For the first time in a good while, as Bill was told, Caesar held the room open late. Jo Ann had to stay until Caesar closed, until they knew there would be no new tables and all the tables they had were covered and handled. All the girls worked really hard, so much so that Rosie and Bill never did get that chance to find out what they wanted to. They also didn’t get the chance to see what the payment was.
Because they worked so hard, and because really they had no break, the waitresses had to run, and they ran all night. After all, there were only three of them. They had two bus boys who worked during the busy hours, from seven to nine. They were part of the banquet crew, paid by the main kitchen and subject to Jimmy Banquet Chef’s supervision. The rest of the time the waitresses had to bus and set up their own tables.
So on Bill’s third night they surpassed the great business they did on his second night. In fact, although Caesar would never tell him, they set a weekday-night record of just shy of two hundred covers. Unhappily, Jimmy G had to work straight through from the moment he re-joined Bill in the kitchen until after 11:00 when they were working the orders from the last three tables. Only then did he have a moment to go out to Kalista for two espressos and to smoke a cigarette.
No rest for the wicked.
As soon as they had cleared the board, first thing, late as it was, Bill fed Jo Ann. He fixed her the same dinner he had given to Kalista and she was blown away by it. When she saw her plate she asked if he was sure it was okay. Bill told her that it surely was and she could thank the banquet chef if she wanted. But he did make sure to tell her that he had fixed the sauce and doctored all the rest to make it, without bragging, gourmet quality.
While Jo Ann sat quietly in the back and ate, Rosie and Edelgarde ran. They finished serving the last tables and immediately went to clearing those tables that had not been cleared. As they did that work and set up what they could for the next night, they also tended to the customers. The last tables were still on their main courses. Some others were on coffee and dessert or clearing out after having paid their bill. Caesar, like always, took the payments and handled that.
For the first time, Bill saw both Rosie and Edelgarde sweat. He saw several locks of their hair fall out of place and saw them harried and almost chasing their tails. At one point, when Rosie seemed as if she were about to get flustered, he called her to the side of the kitchen by the entrance.
“Give me your hand,” he said.
“What,” she said. “I haven’t got time for this.”
“Give me your hand,” he repeated.
She reached out her hand to him and he took it in his. As Robert had once done to him, he took Rosie’s wrist and shook it so her hand shook loosely.
“Check out your mind,” he said. Then he said, “Take fewer steps and make each one count for more.”
Rosie listened, gathered herself and got herself back into rhythm.
“I owe you,” she said when they were just about done. “You saved my ass.”
“You bet I did,” Bill said. “I save all your asses.”
Not only did Bill slow Rosie down and get her back on pace and in the groove she needed to be in, but he led her and the two others on through their tables by picking the food up in an order they could handle and by sorting the orders on his server shelf under the heating lamps and personally directing who took what with what.
Or, as well as do his job, he expedited and made sure there were no mistakes that would set them back and behind.
