She stood in the center of the Fantasia-like storm, her dirty apron tied back expertly, her frizzy, gray-streaked hair whisked back into a bun, wearing a broad smile as she expedited orders, ran food, and shouted special requests left and right: “For Table 16 I need two dots and a dash, two eggs wrecked, a club high and dry, and a cowboy with spurs.”
She caught my eye over the chaos, and a second later I was wrapped in a bear hug that would take out a quarterback. I hugged back, unable to stop the laugh that popped out. Mostly because all of my air was forced out at once. Mostly.
“Roxie, you’re early! I thought you’d be here this afternoon, or even tonight. When did you get in?”
“Just now—I was so close last night that I just decided to keep going.”
“I’m so glad you got my note.”
“What note?” I asked as she pulled back to look me over, eyes assessing.
“On the front door, that I was working the early shift. How else did you know I was here?”
“I guessed. And there wasn’t a note, Mom.” I shook my head.
“Sure there was. I taped it to the front door on my way out this morning, when I . . . Oh shoot, here it is,” she said, shaking her own head at the piece of paper she pulled out of her apron.
Roxie—I’m working the early shift, come on down. So glad you’re here!
“Oh well, you’re here! That’s all that matters! And not a moment too soon; we are in the weeds. Carla called in sick at 4 a.m. so I had to come down to open up this morning, and one of our dishwashers quit last week and I haven’t had a chance to replace him. Did you bring your apron?”
“Bring my— Mom, I literally came straight here after driving all night and—”
“No trouble, just grab one off the wall. I need to get moving, those beans have been sitting in the window too long as it is, talk when the rush is over? Thanks, sweetie!” she called out, turning to yell to Maxine, one of the oldest waitresses. “Those whistle berries are getting cold, get those out to Table Seven on the double!”
“Stuff it, Trudy! Hiya, Roxie! Great to have you home again!” came the response, and the chaos resumed.
I stood in the center, wondering what had just happened.
“You remember how to peel potatoes? We’re getting low on fries and I’d love to get ahead before the lunch rush,” my mom chirped as she sped by me, turning me toward a mountain of potato sacks.
“I know how to peel potatoes, for goodness’ sake,” I mumbled testily, realizing there wasn’t any way I was getting out of this. My mother was already heading back to the front counter, shouting over her shoulder to “Burn one, run it through the garden, and pin a rose on it.”
“It’s faster just to say burger with lettuce and tomato,” I told the potatoes, which looked back at me blandly. Because they had eyes, you see.
I grabbed a clean apron off the wall, grabbed the least dull and least likely to cut me knife from the block, and started filling a hotel pan with water to soak the cut potatoes. We served steak fries at the diner, thick cut and big enough to fill a hot dog bun, should someone choose. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t be perfect steak fries. So I settled in with my paring knife, peeling and slicing and lining them up with perfect uniformity. I dug out eyes, trimmed away green, and lost myself in the details.
As shouts of black cows, Eve with a lid on, and burn it echoed around me, I concentrated on the slippery right angles, making sure they were perfectly edged before going into the water bath.
My mother buzzed over to grab the first pan of ready-to-go spuds, and she looked on curiously as I concentrated on removing a stubborn peel. “They’re gonna get covered in gravy or dipped in ketchup—they don’t need to be a work of art, Rox.”
“You told me to peel potatoes. This is how I peel potatoes,” I replied, tossing it into the pan as she turned to go.
“Light a fire, or we’ll never get ahead of this,” she instructed, and I rolled my eyes. “I saw that!” she called out.
“I meant you to!” I pulled another pan down and filled it full of water. “Light a fire,” I mumbled.
Now I had a quest: to make a perfect steak fry, fast. I shut out the noise and the clatter and bent my head to the task. Hands flew, pruney fingers danced, and the pan filled with starchy, pointy art. Time flew by as I filled pan after pan, the sacks dwindling.
When one of the other waitresses patted my shoulder in greeting it startled me, and my knife slipped from my hand, landing in the back of the water pan. Leaning across the pan to retrieve it, I overbalanced and managed to submerge my front in cold potato water. “Bleagh,” I said, feeling the cold water running down the inside of my shirt and across my belly. Paused from my fry frenzy, I looked around. There were pans of fries on every work surface in my corner. Huh. Might have gone a little overboard.
“Land’s sake, Roxie, how many fries did you think we need?” my mother asked as she came around the corner.
“They’ll keep until tomorrow—the next day, even,” I replied, a little sheepish.
“It’s fine, I’ll make some room in the walk-in. How about cleaning some sugar snap peas?” she asked, thunking down a big pan of pea pods. “Cut off the end, strip out the stringy part.”
“I know how to clean a sugar snap,” I grumbled. “Cut off the end . . .” I filled the pan with water, huffing, “Strip out the stringy part. No shit, strip out the stringy part.”