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Back inside the manager, Dominic, glared at us and looked at his watch. I ignored him. He was always trying to be intimidating, but after some of the other places I’d worked he seemed pretty feeble. At Pete’s Eats you didn’t get any breaks, you had to have a special permission even to take a pee. At Fandango if you sat down for five seconds the boss would be there handing you a mop or telling you to fill all the ketchup bottles. At Amici they docked your pay for broken dishes and everybody on staff would get called into the back once a week so the manager could tell you to shape up or else.

But this is the thing: you can’t ever let them scare you. Not even if your husband’s out of work and your salary is all you’ve got. Not even if you only have a dime in your pocket.
You have to act as if you’re made of steel, as if no matter what they do you’ll just laugh and walk out into the street without a backward look.
Otherwise they’ve got you.

All the dishes at table two had been cleared away. The table-top had been wiped until it shone. I walked over to Randy, the pimply busboy. “Did they leave a good tip?”
He gave me his blank look.
“Table two. They were running me off my feet. Did they at least leave a good tip?”
“Nope, nothing.” He was the worst liar I’ve ever seen; even the rims of his ears turned pink.
I’d let him get away with it before, may be that was why I felt so mad. I’d tried to be nice. I’d even given him his cut after every shift, as if I didn’t suspect a thing. I guess I thought he was just a kid, give him a break. So to show his gratitude he wanted to dupe me again. That’s what you get.
“They had two rounds of drinks,” I said. “They had an extra-large deep-dish supreme, three of them had dessert, the bill was eighty bucks, and you’re trying to tell me they didn’t leave any tip at all? Do I look that stupid?”
“There was nothing on the table,” he said.
“Don’t make me laugh,” I said. “Come on.” I was holding out my hand. It was surprising how loud my voice had gotten and how hot my skin felt. Even my knees seemed to be trembling all of a sudden. “I didn’t say anything yesterday, but this is as far as it goes, okay? Fork it over!”
Jimmie came over to back me up. “Don’t be a shit, Randy. We’re in this together. Why cheat each other?”
But the little rat had gone too far to retreat. “She’s paranoid! They didn’t leave
a cent, it’s not my fault! What am I supposed to do? Now she has to throw a hissy fit!”

The next thing I knew I had a grip on his shirt and he was trying to shove me away and Jimmie’s arm was in there somewhere too; I think it was Jimmie’s elbow that knocked against my mouth and made my lip bleed. I had a vague sense that some of the customers had started craning their heads to see what was going on. My voice rang out, high and screechy, not like me at all. “Give it to me or I’ll kill you!” I felt ready to tear his pockets open, may be even to tear his skin, anything to get at those dollar bills.

Dominic hustled us all into the kitchen. The swinging door bumped him in the ass just as he was holding his arms and trying to look like a big stern boss-man. If I hadn’t been so worked up I might have laughed. “Keep your voices down, you’re acting like schoolchildren! How do you suppose the patrons feel? They come in here for a pleasant meal and they’re treated to a brawl among the staff!”

The three of us stood there, panting, hardly listening to his harangue. Jimmie kept trying to interrupt, to explain how I was being cheated out of my rightful tip, and Randy kept denying all knowledge. It finally ended with Dominic telling me that if I hadn’t taken such a long break I could have collected the tip myself and then there wouldn’t be any problem, would there, Mona?

I went into the washroom to dab at my lip with a wet paper towel. My face in the mirror gave me sort of a jolt. I looked so old and beat up. You never think of yourself as getting old, you feel the same as ever. Then in a certain light it hits you. My hair was messy, my lip was puffy, I looked fat, sweaty, ugly. I was forty. I never thought that’s what I’d be in the year 2000: a greasy forty-year-old waitress who gets into a screaming fight with a teenage boy over a few lousy bucks. And loses. I knew damn well those people had left at least twelve dollars. He had it all, and I had nothing. And on top of everything I had to stand there and get reamed out by a little tinpot manager ten years younger than me.

I cried a bit. Then I ran cold water and splashed my face. While I was pulling more paper towels out of the dispenser a bright glint of something caught my eye. It was a loonie, lying on the red tile floor in plain view. I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I could feel it right through my clothes, this little warm spot against
my thigh. I know it’s crazy, but I felt better. We were in the first year of a whole new century, so surely things were about to change. And my mother always used to say that finding money, even just a dime or a quarter, meant that something good was about to happen.

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Репетитор: А.П. Ходовец