Destined for the Diner
The waitress training me is the same age as my grandmother – and she sure can move! I’m on her heels like a puppy, chasing after her as she zips from one booth to another. Despite the hectic pace, she’s perpetually pleasant, even to the crankiest customers. And talk about total recall! She rattles off the soup du jour, featured vegetables, and long list of specials without a peek at the cheat sheet taped to the back of her order pad. By the end of the workday, I’m dog-tired, but somehow she’s still smiling.
***
A career in the food-service industry wasn’t the plan. I wanted to work at the outlets. No early-morning shifts there. Nothing opens ’til ten. I filled out an application at every store in the shopping center, willing to sell anything from hats to shoes, but no luck. Guess I was destined for the diner.
Waitressing’s tough. Memorizing minute details. Balancing heavy trays. Figuring out how to get along with an ornery kitchen staff. I didn’t think I’d make it through the first week, but I’ve learned a lot since then. Like how to pretend I’m perky. Maybe I’m a better actress than waitress.
***
The morning after another pointless argument with my on-again, off-again boyfriend, Marcus, all I wanted was to sleep away my sadness. Instead, I’m awakened by a frantic plea to cover for a co-worker. I need the money, so I drag myself out of bed.
Saturday breakfasts aren’t for amateurs. I pour countless coffees, scribble down dozens of orders, and scurry from customer to kitchen and back again. No sooner does one booth empty than it’s occupied by another hungry family.
At the end of the shift, I discover an hours-old text from Marcus. An apology. Should I give him one last chance?
***
They show up twice a week for the Early Bird, always asking to sit in my section. She’s friendly and talkative, the capable conversationalist I wish I could be, and he’s never without a good-natured grin. They share private jokes, the same side of the booth, and a piece of banana cream pie. Observing them, it hits me: That’s what I want.
***
The day after I break up with Marcus, my diner family rallies around me. Jeannie offers to take the table of rowdy teens, Carlos dashes across the street on his break to get me a slice of my favorite veggie pizza, and Rodney changes the game on the big screen from Yankees to Red Sox. Even Madeleine, the hostess who always acts as if she thinks she’s better than everyone else, confides that she, too, recently left someone she loved. What you’ve got to remember, she tells me, is that if you keep heading in the wrong direction you’ll never end up where you’re meant to be.
Lori Cramer is a writer from the northeastern United States. Her favorite forms are flash fiction, micro fiction, and prose poetry, and her work has appeared in Fictive Dream, Flash Boulevard, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Mersey Review, Scaffold, and elsewhere. https://loricramerfiction.wordpress.com X: @LCramer29. Bluesky: @loricramerwriter.bsky.social.