chapter 1 (part 2)

At last, Scott gave up and stalked off to his section. Damian couldn’t meet the new girl’s eyes. His own burned hot as he stared in shame at the ground between his feet. That was twice in one morning now that she’d stuck out her neck for him, and he had nothing to offer her in return. He didn’t even know her name. “Look,” he said, “I don’t know why you’re being so nice to me, but you don’t have to. I can take care of myself.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t,” she replied. “But as far as I’m concerned, the number one rule of this industry is, I’ve got your back if you’ve got mine. Too many people forget that. But what about you, what do you say?”

She reached out a hand and after a second, he took it. Her handshake was surprisingly strong for a girl. “I won’t forget,” he promised. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“It’s on the schedule, dear,” she said with a little laugh. She had a thick Southern accent, thicker than he’d ever heard in the city, except when a word had an O in it; then it sounded like there were two O’s, weird and maybe New York-y. Her shoes, while clean, were beat-up with wear. He turned around and glanced at the papers on his host stand--there, on the schedule, after Scott and Dave’s names, was hers: Brandywine, Christyn, with a little circled T next to it for ‘training'.

When he turned around again, she was gone.

***

It was a slow day at the Capital. After sitting his first table, a family of four who seemed to think it was squarely his fault that the restaurant was out of crayons, Damian waited over an hour until the next guests came in, this young couple who laughed too much and wasted five whole minutes debating whether they wanted a booth or a window table. After that, there wasn’t too much action.

He found little things to do to pass the time. He made a few phone calls in the back. When Chance wasn’t looking, he stole a pre-portioned bag of raw brussels sprouts out of the walk-in and stashed them in the drawer of the host-stand for easy snacking. He stared at the new girl’s ass for a couple minutes at a time, until at one point he lost track of her, only to jump at the sound of her voice as she came up right behind him.

“Man, today sucks, huh?”

After shaking off the initial unease of feeling sneaked up upon, he shrugged and replied, “It’s a chill day, I guess.”

“Yeah. Chill. If you don’t work for tips.”

“Yeah, I guess 7.25 ain’t great…”

“Try 2.13.”

He winced. “Is that even legal?”

“Welcome to Texas.”

“I was born here.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to the service industry, smartass.”

“Damn, well, I guess I caught a lucky break, then,” said Damian. “I actually applied here as a server first, but before I was even out of training, they, uh...promoted me to hosting.”

That last bit was a lie; he’d actually been demoted to hosting after the chef got mad at him for ringing in too many modifiers on his tickets. He’d only been trying to give the customers exactly what they wanted. But the gorgeous new girl didn’t need to know all that.

Just then, her eyes widened. “Wait...so if you started as a server, then you know the table numbers? You know where everything is in the POS?”

“I guess,” he shrugged, wondering where she was going with this.

“Great, then you can show me! Dave’s not teaching me Jack shit.”

He figured, after she had extended the olive branch this morning, it was the least he could do.

Christyn was quick on the uptake once Damian gave her the tour through the POS. She’d come in already armed with the knowledge of every ingredient in every menu item; she must have studied before she started. All he had to do was teach her how to ring everything up, and suddenly, she was running circles around Dave.

In her downtime, she stood with him at the host stand and helped him wipe down menus. Just to pass the time, he asked her questions, just little smalltalky questions, and she obliged.

Her last job had been another table waiting gig, but she’d been let go about a month ago. Between then and now, she’d been on holiday with a friend in Galveston. She stayed on the west side, between the Galleria and the beltway. Although she had a distinctly Eastern look to her, (Damian would have guessed Russian or maybe Asian), when he asked her where she was from, she said Beaumont, about two hours away. She didn’t know her parents well; her dad had died when she was young, and for some reason, which she glossed over and he forgot to press for details about, she was raised by his sister, her aunt.

And yes, she had a boyfriend.