Mary and Bea both hung around very late. In fact they stayed so late that Mary could have ridden home with Henry Lee if she’d wanted. It was so busy for so long that neither of them would leave to assure that no position in the kitchen was uncovered.
Bea stuck by Marie even though Marie could handle her orders. Her sticking around meant that when anything ran out one of them was available to make the replenishment. She was also able to watch over the waitresses to make sure that in the heat of the long, hard, furious rush none of them gave away the store. Which some of them would do, for sure.
Attitude! Some of the waitresses still smarted from having to get into the back seat of Drenovis’ Riviera to secure a job. Full of anger, spite, even enmity, they felt nothing about finding ways to increase their tips. Giving bigger salads, more dressing, extra this and that, were ways to accomplish this. Still, overall, doing what they’d had to do to get the job was worth it for some girls since on days like these they could make hundreds of dollars. For the string of days they were having, it would end up many hundreds of dollars if not more.
Bea and Mary did leave a little after nine. Mary had helped on the line a tad, made it so Jimmy could take a quick bathroom break. Henry Lee did the same for Bill. Bill took a drink of bourbon while he was downstairs, just a small one. He had stayed straight all day, had only popped a black beauty once in the mid afternoon. He drank mostly coffee and soda but started with beer after kissing Mary bye.
Lillian was calling orders when Mary came up in her civvies. Tommy had given her breaks three times. She was getting hoarse. Her voice, already cigarette-raspy, was deeper now and she cleared her throat often. She sipped water to ease the soreness.
The west had come a second time for meat. Henry Lee cut nonstop so on that second trip they took all the meat he had to give, went back with every shelf in the racks full and several of them doubled over one tray on another.
“Goddamn,” he said at ten when he came up dressed to go home.
“I just turned off the second Garland,” said Bill. “Tommy says they still have people waiting.”
“Bowman better pay my babysitting costs.”
“It’ll be slower tomorrow and Monday. We’ll catch up.”
“I copped three bottles of Jack Daniels.”
“Drenovis gonna get on Tommy’s case. Then he’s gonna get on us.”
“Fuck him,” said Henry Lee.
Bill said, “I got your back.” He and Henry Lee slapped five. Then Henry Lee said he’d see him tomorrow and he went out the back door.
As soon as Marie had a lull in her orders and a moment when she had nothing she needed to, she walked over by Bill. She leaned against the counter next to him, the one opposite the charcoal grill, and helped herself to a sip of his beer.
She said, “I’m hungry. And my panties are soaked through. You got a piece of meat for me?”
“How you want it?”
“Hard.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Bill stepped past her on the line. When Lillian saw he was going to cut rib, she told him to cut three slices because she had an order coming up. Bill acknowledged and quickly did what she asked.
Things were quiet at the moment because all the tables were full. People were still waiting to be seated, but handling this type of situation was a different animal than handling a slam-bam rush. So Bill cut Marie’s rib into bite-sized pieces and slid them on a plate for her. He ladled on au jus and handed her the plate.
“My drawers are soaked through too,” he said.
