At first, it was a difficult transition for Tara. Moving back home to live with her mom after a mostly successful few years out on her own, not to mention spending most of her time in college living at the Wofford Residence Halls, had felt like this enormous step backward in all of the wrong ways.
And in a lot of ways, it still did. But after another month of living at home, there was only so much pouting and grousing that you could do about it. At the end of the day, she had a place to live where she didn't have to worry about rent, a steady income to keep her from dipping into her savings until she could get a better job, her spoiled ass cat, and a mother who was more than happy to dote on her and cook her three square meals a day.
Although, I might need to cut back on those...
In the time that Tara had been home, she had been at the culinary mercy of her well-meaning mother. And she had always sort of laid it on heavy for her girls, but Tara never remembered her cooking this much when she was a kid. Sure, for holidays and the like, but never this much, every day. Maybe that was something that changed after Haley moved away? Some kind of empty nest syndrome?
I'm certainly not empty—I feel like I'm gonna pop!
Tara had been a steady midday shift. Apparently, it was the hardest one to staff for. Since most of the other waitresses were in school or practically geriatric, they tended to prefer the late shifts or the early ones respectively. Aside from the lunch rush, this was arguably one of the quietest shifts on the schedule. You'd think that more people would have wanted it, given that for four out of the six hours that she was staffed for, almost nothing happened.
Okay, one last french fry. Then I'll stop.
So Tara spent most of her time sitting behind the counter, popping french fries into her mouth between customers. At two ' o'clock in the afternoon, there were a grand total of three parties that had come into the restaurant, and all three of them had long finished their meals and were just talking. And, like... you know, they were old. What was she going to do? Kick them out?
"Excuse me, ma'am? Can I get some more sweet tea?"
Ugh.
"Sure thing, sir! Let me just grab my pitcher..."
There was a little bounce to Haley's step, and not in way that her employers might have preferred. With her mother cooking her big breakfasts and welcoming her home with heavy dinners, not to mention spending her days in a greasy spoon with questionable portion sizes, Tara was starting to notice some squish in places that there hadn't been before. Namely around the belly.
It wasn't much, but it certainly felt like one more thing in life that Tara had let herself get too slack on. Definitely, something that she would need to correct before things got too out of control. The last thing that she needed was to get fat too...
Tara hurried over to the elderly couple that had called her over and refilled their cups to go. After the man slipped her a wrinkled ten dollars as her tip (great tip, considering some of the regulars at this place) they departed through the glass double doors and, with the chime of an overhead bell, their total number of dining parties dwindled down to two.
"Nice guy." Tara cocked an eyebrow as she examined the crumpled bill, "My favorite customer all day."
Meandering back behind the counter, Tara plopped back down on the barstool that "wasn't supposed" to be back there, despite it having a permanent station there. Anyone who had been working at this shift for longer than five minutes knew that there was no point in keeping the waitresses on red alert. Not like the Evening Shift.
"Hey Tara, I'm headed on my lunch." a black-clad waitress said in a lilting, dry tone, "You got my tables?"
"Yeah, just took care of one of 'em." Tara pointed to the empty table that she was putting off cleaning up, "Left a tip, too."
"Probably because you were the one to cash him out. Old fucker told me to smile more—good job, I guess."
In the time that Tara had been working at Big Daddy's, and in fact the whole time that she had been home, Tara had done very little to actually socialize. Something about being put back into the small pond when you thought you were a big fish made mingling with her old friends from high school and college who stayed in the area that much more humiliating. But among those that she had been friendly with, Dani was something of a surprise.
You know, considering that she looked like she hated everyone else as much as she hated working at Big Daddy's.
"Alright, into the jar it goes." Tara shrugged as she reached over to the tip jar that got split up at the end of every shift, "More than we made off that table of twelve, that's for damn sure..."
"Better idea." Dani interjected, "We take the ten bucks, buy an extra-large of bacon cheese fries to split, and then put the difference in the jar."
"Seriously?"
"Hey, it's my table, my tip." Dani countered, "What, do you think anybody's gonna notice if you join me for lunch? It's dead in here."
Tara looked around. She didn't have to, but she did anyway out of habit. The place was dead. The two parties that were left were so old that they were practically dead. And she still had another two hours left on the clock. And it wasn't like this was the most rigid establishment with plenty of rules and whatnot...
"Alright. Fine." Tara cracked a smile, "But just eat it up here at the counter. That way I can still check people out."
"Sounds like a deal to me." Dani's black painted lips parted into a smile before hollering into the kitchen, "Hey Byers, gimme a chili cheese onion rings on one ticket and a large order of bacon cheese fries on the other!"
"Large order?" Tara piqued, "Way to eat up the whole tip, Dan."
"What? You said we were gonna split it—I'll take whatever you don't eat, don't worry."
By the time the shift was over, between the lazy grazing between them throughout the remainder of their shift, there wasn't anything for Dani to take home.
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