| |
“Nova, honey, fetch me a fresh one please,” Robin instructed, setting the empty coffee pot on the counter.
I handed her one, and off she went for table four.
Clover’s Café was surely the underdog of the restaurant world, surrounded by larger chain restaurants that resided in the area to accommodate the tourists of California. Clover’s was situated just south of Valencia in Newhall, but across the freeway was evidence of a major theme park: hotels, motels, and established eateries. But even though the Burger King next door saw more customers in a day than Clover’s did in a week, it couldn’t compete with the charm of a small-time café.
At least in my opinion.
My aunt owned Clover’s. She and her husband opened the small establishment in 1994, mainly as a bakery and coffee shop. At the time, it was named Meryl’s Bakery, after my aunt. Three years ago, it gradually converted to a café, and when my mother died, Meryl changed the name to Clover’s Café in memory of my mom. It hadn’t been in my plans to be twenty-two and a waitress, but I learned long ago that I didn’t have much control over the things that happened in my life.
An elderly couple inched up to the counter, setting their bill in front of me with what appeared to be the exact amount.
“Was everything okay?” I asked as I entered the numbers into the register.
“Huh? Oh, yes, yes,” the man nodded. “It’s a beautiful March day.” He peered at my nametag, eyes squinting. “Thank you, Nora.”
“Oh, it’s, uh, Nova.”
“Huh?”
“Nova? With a ‘V’ in the middle.”
He seemed confused as he blinked at me. “Nova?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “I know it’s unusual.”
“Nora is such a pretty name,” the woman smiled, not at all catching on to my clarification. “That was my mother’s name.”
“Oh, yes, that’s a very nice name,” I told her. “Thank you for coming in today. I hope you visit again.”
“Say what?” the woman asked loudly.
“Thank you, come again,” I said, matching her volume. A few diners glanced our way, but what was I supposed to do?
The pair shuffled away from the counter, but since there wasn’t anything else requiring my attention, I went to the door to hold it open for them.
They both smiled and thanked me for being such a dear. “Bye, Nora,” the woman waved.
“Bye.” I watched while they headed for a car. I tried picturing either one of them driving, and it was a scary thought.
I was just about to re-enter the café, but a group of four guys were walking along the sidewalk from the neighboring parking lot. They slowed when they got closer to me—I guess because I was just standing there with the door held open—but I could tell they were most likely headed for pizza two doors down.
“Can I interest you guys in free sodas?” I decided to ask.
They stopped in front of me, glancing at each other. One of them looked ahead at the pizza parlor, and then eyed our sign.
“What do you guys have?” he asked.
“Great food.” I smiled. “Why don’t you come look at a menu? I’ll get you some drinks while you decide if you want to stay.”
They side-eyed each other again, but thankfully shrugged their agreement. I led them inside and sat them at my favorite booth in the corner.
“What would you like to drink?” I handed them each a menu. “I can take care of that for you, and then I’ll send Robin over to take your order.”
“Why Robin?” one of them asked.
“Excuse me?”
He smiled as his eyes drifted to my nametag. “Nova? Is that seriously your name?”
“Soda?” I inquired. “What would you like?”
A few seconds of silence passed until they finally gave me their drink orders.
Robin came to the counter just as I set the last Coke on the tray, and then she gracefully but swiftly made her way to table ten. I almost forgot all about that table of guys until Robin stopped in front of the counter with her “What the hell?” face.
“What?” I asked.
She nodded to table ten. “They said to tell you they’d stay, but only if you’re their waitress.”
I studied the table of guys while they stared at me with stupid smiles on their faces. I was instantly embarrassed but tried to shrug it off. I hated showing weakness.
“I suppose I have to,” I replied dryly. “I kind of lured their asses in here.”
Robin raised her lovely eyebrows. “Lured?”
“I’ll tell you later. You wanna switch for a bit?”
“Fine with me.”
When I approached table ten, they were still smiling at me.
“So, what would you like to try?” I asked, ready to take their orders.
“Can we get, like, a buy-one-get-one-free deal or something?” the one guy asked. He was the same big mouth that seemed to do all the talking once they’d entered the café.
“I’m kind enough to offer you free drinks and you still want to squeeze me for more? Are you really that cheap?”
The other guys laughed, making exclamations that their buddy just got burned.
“No, I’m not fucking cheap,” he retorted with a play-it-cool smile. “I just thought you were a little sweeter than that.”
Two of them chuckled and waited for my reply, their heads bobbing between us like they were watching a tennis match.
“I’m not, so what would you like to eat?”
I patiently waited for a response—I was expecting another request, or maybe an insult—but the quietest guy in the far corner said, “I’ll have the avocado burger, please.”
“Sure,” I replied, jotting it down.
“Uh, bacon burger with extra bacon,” another guy said.
“Beef and cheese melt.”
I looked at the last guy, Big Mouth, and he glanced at the menu and pointed. “The jalapeño burger. And I want your hottest sauce on it.”
I wrote it down while I said, “Our fire sauce is pretty hot. You want it on the side?”
“No, I want it on the burger,” he smirked arrogantly. “Double.”
“Sure thing.” I was smiling to be polite of course, but I was also picturing this guy’s face once he bit into Clover’s double-sauced jalapeño burger.
When I set his order in front of him twenty minutes later, I also set two extra glasses of water next to his plate. “If you find that two isn’t enough, just wave me down and I’ll bring you another.”
He scoffed. “Seriously? For a jalapeño burger?”
“No, for the extra hot sauce.”
“It can’t be that hot,” he argued.
“It’s really hot.” I set the other plates on the table and asked, “Can I get you guys anything else? More Coke?”
Two of them agreed, so I took their glasses for a refill. That’s where Robin murmured, “How’s college corner going for you?”
“Well, the guy on the end in the blue shirt is probably going to be suing us any second now.”
She laughed. “Nova, you getting feisty with the customers?”
“A little, but he wanted double the fire sauce.”
“Double?” she gaped. “Roger put it on the side, right?”
“No, the little shit insisted it go on the burger—”
“Ahh-ahh!”
Robin and I followed the sound of panic, and we watched a hand rush for the glass of water. The other guys were laughing their asses off—which was okay because they were all friends, I suppose—but Robin and I had to turn away to stifle our snickering.
I tried to straighten my face as I grabbed a glass of milk.