multiple cream-based sauces on the menu.
Staff weren’t given food, but we
were allowed to make ourselves a coffee on the coffee
machine.
I didn’t like coffee then. But what I did like, Ava, was hot
chocolate.
It was just this tub of powder, nothing fancy, but
with the milk steamer it was velvety and good.
When it was quiet I’d spend time making a perfect
mug of it and lean against the bar and contemplate this
oil painting of a sexy señorita in a dark red dress –
her implausible bust was thickly rendered
with a pallet knife,
something off about the angle of them – the
weight – a shift in genre from her figurative, almost
hyper-real face
to a voluptuous expressionism at her chest.
I spent many an early evening, restaurant
empty – waiting – studying her blankly, trying to solve the
bad equation of her breasts.
One day as I was absent-mindedly sipping my hot
chocolate, the boss came out –
big bloke, temper, friend of my aunt’s,
would often talk loudly in the open kitchen to the chefs
about how good he was at playing the pussy field –
which – OK, fine – but the
other waitress was his girlfriend and I’d have to watch
her wince, pretend I hadn’t heard.
Anyway, the boss came out, saw me with the mug
raised to my lips and said, are you fucking serious?
Then yelled at me about the cost of things, and
taking liberties, and how you can’t be generous because
your staff will always take the piss – and how many of
those had I guzzled anyway on his time and money – and
what else was I stealing from him – and I just stood
there, Ava, dumbly – small, hot-faced, and waited for it
to be over.
As he walked away I went to pour it down the
sink, he saw –
What the fuck do you think you’re doing? What a
