The Waitress Application at Dot’s Cafe
What Jim Said
When I was done, he set his fork down.
“You want me to go talk to him?” he said.
“No.”
“I would. You know I would. I’d be civil about it.”
“I know you would,” I said. “But it was Mom’s place. It’s between me and Greg. If you go, it turns into a fight with you instead of a thing with him.”
Jim thought about that. Then he nodded. “Then you do what you think is right,” he said. “Whatever that is, I’m behind it. And if we have to tighten up a while, we tighten up. We’ve done it before.”
The Week Greg Ran the Grill
Greg did not call that night. He sent one text at nine o’clock: Take the week off with pay. I’ll cover the kitchen.
What he did was put a “Help Wanted: Cook” sign in the window and take a week off from his insurance office.
On Wednesday morning at 5:30 he unlocked the back door of Dot’s Cafe and tied on one of my aprons.
I was not there. I know what happened because Patty called me every single night that week, from the phone in her kitchen.
Wednesday
Wednesday, Patty said, he did not know you have to turn on the flat-top forty minutes before you open so it comes up to heat.
The first eggs stuck. The first pancakes came out pale on one side and black on the other.
He did not know the gravy starts with the sausage drippings. He made it with butter and flour and milk out of a recipe on his phone, and it came out the color of wallpaper paste.
Dale Meyer sent his back. Dale has never sent a plate back in his life.
“He was trying, Tammy,” Patty said. “I want you to know that. He was sweating clear through his shirt by seven.”
Thursday
Thursday he ran out of hash browns at 7:15, because he did not know that the potatoes for Thursday get shredded and soaked on Wednesday afternoon.
He also did not know about the walk-in door. He shut it without lifting it, and it did not seal overnight, and when Patty came in Friday the thermometer read forty-nine degrees.
He had to throw out two cases of eggs and most of the milk.
Friday
Friday was the cinnamon rolls. Greg did not know the dough has to go in the proofer at 4:00 in the morning, or that Mom’s recipe card is taped inside the cabinet over the mixer.
The three tables the rolls are saved for sat there with their coffee and no rolls.
Kevin from the food truck shorted him two cases of bacon, and Greg signed for it without counting.
“I’m not telling you this to gloat,” Patty said that night. “I’m telling you because somebody ought to know, and you’d want to.”
I did want to know. I did not gloat. I lay awake most of that night wondering if I ought to drive in at five and just start the grill, and I didn’t, because he had not asked me.