Dear Catastrophe Waitress

Stuart was sitting in one of the booths against the wall of the diner. The place was drab. Efforts to brighten up the place with a style that tried to mix homestyle kitchen with American fifties did nothing to cover the stagnant, desperate atmosphere. Whenever someone entered the restaurant for the first time one of the initial noticings that hit him, after the overwhelming stench of fried food and peanut oil, after the flash of bright neon vinyl upholstering the seats, after the hardened look of the waitresses that made them seem crusted over with a film of grease and sweat, was the wave of hot air and cold air combined to create some sort of lukewarm welcome. A cooling passion. Then the new customer would either turn around at once and leave, slamming the door behind him, or sit down alone at one of the tables or booths. If he was really lonely he would sit down at the counter, but this rarely happened as it was easier to hide in the corners of the dining room than sit up in the front.

Stuart was sitting in one of the booths because he wasn’t as lonely as that yet. He always sat there, in this particular booth. Some of the waitresses wondered why. Save for a few other scarce customers, the place was almost always completely empty. He could have his choice of any of the seats in the house and sat in a different seat every day for half a year but he refused to change anything up. He always headed straight for his booth, sat down in the same seat in the same position, and ordered the same thing day after day. Not that they cared too much but wondering and gossiping about the little things helped to pass the time for the waitresses. Maybe if things were a little busier or a little brighter they would have had more interesting things to think about at work. Maybe things would change for them and life would shift for the better, but as it was they just kept serving the few regulars in the diner, living their lives and waiting.

When Stuart had sat down, his food had not been set on the table like it usually was when he got there at exactly five-fifteen PM every Wednesday. He didn’t mind, though. It would only take a few extra minutes to order and wait for his food to be cooked. Or maybe they were running a little behind schedule. Either way, it didn’t matter to him. It wasn’t like he was on a tight schedule or had anywhere to go. If he got his usual fried chicken breast with mashed potatoes and a biscuit, Stuart would not complain. As far as he knew or cared, there was nothing worth the energy it took to complain about.

He looked around the room. Nothing was tangibly different but the air seemed new. The tiled floors were still dull and dirty. The seats were still covered in obnoxious shades of pink, yellow, and blue. The same painting of a family seated around a dinner table was hung up on the grease-streaked wall. Stuart couldn’t find the change and almost figured he was imagining it.

A woman walked from the counter to the end of his booth. She was younger than the other waitresses. He hair was reddish-brown and cut into a sort of sloppy bob around her pale face that made her green eyes pop. It was the eyes that caught Stuart’s attention. They were electric and wild, drawing him in, shocking him. Stuart hated looking people in the eyes because too many of them were empty. But her eyes were full and alive as if there truly was a person behind them.

“Hi, my name is Olive and I’ll be serving you today! How are you?” The corners of her lips turned up into a smile, as did the corners of her eyes.

“I’m fine,” Stuart answered sourly. He was confused. What was a girl like her doing in a place like this, he wondered unironically? It was impossible for her to work here. He could barely even think of her working here with the other waitresses who smelled like smoke and balsamic vinaigrette. There had to be some sort of unspoken rule that stopped her, some contract that stated that all the waitresses here had to have empty eyes. She was too hopeful to even be in this town.

“I’m glad. To start, is there anything I can get you to drink?” Her voice was cheerful, but not fake. It sounded like she was genuinely delighted to be taking his order.

“Just a coke.” He was too startled to wonder why the others hadn’t told her he was coming and what his usual order was.

“Of course. I’ll get that for you right now and you can look over our menu—our blue-plate specials are posted on the chalkboard over there!” She pointed briefly towards the blackboard behind the counter, which had not been updated a single time in the three years since Stuart had been a regular, before turning to walk to the kitchen with a bounce in her step. The bounce should definitely have been illegal in this place, too. Stuart felt his blood pressure raise.

How long had she been here? She must be new. He was here every week and he’d never seen her before. He’d never seen her in town either and she wasn’t exactly a forgettable person. He would have remembered her eyes.

There was a crash from the kitchen, then laughter. The regular waitresses were laughing. Olive came out of the kitchen shortly with his coke in her hand and a flush in her cheeks. She walked a bit too fast and the safety sole shoes were half a size too big and she tripped, sending a stream of brown acidic liquid through the air and her face to the ground. Glass shattered directly next to Stuart’s feet and a puddle formed on the white tile. The other waitresses laughed again behind the counter and remained motionless.

Olive got up quickly and brushed herself off. Her whole face was red now, and her eyes welled up.

“First you drop a while load of dishes and then you trip and sent that guy’s drink halfway across the dining room?” A waitress sneered.

“At least she’s entertaining,” the other said.

Olive was there again at the end of his booth with a mop and broom. She tried to ignore the other waitress’s comments but she was crying.

“I’m so sorry,” she said quietly without lifting her head, “It’s just that catastrophe follows me everywhere I go. I really hope I didn’t ruin your evening. I’m so sorry.” She kept cleaning.

At first, Stuart didn’t respond. If it had been another waitress he wouldn’t have said anything. Actually, this never would have happened with another waitress because they were so mechanical, with a measured gait and intuitively timed steps. But this was Olive, the new girl. He imagined someone always lurking behind her, ready to trip her and push her into whatever catastrophe she imagined to be her fault. So he edged over to her, cleared his throat to get her attention, and looked straight into her eyes.

“Calm down. It’s okay. You’re doing a great job—better than those witches over there.” He nodded to the counter, where the other waitresses had already stopped paying attention. Then he flashed her a broad smile he hadn’t pulled out in a while, with teeth and everything.

Olive took a deep breath. Her face was returning to white and her tears stopped. “Thank you.”

She smiled back and they both felt the tension break in the diner. A pot boiled audibly in the kitchen. For the rest of the night, things went on as usual. Olive brought him another coke and then a plate with his dinner. He ate and he drank, but it was different. For once, he had someone to talk to. Instead of gossiping behind the counter with the other waitresses Olive stayed up front with Stuart. They talked and kept each other company, and so life went on.

Stuart started coming in more often, first two and then three times a week. Although he still sat in the same booth and ordered the same food, the atmosphere in the diner felt brighter. He looked forward to seeing his friend Olive and even though she looked forward to seeing him. They learned a bit about each other.

He told her that he’d been born and raised in this small town in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, and that he’d only left three times in his life: once to go on vacation to the mountains, once to visit his sister after she’d been married and moved to Tennessee, and once to visit Washington, D.C.

“So you’ve never been to the beach, never felt the sand, never seen the ocean?” Olive asked.

“Nope, I’ve only seen pictures and that’s more than enough.”

“That’s nowhere near the same!” she bit her lip. “What if I took you to the beach, we went on a day trip? It’s only three hours each way.”

His stomach clenched. “I wouldn’t go.”

She never asked again.

She told him that she’d been nervous that first night because she was all alone in a new town after moving from Charlotte. She had come here on an impulse because she needed a change.

“A change?” Stuart asked.

“Yes, a change,” Olive replied. “My life was getting too boring, too monotonous, too … well you know what I mean, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t. I hate change. I don’t think I can remember a good thing ever coming from a change in my life.”

“Really Stuart? Not even meeting me?” She laughed.

“Well, of course that was good, but that was a change in your life, not mine. My life is still the same. The only difference is that I get to see you here at the diner. You, on the other hand, have a new job, a new life, a new home, a new everything.”

“So are you saying nothing good will come of those changes?” Olive raised an eyebrow.

“No, I’m just saying why I don’t understand how someone could need a change, that’s all.”

She paused for a moment, thinking of the right way to respond. “Well, you know you need a change when—" Her chin rested in her hands as she crouched to place her elbows on the table. “Stuart, you need a change when you don’t like something about yourself. Even if it’s just something small, it signifies that something bigger is wrong. If you don’t like who you are, you need to change. Do you understand?”

He was going to say that he only understood somewhat, but some more customers had walked in and Olive left to help them, so he only nodded. It had begun to get busier at the diner over the past few months, and he rarely had Olive all to himself anymore. He was too embarrassed to bring up the topic of change again and mostly made small talk with her for the rest of the night.

But life went on. The new hustle and bustle continued to enliven the diner, but one day he came in and the bright feeling was gone. He knew what had happened, that Olive had felt that need again. Instead of sitting in his usual booth, he sat at the counter and thought about white-crested waves.