Page 22 of Redemption
I walked into the restaurant I had been in countless times. The coastal theme was interesting to the tourists but held no novelty for me or anyone else who lived here. I scanned the restaurant, looking for Gabriel. The place was packed, just like the rest of the town. A young hostess stood at the podium, smiling up at me nervously.
“How many for your table?” she asked.
“Just two. Well, none I guess. The guy I’m with is already at a table.” I looked around again, hoping to find him. Through the masses of families walking to and from their seats, a gap formed and I saw him in a booth at the back of the restaurant. He was looking at the dozens of old black-and-white pictures on the wall next to him. I felt myself smiling at the sight of him admiring those old pictures instead of the tacky decorations.
“What's his name?”
“Gabriel,” I said without taking my eye off him.
The hostess tapped away at a keyboard and sighed. She stared intently at her computer screen, looking more flustered with each passing moment.
“I’m really so sorry. I’m having trouble finding where we seated him. What does he look like?”
“Don’t worry about it. I see him now. Thank you.” The sea of people parted for me as I navigated my way across the restaurant toward the booth. As if sensing me coming, his attention shifted from the pictures to me. Seeing his gaze, his smile, sent tingles throughout my body. I slid into the booth across from him. His clean-shaven face held the scent of an aftershave that mixed perfectly with his cologne. I hadn’t noticed how good his skin was until now, with him clean-shaven. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back.
“You clean up well, Sophia,” he said with a smirk.
“I was about to say the same thing. Did you bathe in a sink at the office or something?”
We both laughed softly, a sound drowned out by all the noise others were making.
“I saw you looking at these old pictures.” He took his eyes off me for the first time since I’d sat and looked at the pictures again. Men in fine clothes stood on a pier holding fishing rods, patiently watching the water. Another captured the moment an old man shared with what was probably his grandson. The boy held a fish half his size, and the grandpa was crouching down next to him, a content smile on his face from his grandson’s joy.
I pointed back to one of the men in fine clothes on the pier. “Believe it or not, this was my great grandpa.”
His eyebrows lowered as he looked closer. “Really? How long has your family lived here?”
I looked down at the table. “I’m not sure, my grandparents raised me and-” The hostess from earlier interrupted, clutching a little notepad.
“Hello, I’ll be your hostess, I mean, server today. Would you like drinks?”
Gabriel and I shared a knowing glance. Alcohol so soon after last night was a bad idea. Coffee helped the hangover, but I wasn’t about to make it worse with more alcohol.
“We’ll have water,” Gabriel said.
The girl wrote down our order and sped away.
“She reminds me of myself at my first job. I was a server too. It’s hard work.” I said.
“Did you notice she wrote down our order for two waters?” he asked with a lighthearted smile.
“She’s obviously new. She’ll get the hang of it in time, I’m sure, if she can stick with it.”
“Service jobs expose people to the worst of humanity,” Gabriel said.
“Have you worked in a restaurant before?” I asked.
“No, I’ve just eaten out with the worst of humanity.”
“I don’t understand why people would choose to be cruel to someone trying their best to serve them,” I said.
Gabriel shook his head. “Some people are just fucked.” He studied me for a moment, then said, “What would you do if the server is an asshole and something’s wrong with your food? Would you feel bad about calling a manager over to get your meal replaced? Would you try to get it for free?”
I thought about it for a moment but didn’t really need to. “I would definitely feel bad, and there is no way I would try to get it for free.”
He looked at me curiously. “Why not?”
“I was taught to never be selfish. It’s caused a lifetime of being used, basically. I would like to be able to say I would stand up for myself if the server was an asshole and the food was wrong, but I know I would just accept it because the server wouldn’t be the only one impacted. You don’t know what other people are going through, I would rather just eat the meal I was given and move on.”
