Olly, Olly

Chapter 1. Pennies

I walked up to my first table to introduce myself and started my spiel. I could overhear that they were in talks of the outside gathering expressing their curiosity. "Is that him?" I heard as I walked up to the table.

I would love to say that this was a fascinating big city and we would have different interesting people come through everyday— or even on the flip-side of things; 'Comfort' and say this is a small town where everyone knows each other since birth. Truth is, we are somewhere more in the middle, where if you know someone you know someone and if you don't know them, chances are you probably heard of them. This is what is known as Marble Falls, Texas.

After taking their order and avoiding answering any unwanted questions about their curiosity. I made my way to the 'P.O.S.' and placed their order. More restaurant lingo, 'P.O.S.' means 'point of sale,' just a fancy way of saying cash register but in our case, our P.O.S didn't handle cash it was just where we rang in our orders. I made sure to introduce myself to my second table and had thanked one of the bus boys— Jeff, for greeting them first and starting them with ice waters and chips and salsa.

After the food for my second table came out, I was immediately flagged over by one of the customers at that table. He complained about his plate being too spicy— even after, I explained, that dish leaned on the hotter scale as I was taking their order. He had shushed me with— "trust me, honey— I'm good with it, I can handle it!" Even though being called 'honey' was one of my biggest pet peeves I bit my tongue and took his order.

I grabbed the plate, with a crooked smirk in place, as I was glad that it proved that I was right— that he couldn't handle it. My own way of calling him a wuss without using so many words. Jeff noticed as he took the plate out of my hands and made a frowned puckered face at me as our eyes met. I asked him to please watch my tables as I had to put in this new order and track a manager down to authorize the void on my check, to avoid the write-up later. It was company policy to bring this to a managers attention right away to avoid the discrepancy later. The manager was to void the item off the check to balance it out.

I placed the new order and I went through the 'front of house,' again restaurant lingo for the 'dinning-room,' to see if anyone with the capacity of authorization was there. Which then lead me to the back of house and then into the office. Sam, the office assistant was busy cashing servers out from the lunch shift. I asked her if she knew where I could find a manager and she informed me that the family was still outside. The main reason I was asking her in the first place, was to avoid interrupting them. I had hoped to find someone else who was available who could handle this. Sam informed me that Lily was around here somewhere. Lily, was the sister that I noticed earlier had left the gathering through section thirteen windows.

Sam reached for the walkie-talkie sitting on edge of her desk and called out to Lily— waited and received no response. Impatient with the lack of direction Sam was able to offer, I walked out of the office and walked around a couple more times searching for her myself. I passed by my tables to check in with Jeff, to see if everything was okay, which he assured me it was.

I ended my search at the back door, with my hand on the handle debating if I really wanted to bother the family at this moment with this— but I knew, I had no choice. This wasn't my decision to make, it was their business. I just had to deal with my responsibilities— and follow company policies so I pushed the door outward and headed out.

As I reached the entrance of the parking lot, where the car was still double parked and found the family seemed to be in strong conversation in the midst of all confusion. I walked up and tried to get someone's attention without getting everyone's attention. I felt uneasy in the process with the struggle of accomplishing this— especially through the commotion. With my frozen smirk in place and failed attempt of drawing attention, he slowly raised his head and seemed to notice me. He stared directly at me with this strong glance. I could see as his eyes immediately locked and focused solely on me.