Worked With Angie Last Night

Angie caters parties sometimes.

That means people with money hire her to bring food and walk around their house carrying trays of little snacks.

A few weeks ago she asked if I could help her at one. Tonight we rode together in her truck.

On the ride I said how I remembered something when I first started working at the restaurant.

She was shadowing me on the floor while I was training. A table had ordered a bottle of Riesling. It's a syrupy sweet white wine. We hardly ever sell those and the corks always dried out.

I remember how I tried to open the bottle, but the cork would not budge, and in fact, the glass bottle edge was chipping. The corkscrew wouldn't bite into the cork. Instead, the cork just disintegrated a little with every twist. And at the same time, the glass lip started grinding and chipping.

I started getting so nervous. I still have the scene burned into my mind.

It was like a Tuesday or Wednesday night. Not busy, and I had no other tables at the moment.

The table was what looked like two couples. Nice enough people I guess. I don't remember them all, but I remember the dude that had ordered. Balding, older dude, glasses, button shirt, some kind of cardigan over it.

Maybe he was a college professor. I glanced at him while this was happening and I imagined he was looking at me like how somebody might look at a gravely wounded wild animal on the side of the road.

It was really quiet. Why the hell hadn't anyone turned on the music? Everyone could probably hear the sound of the metal wine key grinding the glass.

Like I said I was approaching a panic.

Then Angie said cheerfully how this happens sometimes, and we'd be right back with another bottle.

We walked away and then came back and I watched as she opened this bottle flawlessly, the whole time talking about the region in Germany where this Riesling was produced and why it was such a great wine.

Later that night, we were rolling silverware, the two of us, I expected at any moment for her to tell me this job wasn't for me.

I rehearsed how I would react; I rehearsed how I would try not to look as devastated as I already felt inside.

I began a list in my head of other places I could go apply. The anticipating felt like torture though. I decided to bring it up.

I said something like "You could tell how nervous I was when I was opening that bottle."

She said something like "yeah, it can be hard when the corks dry."

I said maybe this isn't a good job for me. It was so stressful. But then she replied, without pausing, without looking up from grabbing forks and knives and rolling them up in cloth napkins. She said, "You can't quit yet."

I felt better after she said that. A lot better. Maybe this is something that is not that big of a deal.

I got the feeling then that she didn't want to get into it. Didn't want to talk about the details. I told myself I just won't fuck up any more.

Tonight on the truck ride over to the catering gig, I told her how she really saved me by telling me not to quit.

She said that was really sweet, and I am a good waiter. But that night, when she said "you can't quit tonight" she was really just looking out for herself.

It's the trainer's job to get them ready to be on the floor, not discourage them, so when people quit during training, the trainers catch shit from the manager.

I had thought she was making a point about life and adversity and she literally meant something more mundane... if I quit that night, there wasn't anyone to pick up my busboy shift the next day.

Tonight in her truck, I remember how she said, "you don't need to be so hard on yourself. You're good."