Chapter 1 Olivia
OLIVIA
NOW
“Excuse me, Chef?” I set a plate on the pass counter and bat my eyelashes at the sous-chef through the window. “This gorgeous burger appears to be well done. I had it as medium rare on my pad. Would you mind checking the ticket for twelve?”
Carlos mimes checking an invisible ticket and replies, “Says well done here, Twinkle Toes.” And then he goes back to lazily adding garnish to the salmon.
We both know he got the order wrong. He’s going through a cringe divorce, so we’re all cutting him some slack, but he’s been getting at least one of every server’s order wrong every shift lately.
We’re nearing the end of the lunch rush, but the suit who ordered this strikes me as the type who’d make a fuss and send a burger back. “Right. Well. Despite my heinous mistake, the gentleman definitely ordered medium rare. Would you please remake it? I am ever so sorry, Chef.”
Carlos makes a big show of pondering my request as he places an order on the pass half a second before Milo swoops in to pick it up. “Fine. I’ll do it for you, Twinkle Toes. But you need to shape up—you hear me?” He winks at me, and it’s the saddest wink that ever was winked.
“You’re the best, Chef. I’ll comp him an app.”
And so it goes. I don’t have time to sweat the small stuff when the big picture is that I can’t lose this job. Not until the end of August, anyway.
Committing to the life of a ballet dancer requires passion, discipline, perseverance, rigorous perfectionism, repetition, a high tolerance level of physical pain, the ability to work as part of a team, and balls-of-steel-confidence in the face of adversity.
I’m happy to say that I possess all these attributes, and they’ve served me well in all other areas of life too.
Especially waitressing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally wake up annoyed every summer when I have to wait tables.
It certainly doesn’t mean that I’m not immune to fantasizing about dropkicking any spoiled-brat colleagues who’ve never had to supplement their modest dance-company salaries during the unpaid off-season.
I ask the manager if we can comp the suit’s calamari, but in my mind, I’m visualizing the choreography for “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” from The Nutcracker.
I start my second season in the corps de ballet at the Bay Area Dance Company at the end of August. It’s July.
The summer hiatus is a welcome break for my overworked body, but it’s a vicious blow to my bank account.
San Francisco is approximately one million times more expensive than Pittsburgh, where I was an apprentice, and a gazillion times more expensive than Cleveland, where I grew up.
To make money during the off-season, I’ve always done a lot of waitressing and a few modeling jobs here and there.
I can make a lot more money waiting tables in San Francisco than I could in Cleveland. A lot more.
And I need a lot more to pay down my student loan debt.
I was on my way to making pretty good supplemental income from my YouTube channel until a couple of months ago, when I was informed that I had to shut it down.
That was, as we say in the ballet world, a total fucking bummer.
I had spent eight months posting What I eat in a day as a ballet dancer and Get ready with me–type videos twice a week.
Staying up late to edit the videos and reply to comments.
With just over 80,000 subscribers and tons of views, I was making enough money from ad revenue that I would only have had to wait tables part-time during the off-season.
Once I’d reached 100,000 subscribers, I could have made even more.
But alas, I was ordered to cease and desist. Not in those exact legal terms. I made all of my videos private so I could keep my subscribers, but I might as well have deleted my account as far as the algorithms go.
It was bullshit company politics, but I’m not a victim. I’m still making ends meet. I’ve got my eye on the prize. That’s the good news.
The really good news is that I work at a great restaurant within walking distance of my apartment.
The less good news is that the last modeling job I had involved a creepy photographer with sticky hands, so I’m limiting my modeling work and picking up more shifts here.
Which is why I’m working the lunch shift today, of all days, when Kennedy Sloane is having lunch with her dear old daddy.
Which is, as we say in the ballet world, monumentally shitty.
Kennedy is in the corps with me. She is an adequate dancer whose bony ass I can literally dance circles around, but she was featured in the festival of new works last season because her father made a major donation to the company.
She also got her father to encourage the artistic director to make me take down my YouTube channel.
For a totally bogus, unfair reason that I had absolutely no control over.
She was just jealous that I had more YouTube subscribers than she had followers on Instagram and—oh my God, it sounds so petty and stupid even when I say it in my head.
The good news is I’m not bitter!
Okay, I might be a little bitter about this one thing.
But I’m not the bitter girl. In a movie about dancers, I wouldn’t be the scrappy girl from the wrong side of the tracks either.
My family’s smack dab in the middle of the tracks.
As middle class as they come. At least I’m not the spoiled rich twat character, because no good ever comes to that girl.
And I’m certainly not the naive small-town ingenue.
But how am I supposed to be the sassy hustler if every attempt I make to create a revenue stream outside of a dance company will get shut down once the petty, pointy-faced twat gets wind of it?
The fantastic news is that Kennedy wasn’t seated in my section, so I didn’t have to serve her.
But as she returns from the ladies’ room, she spots me and does the most affected double-take I’ve ever seen.
Approaching me wide-eyed, as if she hadn’t clocked me when she entered the restaurant over an hour ago.
“Olivia?! Oh my God, hiiiiiii!” Phony high-pitched voice. Three air kisses. Such baloney.
“Hi, Kennedy. How are you?”
“I am so good—thanks! What are you doing here? I had no idea you were here, or I would have invited you to sit with us.”
“Oh, thanks, but I’m working right now.” Hence the black three-pocket apron around my waist that’s branded with the restaurant’s logo.
“You mean you’re here for a business lunch?” she asks. “Like, with an agent or something?” She knows I don’t have an agent.
“No. I mean I’m working here as a waitress.”
She looks genuinely stunned that I would even admit this to her.
“Oh! Oh, that’s so great! It’s such a nice restaurant.
” Wow. Someone give this woman an Oscar for Most Supportive Performance by a Non-Actress.
And now she gently places her cold hand on my shoulder for a brief, condescending moment and says, “You should be very proud.”
“Okay.”
“Seriously—I just posted a picture on Insta, and my followers are all like: ‘LOVE that place!’ I should post a picture of us! My fans will love that! Our fans, I mean.”
“I actually have to get back to serving my customers now, but it was so great to see you.”
“You too, sweetie.” Three more air kisses. “I’d introduce you to Daddy, but we’re in such a rush because we have to pack for Paris!”
“Kay. Buh-bye.”
For most of the year, my muscles are sore all of the time.
In the summer, it’s my ego that gets a bruising.
I should be above all of this. Waiting tables is a means to an end, and I’m lucky that in San Francisco, it is a means to a surprisingly decent living.
So—deep breath, inhale my good fortune, hold.
Exhale the toxic Kennedy fumes. I am now open to receiving more blessings from The Universe.
And one of Milo’s CBD gummies.
It’s after two o’clock, so things are starting to slow down.
After three more deep, grounding breaths, I realize that half of the front of house staff, including Milo, has gathered around the bar to stare out the window at a hot guy on the sidewalk out front.
My burger isn’t ready yet, so I saunter over to the bar on my twinkle toes to join them.
“I already called dibs,” Milo informs me. My buddy Milo is a peculiar brand of gay hipster nerd, with his beard, bow ties, suspenders, tight vintage T-shirts, and burnt-orange leather shoes. We can’t tolerate each other’s taste in music, art, or fashion, but we have the exact same taste in men.
“Will you look at that jawline,” he mutters. “I would shave twice a day if I had a jaw like that.”
Hot Guy, as he’s being referred to, is in profile as he’s talking on his cell phone outside.
Those tailored navy blue pants fit around his butt so perfectly.
I could tap dance on his toned yet slightly rounded behind.
I find myself sighing. My life has been a parade of super tight leotard-clad male dancer buns, but catching sight of a cute guy’s butt in the wild will always give me a dopamine hit. This was just what I needed.
“I’m glad he didn’t shave,” says Tara the hostess. “That guy’s stubble is the sexiest thing about him. That and his butt.”
I raise my hand for a low-key high five.
“He better come in here,” she continues. “It’s rude to stand in front of a restaurant like that and then not come in.”
“God, I bet he’s mean. I hope he comes in and insults me. I’d jizz in my pants and do a happy dance.” Milo is not kidding.
“Please tell me I can choreograph your jizz-pants happy dance.”
We both hold our hands up, fingers spread wide, and stage-whisper, “Jizz hands!” and then burst out laughing so hard the manager gives us the stink eye.
Worth it.