Would you be my...
Tuesday was probably the wrong day to decide to buy myself a plant for my room; Tuesday February 14th. I stood in a small crowd looking at the flowers in Woolworths (similar supermarket to M&S, complete with Percy Pigs at the till) and then queued to pay with people whose baskets contained just a bottle of wine to share, or chocolates of some kind: ingestible gifts to show how much their love fulfils them. I am sure the lady at the checkout thought my flower was a gift for someone, instead of a gift to myself, but that’s ok, I’ll smile and blush appropriately.
My only text that morning had been from a man in his 50s ‘bidding me a happy day, if no other suitor had’ so I was also glad to be working that night.
February 14th: silly day to try and buy flowers; brilliant day to become a waitress. A Mexican restaurant, I would argue, is not the most romantic of choices for a date. But were plenty of 2-man tables laid out for the evening. Plenty of larger groups too. And of all the tables in the restaurant only one had been booked under a boy’s name. Clearly the ladies are being organised this year.
I was in training and wasn’t given responsibility for any part of the restaurant; I would instead be shadowing the other waitresses and trying not to get in the way. Behind the counter, on the edges of the kitchen, the chat was friendly, but out of the restaurant floor it was very territorial. All smiles reserved for the customers. Here the staff aren’t paid an hourly rate: you make a tiny commission on the food you sell, and you make tips. It pays to be possessive of your tables, to make sure you are the only one serving them, to encourage them to pick a pricey meal.
Of the larger bookings most of the tables were made up entirely of girls, who ordered jugs of frozen margaritas and shared plates of fajitas.
As the night wore on and the tequilas soaked into bloodstreams through bellies of nachos and guacamole, it became much more obvious which couples were all over each other and who was all over the place. The single tables were up at the bar, swapping seats around the table, smoking outside, and manoeuvring themselves around the more intimate couples.
The groups began to leave, perhaps to other places to continue to drink or start to dance. The couples who were left now fell into two sorts: those on first dates who knew that leaving the restaurant would end the evening and the chance to bump a knee shyly against another. And there were the couples who were almost sitting in each other’s laps, who were lulled by the food and the drink and the heat lamps on the terrace, who prolonged a public moment before stealing off to the familiarity of each other’s beds.
Towards the end of the evening as I was getting ready to leave (having passed the test and been given another shift) a pretty girl gave me a rose from her table. I took it back to the kitchen with the plates I was clearing and one of the big black ladies who was working back there in her apron and hairnet took it out of my hand, laughing, and put it with her bag. She took it with such assurance and with such a belly laugh that I couldn’t (and didn’t) argue. I went home empty handed. No sparks for me that night, but at least I hadn’t been fired.