Durham, NC

Table of Discontents (I Wish I Was Eve (Arden))

The restaurant is almost always rocking at 8:30 on a Saturday night, and our bartender tends to fall a bit behind. I don't blame her -- she's still pretty new -- but I really wish I could have done so, publicly, last Saturday, just to deflect spite away from me.

Here's what happened. I had four tables working at once. Table Twelve, after initially declining my suggestion of a second bottle of wine, had changed their minds partway into their main courses, and then sprung for another Penfold's Bin 28 Shiraz. I had entered the order on the computer but Bartender was 'in the weeds' (as we waiters like to say); a few minutes later, she still hadn't pulled the bottle. Thinking fast, I had already asked the floor manager to do an end-around and get it for me.

Table Eleven had finished their dinners; they needed to be cleared and then given dessert menus. Table Thirteen, a very friendly, VERY chatty trey, for whom I had to budget a few minutes of gab time whenever I approached their table, had just ordered a demi-bottle of champagne. Doing champagne is time-consuming; you first have to fill an ice bucket in back, walk slowly so as not to shake the bubbles, and then take deliberate care when opening so that you don't break a window -- or a customer's nose -- with a flying cork. And poor Table Twenty-One, a quiet, timid couple who looked and behaved out of place in our restaurant, had waffled on ordering and missed their scheduled appetizer round. They'd been waiting about fifteen minutes now for their crab soufflé, and as I passed them on the way to Table Thirteen, I saw their eyes darting around the room with the unmistakable did-he-forget-us? paranoia. So I avoided eye contact with them and kept walking.

After I'd passed Table Twelve I heard the guy in seat five bellyache after me, "Can we have some more wine?"

I wished I was a 1940s diner waitress, like Eve Arden in Mildred Pierce, so I could have shot back, "You've got all the whine you need, honey."

I wasn't sure how long ago they'd ordered that second Penfold's. Time warps when you're waiting tables; two minutes can take an hour and vice versa. But certainly not more than five minutes had passed, and everyone at the table but Seat Five still had a glassful of wine. He had been drinking steadily since ordering a Scotch-rocks when he arrived, and his face was red. He'd already devoured most of his dinner. I told him the Shiraz was on the way. He muttered something about being done with his food before the wine refill came.

At that unpleasant moment, Rick, the manager, arrived with my second Penfold's. I was hoping he'd open it for me because I hadn't time for the lengthy business of presenting the bottle, corking, pouring a taste, and then filling five glasses. But Rick was busy too, and he quickly vanished. So I had to leave the ice bucket and glasses on Table Thirteen, and politely announce that I'd open their champagne 'directly'. (Using Southernisms helps remind customers that Dixie dining, like Dixie life, is slow.) Fortunately, their amiability -- and the yummy Chardonnay I'd recommended, which they were already drinking -- made their champagne easy to postpone.

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