Chapter 6: The Dessert Menu He Didn't Need To Read
I cleared their entree plates and the woman in red touched my wrist as I reached for her glass. Her diamond teardrop caught the chandelier light.
"Would you mind giving us a minute," she said, but she wasn't looking at me. She was looking at him. "And dessert menus, if you have them."
"We have them," I said. I slid the two small cream menus from under my arm and set them on the white tablecloth. The man in the black suit didn't pick his up.
I walked back toward the service station with the stack of warm plates balanced on my forearm. My manager was by the POS watching the table, not me. He gave me a small nod that meant stay close but not too close.
When I turned back, the woman was standing. She smoothed her satin dress over her hips and picked up her little clutch.
"Excuse me for just a moment," she said to the table in general, to no one in particular. Her voice was tight and practiced, like she did this a lot.
The man stood halfway as she left, his hand hovering near the back of her chair, then sat back down when she headed toward the restrooms at the back. The movement left me alone at his table with the two dessert menus still untouched and his water glass half empty.
I felt it before he spoke, the shift in the air when the audience was gone.
I stepped in to pour water. It was the only thing to do with my hands.
"She'll be a few minutes," he said. His voice was lower now, not the table voice he'd used before. He leaned back in his chair and looked up at me instead of leaning in. "You never answered me."
I kept pouring. The water made a thin, clear sound against the crystal.
"I gave you my name," he said. It wasn't quite right, the way he said it. Like he expected me to have remembered and filed it away. "Etienne Dujeunest Stort," he repeated, slower this time. Then, softer, "Your name? And what time do you get off?"
He wasn't looking at the menu anymore. He wasn't pretending to order. His eyes stayed on my face and his smile was small and confident, like he'd already decided I would answer.
I set the water bottle down. My breath caught for half a second and I made myself take it through my nose so he wouldn't see it.
I had practiced a line in the ten steps back from the kitchen. Marie, the other server, had whispered it to me while I was stacking plates. "You don't have to be nice. You just have to be boring."
"I'm sorry," I said. My voice came out even. I kept my eyes on the dessert menu I was straightening, not on him. "We don't give out personal information at work. I can take your dessert order whenever you're ready."
That was the lie and the boundary in the same sentence. We didn't have a rule written on the wall that said it, but I made it sound like we did, like it was policy and not just me telling him no. It felt safer to make it sound like it wasn't personal.
His smile didn't drop but it tightened at the corners. He tilted his head.
"Come on," he said, quieter. "I'm just being friendly. You're here all night, I'm sure. Is it eleven? Midnight?" He tapped the edge of the dessert menu with one finger, not opening it. "I just want to know what to call you."
I felt my hands start to sweat around the water bottle so I set it down on the table and picked up my order pad instead. The paper was a solid thing to hold.
"I appreciate that," I said, "but I don't give personal information at work. That's my boundary." I kept it flat, professional, the same tone I'd used for the wine list. I didn't apologize a second time.
For three seconds he just looked at me. His beard caught the warm light. I could hear the low hum of the dining room behind me, someone laughing two tables over, the clink of a spoon against a cup.
He exhaled through his nose, a small laugh without humor. "Okay," he said. He finally picked up the dessert menu and flipped it open like he was actually reading it now. "Professional. I get it."
He didn't push again. Not with his voice. But he let his eyes stay on me a beat too long before he dropped them to the cursive text on the cream paper. I felt the weight of it and didn't look away first. I counted the breaths.
"What are we having?" he asked, as if we were back to normal, as if the last thirty seconds hadn't happened. He pointed at the menu with the same hand that had pointed at the dinner menu earlier, the one with no ring, his cufflink glinting. "What's good?"
"The chocolate torte is our best seller," I said. My voice was steady. I was back on script and the script was a life raft. "The creme brulee is lighter if you want something after the meal you had."
He closed the menu and set it down. He didn't order for himself. He ordered for the table, like he was reestablishing that he was in charge of it.
"Two tortes," he said. "And two coffees. She takes hers black."
I wrote it down even though there was nothing to remember. Two tortes, two black coffees. The pen made a scratching sound.
"Thank you," I said. I tucked the pad back into my apron. "I'll have that right out."
May you like
He nodded once, his face composed again, polite, the face he'd wear when she came back. He leaned back and picked up his phone, scrolling, done with me for now. The refusal hung between us, not loud, but there. He had registered it. I could tell by the way he didn't look up again as I walked away.
I carried the dessert menus back to the station, both of them still warm from his hand, and handed the ticket to the kitchen window.
