Chapter 1: work to do

“Gaah!” Mary Lou yelled as she struggled to get the key into the lock of her apartment door. She looked from the keyhole to her smartwatch, then back to the keyhole. She was wearing the polo shirt and cap of Taco Blasters, with the ray-gun-blasted taco above her right breast. Most of her normally shoulder length auburn hair was drawn through the opening in the back of the hat and tied in a ponytail with an elastic hair cinch that matched the light blue of the polo shirt, but a wayward strand escaped the side of her cap and dripped with a bit of sweat.

She was 5’2” (158 centimeters), and a tad chubby, particularly thick in her thighs and her cheeks, with a little more of a rear than most. She had on white yoga pants and discount store brand tennis shoes that masked how small her feet were. She grunted again and then stopped as she heard the door of the apartment across the hall open.

It was Dan Arnold, half of the couple that lived across the hall, the other being his girlfriend Tiffany Porter. Dan was 5’10” (178 centimeters) with a middling physique, short black hair, but big brown eyes and normally a great smile. Right now, he was not smiling.

“Uh, could you keep it down? Tiff has a headache.” Dan looked at Mary Lou’s feet when he said it. Dan closed his door behind him and stepped toward Mary Lou, whose face was now blushing. “So, what’s wrong?” he said in a half-whisper.

“Sorry. I have to change for my other job, and I don’t have a lot of time if I’m going to make the bus.”

“Here,” he said holding his hand out. “Let me try.” Mary Lou handed him her keys. He walked to her door and start to put the key in. “The thing about these locks is that there is just a little bit of an entry angle that will frustrate you if you’re in a hurry.” The key slid into the opening with a satisfying rumble. Dan turned the key and opened the door.

“Thanks!” Mary Lou said, speeding past him and slamming the door on him. Dan stared at the door nonplussed, listening to various grunts from Mary Lou’s apartment. Another few “Gaahs” and “Oofs” later, Mary Lou reappeared in a nondescript white blouse and black yoga pants (but the same shoes), grabbing the keys out of the door. “Sorry, but I’m in a hurry.”

“You don’t say.” There was Dan’s smile.
Mary Lou checked her watch. “Crap! I think I’m going to miss the bus.”

“Where are you going?”

“Palais d’Antoinette.”

“Aren’t you a little underdressed?”

“I’m going there to work.” Mary Lou exhaled loudly. “Or at least I was.”

“You can still make it if someone drives you. Let me go tell Tiff I’m leaving while you go back in your apartment.”

“Thank you! But why am I going back to my apartment?”

“Because I don’t think Palais d’Antoinette wants you working in a Taco Blaster cap.”

“Gaah!”

-§-

Grac e, a plump older waitress with sandy brown hair, told Mary Lou as she put her keys, phone, and smartwatch in her cubby, “You’ve got the section by the kitchen tonight.”

“No! My rent is due this week! And my student loan payment! People are always annoyed sitting by the kitchen.”

“Some are, hon, but not all. Heck, at some restaurants, people pay to sit in the kitchen and watch them cook.”

“I know. I just can really use the money.”

“Who can’t?”

“Too bad we don’t have one of those chef’s tables. That’d be a great tip.”

“Phillippe would never go for that.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Hey, Alice is walking to the table by the kitchen door. Get out there.”

Mary Lou waited until Alice had the couple seated, then sized them up as she approached.

The man was in his fifties, bald, with a bit of a paunch and a mustache that looked like some old president or king in her history book. If he had had a top hat, he could have auditioned for the Monopoly man job. He was certainly dressed for the part otherwise. He had on a tailored brown suit with pinstripes and a vest and well-shined pair of brown men’s oxfords. If they had been women’s shoes, she might have known the brand.

The woman’s shoes she knew the brand of. And Mary Lou might have been impressed with the expensive red low-heeled designer pumps if she was not dumbstruck by the rest of her.

The woman was huge. The sides of her thighs crept well past the edge of her seat. Her pillow-like breasts were held up by her beach ball stomach. She was wearing a silky red dress that seemed a tad clingy but not tight. Her hair was long and styled almost like that of an old-time movie star. Her makeup was done in a similar glamour style. And she had on a pair of diamond stud earrings that, if the diamonds were real, would have paid off Mary Lou’s student loans.

“Hi. I’m Mary Lou. I’ll be waiting on you tonight.”

“I’m Walter and this is Rose. We’ll be eating with you tonight.” Walter chuckled at his own joke. Rose gave him a look.

“Here are your menus. If–” As Mary Lou started to hand out the menus, Walter waved a hand in the air. “No need, my dear. We don’t come here in person that often anymore, but we’ve eaten here enough to know exactly what we want.”

Walter rattled off an impressive list of food, including oysters, pâté, and escargot for appetizers, the soup of the day for two, beef Bourguignon, scallops in a wine sauce, roasted chicken, and filet mignon. He also chose a wine without talking to the sommelier. “And if we need more, we’ll let you know.”

More? Mary Lou roughly totaled the check in her head as she took back the order and realized she might make an entire night’s tips off this one table if she played her cards right.

So, she kept an eye on the older couple as she handled her next table, two businessmen more interested in the wine list than the food list. The couple attacked the oysters with gusto, with Rose clearly eating the majority of them. Walter appeared to be looking for her, so she quickly put in the next table’s order and almost ran to the pair.

“I have forgotten how much Rose loves the oysters. Please bring us another serving. We’ll start on the pâté while we wait.”

When Mary Lou told the kitchen that she needed to add another order of oysters to that table, Luc, the expediter that night, looked frightened.

“Did they send them back?”

“No. They’ve eaten them all and want more.”

“The same table with the pâté and escargot?”

“Yes.”

Luc thought for a minute. “Is there a, um, robust woman at the table, a little older than me?”

“Yes.”

Luc began saying something in French to the kitchen, followed by a lot of “Oui, chef” from the staff. “Mary Lou, tell Alice to call Phillippe in, saying ‘Madame Angleterre is here.’” He turned to the staff. “Vite!” That Mary Lou knew meant fast, as she had been chastised with it before. Even though she knew it was for the kitchen, she hurried to Alice, nonetheless.