“Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;
This must not be.” —HAMLET, ACT 2, SCENE 2
A family of four sits down at one of my tables. I grab two menus and some crayons. When I get to the table, I look at the mom, avoiding direct eye contact with the dad. Parents want crayons for their kids. Crayons keep kids occupied and, with a little luck, quiet. And even if it’s usually Dad who leaves the tip, a waitress who makes too much eye contact with him risks being considered by Mom to be flirting with her husband—adversely affecting the tip.
Waitressing is just another role I play—one I happen to be very good at. Sundays from twelve to six, I become a cheerful, charming and efficient waitress. I greet every customer with a smile, put others’ needs before my own and take pleasure in my life of service.
At the end of each shift, my apron’s heavier than the shield they make me wear at the dentist’s office when they x-ray my teeth. Only my apron pockets are filled with coins and bills, not lead.
Four months of working here and I could write a book about tipping.
I worked full-time over the summer. I wasn’t planning to keep working once school started, but the manager, Phil, is flexible about my hours. He gives me time off when I’m performing. “I know it’s important to support the arts, Iris. A person’s gotta have balance. A person can’t think business business business all the time.” That’s what Phil told me when we were working out my schedule. He’s a decent guy, even if he’s a little too into speechifying. I’m also used to the tips. Mom’s decluttering business is doing okay now, but she still has to be careful with money, and this way, I don’t need to ask for spending money.
On the other hand, there are some things I really hate about this job. Number one: my uniform. It’s supposed to be retro, but even when I try thinking of it as a costume, I still despise it. It’s a brown-and-white-checked blouse with short puffy sleeves, and over the blouse is an awful brown apron-dress made of scratchy polyester. The shoes are worse, and though we get the uniform for free, we actually have to buy the shoes. They’re the kind nurses wear—thick white leather with white leather laces and gray crepe soles that stick to the floor, especially after some kid has spilled his milkshake.
I open my order pad to a fresh page. “Have you ever tried our bubblegum ice cream?” I ask the two kids, who are already drawing on their place mats.
“Bubblegum!” The two kids look up from their masterpieces.
The little girl is the spitting image of her dad. Same wavy red hair. She doesn’t notice when her brother takes one of her crayons and adds it to his pile.
The mom looks up at me, smiling. I can tell she feels sorry for me that I have to wear such an ugly uniform.
I take a quick look at what the kids have drawn on their place mats. The girl has made a giant purple blotch. Jackson Pollock, pre-K period. It’s hard to know if what is on the boy’s place mat is a house or an elephant. “Cool drawings!” I tell them.
The family’s good for a five-dollar tip. More if the kids like the ice cream and the girl doesn’t figure out her brother nicked her crayon.
Scoops has a long, narrow entrance, so I usually notice when someone walks in. But I must’ve been distracted by the kids’ drawings, because somehow, as if by magic, Mick Horton is sitting at the counter in the middle of the restaurant. I have to look twice to be sure it’s him. But I already know it is. I feel his presence, the way I did in Theater Workshop.
Something about him makes me tremble inside. Maybe it’s because he’s Ms. Cameron’s friend and I look up to her so much. Or because he’s so well known in the theater world. I googled him after class, and I swear I got five hundred hits. Apparently, he’s known as the enfant terrible of the Australian theater scene. How cool is that? And he’s won a ton of prizes and traveled to theater festivals around the world.
I feel myself blush when I look at him. Thank God he doesn’t know I’ve been stalking him online. He’s stroking his soul patch. I can’t believe Katie said it looks like pubes. I think the soul patch makes him look artistic.
“Uh, Mr. Horton, right?” I say when I walk to the other side of the counter and hand him his menu. I hope he doesn’t notice my hands are shaking.
I feel his eyes on my fingers. When I look up at him, he’s smiling, but just a little. The smile makes him look younger. He’s wearing the fedora again and a different pair of skinny jeans, this time with a white T-shirt.
He lays the menu facedown on the counter. “How ’bout calling me Mick? ‘Mr. Horton’ makes me think people are talking to my granddad. You’re Iris, right?”
I’m so surprised he knows my name that for a second I’m afraid I’m going to trip over my ugly shoes.
“Isobel said you worked here,” he says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world that an internationally acclaimed theater director would care where I worked.
“Iso—?” I start to ask, then realize he means Ms. Cameron. “Do you…uh…know what you want?”
The question makes him grin. I feel my cheeks get hot again.
“What a guy like me wants…now that’s a complicated question. Existential even. But right now, what I really want is a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Dish, no cone.”
I don’t say what I usually do when people order vanilla, that we have sixty-one other flavors and double mocha fudge is my personal favorite. I’m too nervous to say any of that.
“I have to tell you, Iris, I didn’t just come for ice cream,” Mick Horton says. (I can’t call him just Mick, not even in my head.) “I came because I want you to know I think you’ve got a great deal of potential.” He pauses, and I get the feeling he likes the word potential. “As an actress. I’m looking forward to helping you develop that potential.”
“Wow,” I say, and my order pad slips out of my hand and falls to the floor. I lean over to pick it up, and I can feel his eyes on me again. He’s checking me out. I know he is. But it’s more than that. He’s looking at me—gazing at me—as if he can see inside me too. I like how that feels. “That…that’s amazing,” I manage to say. “It means so much—coming from someone like you. Someone so…” I let the end of my sentence drop. What was I going to say? Someone so famous? Someone so hot?
I’m saved by a customer calling from the front of the restaurant. “Miss, can I get a little more water over here, please?”
“I’ll bring you that scoop of vanilla straightaway,” I tell him.
The banana split I’ve ordered for another table is ready. I can bring the water at the same time. Then the family’s order, then the scoop of vanilla. Sometimes, waitressing is like being an air traffic controller.
The customer who wants more water is an older woman who’s been reading the Saturday paper. She doesn’t look at me when I fill her glass. To her, I am just a waitress. I wish I could tell her I’m not. I push my shoulders back. Mick Horton thinks I have a great deal of potential. As an actress.