why. The restaurant, I know, closes at nine o’clock, and I could walk home at that hour. But at one in the morning-”

“No problem-I’ll ride you, Joan. I have a car.”

We’d reached the changing room, and Liz closed the door behind her. I took off the skirt, apron, and blouse, and she brought the same trunks as she was wearing, and another peasant blouse. Then, opening a locker, she took out a package of pantyhose. “They’re beige-O.K.?” she asked.

“Oh my-and thanks, Liz.”

“In the bar, bare legs get kind of cold at one o’clock in the morning. But, if you’ll accept a suggestion from me, with what you’ve got to go inside this blouse, I’d leave the bra off.”

“You sure about that?”

“Well, I do. It kind of helps with the tips.”

“With me, tips are the main thing.”

“And with everyone, Joan. Don’t be ashamed.”

And then, explaining: “In case you’ve been wondering, why I would want competition, when I’ve had it all to myself, well, it kind of works backward, there in a cocktail bar. Because, swamped with work, I’ve been slow, and in a bar, it’s one thing you don’t dare to be. They’d wait for food, but drinks to them are important. And when I slow down from being swamped, they get real sore about it. And when they get sore they don’t tip. What I’m trying to say, beyond a certain point, a whole lot of people don’t help, not with the tips they don’t. Vice versa, you could say.” And then, when I’d put on the pantyhose, trunks, and peasant blouse, which drew tight over two points in front: “You’ll do. I’ll say you’re qualified.”

“You’re not bad yourself.”

“O.K. for an old lady-pass in a crowd.”

She was a lot better than that, and as to what she was actually like: I never did guess her age, but whatever it was, it was enough to give her gray hair all the way through-beautiful gray hair, silver almost, that she wore cut at her shoulders, and curled. She was medium in size, with features slightly coarse, I have to say, and yet damned good-looking. Her eyes were a light blue, and wise but not hard. And her legs were different from mine-where mind are round and soft, hers were full of muscle, but with keen lines and a graceful way of stepping.

She led on out again, to the dining room, to the foyer, and to the bar, where a blocky-looking man in a white coat was polishing glasses with a cloth and arranging them in neat rows. “Joan, Jake, Jake, Joan-she’s our new girl, Jake. Go easy, she’s never worked a bar before.” With that, she headed off for the kitchen.

“Haya, Joan.”

“Jake, hello.”

It turned out that on alternate weeks, I was due in at four o’clock instead of five, to fix set-ups for Jake, as well as get the place ready, putting out Fritos in bowls, and setting the chairs down, where they’d been put up so the place could be swept. The sweeping was going on now, by a boy with a push mop, so I got at the set-ups first.

“First set-up is for the old-fashioned. You know what an old-fashioned is?”

“You mean the orange slices and cherries?”

“… Yeah, them.” He gave me a long look, then went on: “And for Martinis?”

“I turn the olives out in a bowl and stick toothpicks in them.”

“For Gibsons-”

“Onions, no toothpicks.”

“O.K. Now, on Manhattans-”

“Cherries.”

“No toothpicks if they have stems on them. But sometimes the wrong kind is delivered, and them without stems take picks. On Margaritas-”

“Salt? In a dish? And a lemon, gashed on one end, to spin the glasses in?”

“Speaking of lemon-”

“Twists? How many?”

“Many as three lemons make. Cut them thick, put them in a bowl, and on top put plenty ice cubes, so they don’t go soft on me. I hate soft twists.” He looked at me like I was a dancing horse or some other marvel. “You sure you never …?”

I explained: “My mother used to give parties, and my father fixed the drinks. I was Papa’s little helper.”

“Christ, you have a father-I should have known. Well, it takes all kinds, don’t it?”

It was the sort of remark I could have taken poorly, but he was smiling as he said it, so I smiled back at him. “What else?”

“The Fritos-they’re for free, and you keep the bowls filled at all times. They put the customers in mind of having a drink.”

“You mean they’re salty.”

“I don’t and you don’t. I mean they’re compliments of Bianca, and you know what’s good for you that’s what you mean, too.”

“They’re special from Mrs. Rossi.”

“And don’t you forget. She’s a nut about it.” He tossed his cloth down on the bar, untied his apron, and came around to my side. “Let me show you the rest.”

He showed me my pocket totalizer, my cash register, and my book of slips, and explained to me how to keep the slips in separate piles, and then when a check was called for, to tote it up on the totalizer, present it to the guest, take his money to the register, put it in and ring up the amount of the check, then take out his change and bring it back to him. “And for Christ’s sake don’t make a mistake,” he growled, looking me in the eye. “Bianca’s easy on some things, like wind blowing free in the blouse, but on others, like clean fingernails and money, she’s a bitch. You make a mistake, it’s on you.”

“I won’t make a mistake.”

I had just got the chairs down and was putting the Fritos out when Liz came back again, from where she’d been in the kitchen. “So let’s split up our stations now,” she said. “How you say we split it right down the middle and alternate: one week I’ll take the near station, the one by the door, while you take the one near the men’s room, next week, vice versa. Fair enough?”

“O.K., suits me fine. But this week you take the station next to the door, so you can greet them when they come in, the patrons I mean-they’ll all be strangers to me.”

“That’s how we’ll do it, sure,” she said. Then:

“Got to go-here comes Mr. Four-Bits, always our first customer. You’d think, the way he rolls out his two quarters, they were solid silver, from the Philadelphia mint.”

I looked, and Mrs. Rossi was bringing a customer in, an important-looking, middle-aged man in gabardine slacks and sport shirt. Liz motioned, and Mrs. Rossi started to seat him at her station. But when he saw me he stopped, stared, and said something. Bianca looked surprised, and brought him over to me. It was my first meeting with Earl K. White, and I was just as startled as Liz.