Too few people.
Too many rules.
Not enough grace.
“Tiana?”
She turned.
Jessica Miller stood near the server station, blonde ponytail swinging, lip gloss shining under the overhead light.
Jessica was twenty-one, pretty in an easy way, and one of Darren’s favorites.
She lived with her parents in a suburb outside the city and talked often about being “so broke,” though she had once complained that her dad made her wait a week before buying her a new phone.
“Can you cover my section for like twenty minutes?” Jessica asked. “My boyfriend’s outside. He brought dinner, and I really need to talk to him.”
Tiana stared at her.
“I’m already covering five tables.”
“I know, but you’re better at this than me.”
“That’s not the compliment you think it is.”
Jessica gave a little laugh, then lowered her voice.
“Come on. Remember last week when you took that call from your mom’s doctor behind the walk-in? I didn’t say anything to Darren.”
Tiana’s jaw tightened.
That call had lasted seven minutes.
Seven minutes while she stood between boxes of lettuce and a humming freezer, listening to a nurse explain that her mother’s latest treatment plan needed to be adjusted again.
Seven minutes while Tiana tried not to cry into her sleeve.
She looked at Jessica.
“Twenty minutes.”
“Thank you. You’re the best.”
Jessica was already moving toward the front door before Tiana finished nodding.
Twenty minutes became forty.
Forty became an hour.
By then, Tiana was balancing two sections, three complaints, and one table that kept sending back their iced tea because it had “too much ice.”
Darren saw everything.
He said nothing.
At nine-thirty, he pinned the new schedule to the corkboard near the kitchen.
Servers gathered around it in little waves, checking their shifts, sighing, swapping complaints.
Tiana waited until the crowd moved.
Then she stepped forward.
Her eyes ran down the list.
Monday.
Nothing.
Tuesday lunch.
