"By this time Greg was watching, notebook in hand, from the end of the bar. Kevin had come out of the kitchen and wiped his hands on his apron nervously – he only had a minute before he had to get back to whatever he was cooking. Kimberly poked her head out from behind the wait station. The silence in the restaurant was both golden and torturous. And I couldn’t tell anyone how badly I’d fucked up, that Anything Man had meant his act of romanticism and chivalry for the model. Immediately I also couldn’t decide what was more pathetic – that Anything Man would think to buy a woman so obviously out of his league a drink, or that now he was stuck with Liver Lady at his table.
Kevin got it. He came up behind me and whispered, “You sure he wanted to buy the drink for Liver Lady?” before retreating to the kitchen.
Greg saw it, too. He looked at me, he was making notes in his black book about me this time, about me as the clueless young waiter from the Midwest who thought Anything Man wanted to buy Liver Lady and not The Model-to-Be a drink. He shook his head and went back to the bar.
“You can go now if you want,” Kimberly said, dully, and started popping the tops off salt-shakers in preparation to close.
What they all missed was the grace note because they were too busy being somewhere else. - (C) 2010, all rights reserved
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