Chapter 5: The Crest On The Cream Cover
I didn't put the menu back right away. I carried it flat against my forearm like we were trained, crest up, the way the manager liked it for the photos that showed up on review sites. My hand was damp under it. The dining room was still full, the chandeliers low and warm, and I could feel the heat from the kitchen pass as I cut through to the service station.
The station was tight, just a narrow counter between the POS screens and the stack of rolled silverware. Luis was there restocking glassware, and the host stand was two steps beyond it where the menus lived in a wooden box. I was supposed to slide it back in order, spine out, crest facing forward.
I turned it over to do that and saw the mark.
On the back cover, near the bottom edge, there was a faint pencil circle around the crest. Not printed. Hand-drawn, light enough you'd miss it if you weren't looking. Inside the circle someone had written a tiny number in the corner, 14, and next to it two initials in the same pencil, E.D. The paper was soft there, like it had been rubbed by a thumb many times.
I froze with it in both hands. It wasn't a stain from the kitchen or a water spot. It was deliberate.
"Hey," I said quietly. "Luis."
He glanced over, drying a wine glass. "Yeah?"
"Do we mark these?"
He leaned in, not taking the menu from me. He looked at the circle and his mouth did a small, flat thing.
"No," he said. "We don't."
He set the glass down carefully. The POS screen behind him glowed with open checks. He tapped it once, woke it, and scrolled with his thumb.
"What table?" he asked, lower.
"Twelve. The guy in the black suit, the pocket chain."
Luis didn't need to look out at the floor. He typed something, filtered by table, then by server. My name was still on 12.
He turned the screen just enough so I could see. Under the guest notes for that check, there was a line in gray text. Not what I'd written. It was an old note, carried over.
Prefers female server. Requests menu walk-through. E. Duje - VIP - see manager.
The time stamp on the note was from three weeks ago. And another one beneath it from two months ago, same initials. Same wording.
My chest got tight. I hadn't realized I was holding my breath until I let it out in a short puff.
"He comes in a lot?" I asked.
Luis shrugged, but it wasn't casual. He kept his voice down. The expo was calling tickets behind us.
"Enough," he said. "He always asks for someone new. If he doesn't like who they assign, he asks to switch."
I looked down at the menu again. The embossed crest caught the light. That little pencil circle suddenly felt heavier than the whole book. It wasn't just a menu anymore. It was how he kept score.
"Why is there a circle on it, then?" I asked. "Did he do that?"
Luis took the menu from me finally, turned it over once, then slid it into the box with the others, circle facing in so a guest wouldn't see it.
"I don't know," he said. "I've seen a couple with marks on the back. I thought it was the hosts. Maybe not."
He didn't look at me when he said it. He went back to polishing, but his hands were moving faster now.
I stared at the box of cream menus, all the same, all lined up. I thought about the way he'd said "Your name?" like he expected me to give it to him right there at the table while the woman in red watched. I had thought it was about me, that I'd done something wrong with how I'd read Chateau Laffertoti or hesitated too long. Now there were dates on the screen that proved it had nothing to do with how I'd read anything.
It was a pattern. And it had a name already in our system.
"Has anyone said anything to Marcus?" I asked.
Luis gave a short, quiet laugh without any humor in it. "What do you think? He's a VIP. He spends a lot when he brings clients. Marcus says to make it work."
The words landed hard because I'd been telling myself to make it work too. Rent was due on the first, I was still on probation for being late that night the bus broke down on the highway, and I needed every shift. Making it work was my whole plan.
I pulled the check for table twelve back up on the POS and added a note of my own under the order, my fingers shaking a little on the touch screen. I didn't write about how he'd looked at me. I just wrote: Guest asked for server first name at table. Declined to provide personal info. Guest asked again.
I hit save. The system logged my initials and the time, 8:42 p.m.
Luis saw me do it and didn't stop me. He just nodded once, quick.
"Keep it in the system," he said. "That's good."
May you like
I stepped back from the counter and wiped my palms on my apron. The dining room hummed beyond the partition, silverware against plates, low conversation, the clink of that clear water bottle being refilled somewhere. I could see the top of the man's dark head from here, still standing, still leaning toward my table where I wasn't.
I understood now he wasn't going to stop asking. And I understood the restaurant had already known that before I walked over with the cream menu in my hands.
