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That alone would be grounds for termination.
“Please escort Mr. and Mrs. Montague to table forty-seven,” I say to Alexandra, one of the servers who is slightly less snooty—hence I’ve made her my unofficial right-hand woman. “Let's make sure they have a courtyard view.”
Alexandra nods knowingly and takes the menus from my hand. “Mr. And Mrs. Montague. This way, s’il vous plait.”
The courtyard view is reserved for our most prestigious guests. Mrs. Montague happens to be a French actress from a bygone era, and rumor has it she was even mistress to the President of France. I happen to know that she has a rampant social media presence and paparazzi following her everywhere she goes. I just hope they get a good picture of her in the courtyard window, dining at the Bouchon Noir.
Gotta love free publicity.
“Your table is ready,” I text the driver of the next customer. At a restaurant like the Bouchon Noir, I text the folks if their table is ready early. Otherwise, their limousines circle the town until the reservation time when they are dropped off at the door to be escorted straight to their table.
While I wait for the next customers to arrive—oil moguls from somewhere in the East—the beautiful sight of culinary delights pass me in every direction. I have never been somewhere that smelled as good as this restaurant.
Strolling in front of me now is braised lamb swiftly followed by seared swordfish. Can’t forget the sauteed asparagus, baked eggplant and saffron rice. My mouth is salivating in spite of me. But I have no time for such cravings, the oil moguls have arrived.
“Natalie,” Camille, the manager and my boss, says in her curt tone of voice. I've been working on this with her, but the concept of friendliness hasn’t set in. “I need you now on tables six, thirteen, and forty-one. Too many frowns on the customers’ faces,” she says with a thick French accent. “Too many frowns!” She throws her hands in the air and then rushes back into the kitchen.
Never fear, Natalie is here, I sing in my head. This is exactly what they hired me for.
“Hello,” I say to the family of four on table six. “My name is Natalie and I just wanted to know if there is anything I can do to make your experience at the Bouchon Noir even better.”
“As a matter of fact,” the father lifts his finger, “I was just saying that this water is lukewarm. It destroys my ability to appreciate the freshness of the cold cucumber soup.”
This is what I don't understand. Here's a man frowning at his table, eating cold cucumber soup with room temperature water. Why wouldn't the waiter just ask when he saw that the client looked unhappy?
Oh, yeah. That's because in France, the customer is never right.
A glass of ice water, a fresh napkin, and an extra cushion for the chair and I've got tables six, thirteen, and forty-one eating out of the palm of my hand.
“What a pleasant young lady,” the old woman from table forty-one says as I leave her table. “They certainly have improved service by hiring her.”
If only I could get her to say that to Camille.
I've barely had a chance to return to my station when the front door jingles and my best friend, Laura, rushes in like a gust of wind.
Laura is tall, slim, and more driven and put together than just about any other woman I know. Not that you could guess that from the way that she looks in this moment. Her hair is blown in every direction and her clothes are rumpled. Very not Laura.
“It's the plumbing again,” she says. “The plumbing, Natalie! That means six unshowered women without clean clothes and I have to present our biotech proposal to the Northern Irish Ministry of Health tomorrow!” How this girl, fresh out of her MBA, landed a top-drawer post in a biotech startup might be a surprise to some, but not to me. Laura is destined for great things and she doesn’t take flak from anyone. But an unshowered Laura is another story.
“The plumbing again.” I bury my face in my hands. “The landlord promised he’d fixed it.”
“Yeah, he fixed it, alright. Slapped masking tape on a couple of pipes.”
“I'll take care of it,” I tell her, already texting the landlord. “I just need to get through this shift. You see how packed we are?”
“Water, Natalie, water,” Laura pleads and I fear she might even get down on her knees. “I didn't even mention the toilet yet…”
“Laura!” I lean forward, hissing. “Please don't say toilet in a three-star Michelin restaurant. I promise, I'll take care of it.”
She lets out a sigh as long as the River Seine and leaves me at my hostess podium.
This will become yet another reason why my roommates complain about Paris. I was the ringleader, convincing them that adventure awaited us. I didn’t exactly twist their arms to come… but I did have to give it a hard sell to a couple of them. I truly believed that once they were here, they would be so caught up in the beauty and luxury and romance of Paris that they would forget they didn't want to be here in the first place.
In a lot of ways, that's how it’s worked out. But a blocked toilet when you're sharing a studio apartment with five other people can take a major toll on one's enjoyment of a place. Even Paris.
Laura is usually on my side. Our friendship goes back to pre-kindergarten when she shared her wooden blocks with me. If she's looking desperate, then I don't even want to know what my roommates are going to say when I get home tonight.
I text the landlord again using as serious a tone as I can muster over text in French.
