Night Shift

At six o'clock on a Saturday in July, Callie Novak tied on a green apron that still showed the creases from its package and stepped nervously onto the floor of the Lakeview Diner. She had studied the menu for a week, but nobody had warned her about the noise: the hiss of the grill, the clatter of plates, and the little bell that Hector, the cook, slapped whenever an order was ready. Dot, who had waited tables at the Lakeview for twenty-two years, handed her a coffeepot before she had taken three steps. "Rule one," Dot said. "Never walk anywhere with empty hands."

Throughout the first hour, Callie forgot rule one almost constantly. She walked to booth six to take an order, carried the ticket back to the kitchen, returned with the ice water she had forgotten, and then hurried back again for straws. Dot passed her four times, never hurrying, and each time she was carrying something: a coffeepot, a stack of clean mugs, a damp rag, a bottle of ketchup for a table that hadn't yet noticed it needed one. By seven-thirty, Callie's feet ached, a water glass had slid off her tray and shattered beside the register, and she had served a plate of pancakes to a man who had ordered a grilled cheese. He only laughed and insisted he'd been considering pancakes anyway, but her face burned with embarrassment for twenty minutes afterward.

The rush arrived at nine, when the summer softball game ended and players in muddy uniforms crowded into every available booth. Hector's bell rang so frequently that it seemed like one long note. Somewhere in that hour, Callie stopped worrying about how she appeared to everyone and started concentrating only on what came next. On her way to deliver two burgers, she grabbed the coffeepot and refilled three mugs at the counter. On the return trip, she cleared an abandoned table and wiped it down. She did not notice that she was doing it.

By a quarter to twelve, the diner was nearly deserted. A nurse in blue scrubs sat at the counter with a slice of cherry pie, and Dot was rolling silverware into paper napkins with fingers that moved faster than Callie could follow. "You broke a glass and fed a man the wrong dinner," Dot said without looking up. "That's about average. You coming back next Saturday?" Callie said she was, and she was surprised to realize that she genuinely meant it.

When Hector finally switched off the grill, Callie untied her apron, now decorated with syrup stains, and collected her bag. Halfway to the door, she stopped, turned around, and carried a tub of dirty mugs into the kitchen. Dot watched her pass and said nothing, but she was smiling.