almost immediately. Anyone who manages to get seated is only too happy to make a night of it: tasting menu, wine, the works. For a waitress working under the table and living mostly on tips, the evening shift at cipolla is about as good as it gets.
* * *
—
Owen writes to Ed regularly, even though they have stopped sleeping together. His emails are terse two-liners dashed off while his wife is in the shower. He makes inquiries after Ed’s studies, sly references to their encounters, and repeated requests for nude photos.
She fumbles in the bathroom to pull off her shirt, and her hair sticks up in staticky bunches. In her reflection, her eyes are either the only part of her that is still, or the only trace of movement. She thinks about Owen and shudders run through her; a quivering begins again below her navel. With her back to the mirror, she holds the cool silver totem of the phone at eye level, and when the fake shutter-sound clicks there is a flash as she commits her small breasts to the memory card. The light reflecting in the mirror obscures her face like a blazing sun, her whole head disappearing into a halo.
Later, when she looks at the photo, she realizes for the first time that her right breast is slightly larger than the left. She decides not to send it.
* * *
Ed would rather be a hostess, but all the hostesses at cipolla are white girls. Hostesses wear nice outfits of their own choosing: silk blouses, wrap dresses, statement necklaces. All the waitresses wear the same tight black dresses with no jewellery but lots of makeup.
Late on Friday and Saturday nights, the restaurant becomes a hot spot. On Friday nights especially, one of the main job requirements of waitressing at cipolla is enduring comments from men in suits who have had too much to drink. Like the man at Table Two who cups Edith’s ass and suggests they get married. As she steps out of reach, he asks her the word for “pussy” in Chinese.
“I don’t speak Chinese.”
“Sorry, sweetheart.” He looks predatory and foolish but not sorry. “Korean? Thai?” He drops his voice. “Can you do that ping-pong ball thing?”
Fireworks of humiliated fury explode behind her eyes, but all she says is, “I’ll be right back with your drink.” Rebuffed men are bad tippers.
“Temper, temper, Naomi,” says Alondra as they fall into step on their way to the bar. The words hiss out with a chuckle. “Smile now, go shoe shopping later.” Ed forces her face into something like a smile. Naomi is the kind of person who lets all the crap roll off her back.
Alondra is one of the waitresses she is friendly with. When Fabbrini told Alondra she had to either tame her afro or quit, Ed sympathized and joined her in calling him a cunt behind his back. Now Alondra has a close-cut cap of hair and a modelling agent, and together she and Ed roll their eyes whenever Fabbrini goes on about how much more beautiful he has helped her become. Alondra is quitting in a few weeks, too, as soon as she has enough saved up to move to L.A.
When she settles up with Table Two, Ed gets a smaller tip than expected, along with a phone number that she incinerates over the sink in the kitchen.
“You should save those,” says Tia, one of the other waitresses. “I have a whole pile I’m going to give to my little cousin for prank calls.” Ed laughs.
At the end of the night, the music gets turned up and cipolla transforms into a private club for the staff. It is Ed’s favourite part of working at the restaurant, when spouses, boyfriends, and girlfriends start to materialize, and the frustrated shouting in the kitchen finally comes to an end. Tip-counting time.
Lawrence the bartender sets out a tray of shots for the wait staff. Judging by the generosity with which he pours, right to the lip of the glass, he has already had a few himself. Ed downs one with no chaser. She remembers how Owen told her tequila could be savoured just like whisky, but to her it still tastes like burning. Not seeming to notice her revulsion, Lawrence slides over another. Ed swings her hair back, brushing it out of her eyes, and drinks the second shot. Naomi, she has decided, is less serious and more fun than Ed. Naomi is totally normal.
Alondra, who apparently skipped supper,