‘Hostess’ is too fancy-sounding a name for what I do…

Author Note: ‘Hostess’ is based on a real experience . This story contains mature themes.

Laminated paper bends against my washcloth as I wipe down the surface of a menu, placing it down on top of the sixty-three others I’ve just disinfected and reaching for one of the seventy-four I still need to wipe. It falls into an easy rhythm, spritz, wipe, flip, wipe, repeat.  

I think ‘hostess’ is too fancy-sounding a name for what I do. I used to think of a restaurant hostess as a demure woman standing behind an intimidating desk; deigning entry to those deserving and handing little ones a package of exactly four second-rate, cellophane-wrapped crayons. Turns out, at least according to my experience, it’s more running around, desperate to find an available table for the entitled millionaire wives who want to drink their wine on the crowded patio. They take out their displeasure at a wait in the form of tightly clenched questions and cutting huffs of annoyance. It’s dealing with frazzled and high-strung servers, carting precariously balanced stacks of dirty dishes, and wiping down menus. Renewing, everlasting, monumental stacks of menus. 

We also don’t have crayons. 

The one nice thing about disinfecting menus is that it usually happens when not much else is going on. It’s one of the less stressful parts of the job, which is nice, except it’s also usually boring. Which is why I greet my colleague with delight. 

It’s funny that my manager scheduled two hosts tonight, considering it’s a Wednesday in the middle of winter which means a delightfully and excruciatingly boring evening. A waste of restaurant resources – there’s no need for two of us tonight – but it’s not my problem. 

“Andreaaaa.” Brady’s grin is effusive as he pushes aside the clutter behind the hostess stand to put down his bag. “I missed youuuu.” 

“I missed you too,” I laugh as if it’s a joke. I’m not sure if it is, but we see each other multiple times a week so I didn’t really miss him. “How was working with Lexi yesterday?” I don’t know why I asked the question, I know what his answer is gonna be.

“Oh my god, it was horrible.” Brady leans against the hostess stand. He’s fairly tall, a lot taller than me anyway, and super skinny, all messy-blond hair and eyeliner, and a cute smile that’s usually two-faced. He likes being mean about people he doesn’t like, which is a lot of people and most of the customers. He’d probably take ‘mean girl energy’ as a compliment. “I’m so glad I’m working with you tonight, she’s such a bi—” 

I have to admit, I don’t dislike hearing about how I’m his favorite fellow host, though I have to balance listening politely with not encouraging his long gossip rants. Not that disapproval discourages him. I’ve tried it every time he vocally ogles our manager whenever Derek walks by in his flatteringly tight suit pants. 

“—no because then she overrules my choice of where to seat them and is all like ‘We already set out a reservation there’ and then everyone was mad at me and I started crying in the middle of the restaurant. It was so embarrassing. I hate her.”

Poor Lexi. Poor Brady. They get along like a house on fire, or so I’ve heard. I’ve never worked with Lexi before. But just because Brady badmouths her every chance he gets doesn’t mean that yesterday was really her fault. It was probably his. 

It’s a wonder Brady hasn’t been fired in the few months he’s worked here. He’s a disaster: disorganized, severely high-strung, selfish, and all-around terrible at his job. There was every reason to fire him in the first two weeks he worked, but our manager doesn’t run the tightest ship. Almost nobody in the restaurant likes Brady, he doesn’t like most of them, and, as the unofficial therapist of the restaurant, I get to hear all about it from both sides. Apparently, he’s a complete nightmare to get along with most of the time. I guess I wouldn’t know because we get along pretty well. 

“How was your week?” I try to change the subject with a tired question. It’s my fall-back conversation starter, even though it always either leads nowhere or to another gossip-with-Brady-session. 

“My week was really awful,” he says, with a few more expletives. 

“Yeah, my week was pretty rough too,” I agree, half in sympathy and half because it’s true. The stressors of college with a little PMSing caught up to me in the form of a mini-breakdown yesterday. He laughs, almost insulted that I would compare. 

“No, your week was definitely not as bad as mine.” He words it like I’m ridiculous to consider it could have been. 

I’ve worked with Brady long enough to know that he likes talking about himself and his own troubles more than anything else, so I ask the question.

“What happened?” 

“I got sexually assaulted at Dunkin’ Donuts last night.”

“What?” My hand freezes midway through wiping a menu. “What do you mean? Like actually?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Oh my word.” 

“Yeah.” 

His eyes are blown wide in a mirror to mine and I would almost wonder if he was enjoying the shock value of the story, i.e. making it up, if it wasn’t for the casual way he says it, as if it were just an interesting Tuesday. 

Brady talks about a lot of things casually. 

“I get bullied a lot.” 

“Yeah, I was suicidal for a year.”  

“Oh, I was missing for three weeks because I was in a psych ward.” 

He says these things, dropping them into conversation or answering what I think will be an innocent question, and leaving me to try to figure out what on earth is an appropriate response. I never know what to say but that never bothers him. 

“Do you— do you wanna talk about it? Or—?” 

“Yeah, I guess so.” 

I’ve stopped wiping menus completely, just looking at him. 

“I was at Dunkin’ Donuts with a friend and the guy behind the counter kept looking at me and he offered to give me a free donut. I felt kinda weird about it but I took it and then when I went to the bathroom he followed me and kinda forced me against the wall and started making out with me.” 

“I–” What on earth am I supposed to say to that? Because, honestly, Brady was right. My week wasn’t nearly comparable to his. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Yeah, and then he kinda left and said he’d be back and to stay and wait and I left and kind of wandered around and then, I don’t really know why, I guess I wanted to confront him or something, I wasn’t really thinking, but I went back and then he did it again.” 

“Did you tell him to stop?” It probably isn’t the right thing to ask. Brady shrugs. 

“I mean yeah, but he didn’t really listen.” 

The door opens before I can respond and both of us whip our heads up, practiced at looking like we’ve simply been waiting with delight on whatever customer walks in, no matter what we were talking about before. It’s not a customer though, it’s Bob, the homeless man who bikes around town all the time. Bob’s a little seedy and a little eyesore and never really says much. It’s rumored that he fell apart after his wife died and since then he mostly wanders, going in and out of the town’s establishments, sometimes getting small handouts. 

He doesn’t even have to ask for what he usually gets at our restaurant, Brady is already rushing over to make him a small iced Coke in a plastic to-go cup. He hands it to Bob, uncowed by the yellowed fingers that take it from him, face shining with the only real smile he ever gives anyone walking through that door. 

He looks a little mad though, when he comes back to the hostess stand. 

“You know the other day Dina told me I have to stop giving him that for free?” He’s indignant, a little furious, and honestly, I get why. “It’s costing the restaurant a few cents at most! Seriously, if they start making him pay for a little cup of coke I’ll just have them take it out of my paycheck.” 

He’s genuine about that, I can tell. It’s this kind of thing that I think of, a little bemused, whenever he boasts about shoplifting from Walgreens. 

“So, did you ever call the police?” I ask hesitantly. 

“Yeah. They just wanted to know why I went back.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

“And your parents?” 

“The police called them. My mom cried a lot all over me.” He always sounds slightly disgusted talking about his mom. 

“Wow, I’m really sorry.” I feel like a broken record at this point and he just shrugs. 

“Yeah. I can’t stop remembering what his tongue felt like in my mouth.” He makes a nauseous expression.  

The phone rings and we fight to answer it. It’s our favorite part of the job and Derek also told me to try and get it before Brady if I can. Brady grins with success as I turn back to the menus and listen to him butcher a phone call. A party walks in and I seat them. By the time I get back, Brady’s texting someone. 

The night goes slowly and we play iMessage games back and forth between clearing tables and seating people. It’s predictable when Derek says one of us can go home early. I tell Brady to leave, knowing he probably needs it more no matter how much he wants ‘to get that moneyyyyyy’. 

Elsie, my favorite server, hangs around the hostess stand after Brady leaves. 

“Did you hear about the Brady disaster last night? It was awful.” I nod along politely as she recounts the story in a very different light than I last heard it. Brady is pretty clearly in the wrong and very definitely embarrassed everyone, throwing a fit in front of some customers. 

Maybe I just wasn’t there, but I still somehow can’t manage the same amount of disgust as Elsie. 

“That sounds rough,” I offer and she seems appeased. 

“I have no idea why Derek doesn’t fire him, I’ve asked him to so many times. I’m gonna talk to him again.”  

I kinda hope she doesn’t.

***

I’m enjoying my night off the next day when Brady calls me sobbing. 

“Andrea, I got fired.” The news doesn’t take me much by surprise but the tears do a little. He’s inconsolable. “It was probably Lexi’s fault that b**ch, I knew she hated me, she probably complained to Derek all the time and he listened to her.” 

“I’m so sorry, Brady.” It’s about all I can say. 

“It just—” his voice breaks and he gives a sharp, miserable sigh, a little muffled over the phone. “It just really sucks because I’m gonna miss you so much.” 

The words twist into a sudden ache in my throat as a realization begins hammering through my thick skull. 

He’s not crying over the job.

“I loved working with you.” There’s an intense vulnerability in the words, thickened by mucus and tears. “I always looked forward to coming to work on Wednesdays because I knew you’d be there. You were always such a good friend to me. You were nice. And you always listened.”  

Brady told me before he doesn’t have a lot of friends. Based on the casual way he always recounts his ‘friends’ icing him out or shrugs over getting drunk before a party so he doesn’t have to remember it, I’ve figured he has less than he thinks. 

I don’t know how it took me so long to realize that Brady really doesn’t have friends at all. 

He has one friend, in the singular. 

Me.

“I’m gonna miss you too.” I wonder if he hears the lump that I have to swallow back. “I liked working with you too.” It’s the simple truth, no stretching. I did like working with Brady. I liked it a lot. He sobs even harder and I realize that he’s definitely been crying for a while and is approaching hysterical. “Brady, it’s gonna be okay, alright?” 

“But, but—” he wails and I shush him. 

“Really Brady, we don’t have to stop being friends just because we don’t work together. You know you can text or call me whenever you want, right? We’ll find times to get together, okay?” 

He’s breathing jaggedly but calming down a little. 

“Okay,” he sniffs. “We gotta do that.” 

“We will,” I reassure. “It’s gonna be okay.” 

“Okay,” he sniffs again. “Okay.” 

“I’ll talk to you later, Brady. Love you.” 

“I love you too, Andrea.” 

***

I smile as I walk into work late Wednesday afternoon, greeting everyone from the kitchen staff to the bartender. Everyone at the restaurant is always friendly and I like working with them a lot. Brady never begrudged that, no matter how much he hated them, just admitted with a tinge of envy once, “You get along with everyone.”

The staff smile and greet me back, laughing at my groan as I see the stack of unwashed menus. We chat a little before they go about their business and I go about mine. 

The restaurant runs just fine without Brady— probably a lot better. I know without a doubt I’m the only one who misses him. I know that he isn’t coming tonight, but somehow my subconscious doesn’t quite get the message as I look up with a big smile as someone skinny and messy-blond approaches. The grin stiffens and slots into my customer service smile as I show the stranger to a table. I sigh as I return to the hostess stand. Maybe it’s just because of the three-inch stack of menus. Maybe it’s not. 

Either way, there are menus to clean and only me to do it. Laminated paper bends against my washcloth as I fall into a rhythm. Spritz, wipe, flip, wipe, repeat.