So the real fight happened right at the start of the rush. Jackie was already pissed off. Nothing Wayne could do about that, but he was trying. He offered her weed, offered her beer and even whiskey. He was doing a pretty good job of appeasing her too, Bill thought, and all seemed okay, as if Wayne was going to get away with it.
But then Jackie, who had dupes in her hand, walked into the kitchen while Wayne and Bill were hitting up. Just the luck of the draw, a freak of a coincidence, simply bad timing.
She saw them. Couldn’t help that. Even though they were bent over and trying to be on the down-low, she couldn’t not see, couldn’t help but seeing, couldn’t help but going from already in the red zone to the red-hot blue flame.
“Goddamn it,” she yelled out. “You bastard.”
Wayne stood upright in all his six-two glory. He looked as if mommy had just walked in on him while he was playing with himself. Bill saw him turn red over his dark skin.
He started to say something, but Jackie flipped. She took the dupes she held and threw them in the air. Then she stood there and undid her apron.
“I’m through,” she said. “I’m through here and I’m through with you. So take the rest of your shit and shove it up your ass.” She stormed out past the line and out the door to the café.
Aja happened to be coming in with a handful of dupes as Jackie was walking out. Jackie purposefully hit Aja’s hand so she lost the dupes.
“Shit,” Aja said. She bent down and quickly started to pick up what she’d lost. Meanwhile Jackie stormed out. Wayne walked off the line and followed her.
That left Bill there alone, orders coming in from everywhere. Bill had lots of things working on the broiler and Wayne had two fry pans he was readying for orders of over-easy.
And there it was. Raul picked up Jackie’s orders. He slipped them under the bell. Two other waitresses walked in with dupes and handed them directly to Bill. Bill, for want of anything else to do with them, slipped them under the bell too.
So they were pretty much at a standstill. Not much Bill could do. He stood there, all alone on the line, figuring best how to sort it out. Only solution was to work what he could see of the dupes hung on the board, make sure nothing on the broiler burned, decide what he could send out at the moment.
Out on the loading dock, Wayne grabbed Jackie by the wrist and attempted to head her back into the prep kitchen. He didn’t want to argue with her where customers could see. But it was too late and she was too irate for getting moved. She didn’t let him hold her, didn’t let him move her. The bull was seeing red.
They were yelling at each other. All at once it was kind of funny, surely embarrassing and definitely bad for business.
Aja had gone back out to the outdoor café and in no more than two or three minutes real time returned to the kitchen.
“People walking out,” she said. “From the dining room too.”
“We’re gonna run about a half hour behind,” Bill said. He didn’t face Aja as they talked. He was plating two hamburgers. Soon as he had them set on the plate, he opened the broiler drawer so nothing could burn and slid over to the end of the line where the fryers were. He’d dropped two full baskets of fries and lifted them now, shook away the excess grease.
Next up were two omelets and the fried eggs Wayne had never finished.
