669: She had told . . .
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 10 continues
SHE HAD TOLD her family. Now she had to tell Porky White. She was sure that Porky would be upset when she announced that she was leaving the clam bar, and as the moment for telling him approached, she discovered, to her surprise, that she would be upset about it, too. That night, while she was working, she practiced several resignation speeches, but she found that only one of them had the ringing note of finality and complete lack of ambiguity that she wanted, so, when the place had closed and everyone had finished cleaning up, Ariane lingered until all the others had left, and then she walked over to Porky, who was sitting in one of the pine booths counting the receipts and tallying, with a thick pencil on a spare copy of the menu, the day’s sales of every item he offered, and she said, “I quit.”
“What?” said Porky. He was genuinely shocked. He stared at her, his eyes wide with disbelief.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Ariane,” said Porky, still gaping, “you were my first waitress.”
“I know.”
“For about a year, you were my only waitress.”
“Yeah,” she said, and she felt an unexpected thickness in her throat.
Alone in the pine-paneled room, breathing the close air, rich with the lingering odors of fried foods and floor polish, she and Porky were beginning to slip into befuddled nostalgia. Porky swallowed hard and Ariane sniffled.
“Back then there wasn’t enough business for me to justify hiring another waitress,” said Porky. “To tell you the truth, there wasn’t enough business for me to justify hiring you. But, you know, I’ve got an instinct for marketing, and I knew what I was doing when I hired you.” He smiled at her the smile of a proud uncle. “Never regretted it.”
“Aw, Porky,” said Ariane.
“Truly,” said Porky. “Word of mouth is everything in this bus iness—and the word of mouth on your legs and those ruffled panties was good, very good. You pulled the boys in, just the way I thought you would.”
“Oh,” said Ariane, a little disturbed to hear her role described this way. “You make me sound a little like live bait.”
“That’s good,” said Porky, chuckling. “Live bait. That’s good. But, you know,” he said, turning serious, as if he were running a seminar on the restaurant business, “bait isn’t enough in this game. You’ve got to keep them coming back. You may have lured them in with your—well—but there was more to you than that. You had that pert and sassy air about you, too.” His use of the past tense had made his eyes begin to fill. He pulled a napkin out of the chromium holder on the table and blew his nose. “That’s what kept the boys returning even after they discovered that the reality didn’t live up to the word of mouth.”
“Hey!”
“Huh? Oh, I just meant that the view of your underwear wasn’t as shocking or exciting as it had been rumored to be. Word of mouth is prone to breed exaggeration. There’s always a disappointment factor.”
“Oh.”
“Hey, Ariane,” he said, pushing his work aside and spreading his hands in a supplicating gesture. “You’re still my best waitress, and—well—I like having you around, and—” He resorted to the napkin again. “I would very much like to keep you around. Is it—um—money?”
“No,” said Ariane, and she began backing toward the door, because she hadn’t anticipated the possibility that he might offer her more money, and she didn’t want to give in to the temptation to negotiate, didn’t want to stay at any price.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just—I’m going to work at the resort.”
“The motel?”
“It’s a resort.”
“Hey—”
“Porky, I’ve made up my mind.”
[to be continued]
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