This Waitress Is Not for Sale

THE WORLD is all different flavors. Tastes in my mouth and in my body-Brigham's ice cream and cigarette smoke, dry throat. I wear a candy-pink uniform that bangs below my knees, white apron with a bow (legs out the bottom, arms out at the sides, and my head nodding yes, mocha almond, not fudge, marshmallow, pecans). Yes sir, I'll be right with you. My elbows scramble, between dishes of half-eaten food, lifting and wiping. Yes sir. I'll be right with you. Pay at the door. You get what you pay for. Special today on different flavors of sarcasm. I react. I am real. What are you, they ask, what am I. I am a waitress. I am a student. I am a person. Hello, my name is . . .

Karen. What's a nice smart girl like me doing in a place like this? That's what they all want to know if by chance they look beyond the uniform, or if they knew me before the uniform grew. No one believes the simple answers. I like the money. I like running around. I like watching people who watch me. No. I must be playing a game. Everyone knows that waitresses are either dumb or desperate. Everyone's surprised at reasonably good brains or even a functioning personality. Actually, a waitress is a kind of a nothing who gets the food. You can be nice to her, if you want to, but there's no need to relate to her for Christ's sake. She's probably fat or skinny, had bad skin or knocked knees, drawls out your order and crosses her eyes when she adds up the bill. You can shit on her if it makes you feel big, and unless you get really gross, it's a cheap thrill.

I HUM WHILE I fizzle a black and white soda (nothing is really black and white . . . ). There's a new product on the market: flavored douches-just great, except they haven't worked up such a variety as Brigham's offers: coffee, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, raspberry, pineapple, mint hot fudge, Jesus can you imagine hot fudge? Yes, I am playing a game. I will graduate from candy-pink to black and then, some picture-frame day, to white. Like Hester, I will take off my hair net, let my hair hang down. Even a waitress, even everyone of us plays a game longer than the six-hour shift. It lasts all a life. I have many flavors and I want to please. Give me a smile and I'll give you a star. Look at me. Maybe I could find you a whole constellation.