I Spilled Red Wine on a Woman in White: Banquet Serving Tales of Horror Pt. I
art by Meredith Dobbs
In 2012, I was saving up as much money as I could to move away from Ohio forever and go to my dream art school.
In Ohio, I never felt like I fit in and had to pretend who I was all the time. That was especially true working in the service industry where I was constantly trying to appear normal just enough that I wouldn’t be fired.
I had been fired for all kinds of made-up reasons before like:
● doing sit ups on my break
● not giving my boss a hug. (yes this was real)
● because the holidays were over (even though a new guy was hired the same week I got fired)
● For not talking to someone, (which was also on my break)
When I landed this nice country club job, where I made a pretty great hourly wage + a tip bonus halfway through the week, I was going to keep it for as long as I could. Even give a few hugs if necessary.
*
There was a large event in the main dining hall with mostly elderly white women. Donned in their best tennis whites—only whites were allowed on the courts—Jack Roger sandals on their feet. Wooden and stiff. The Cabernet and decaf coffee were flowing. No one seemed to mind the higher spill ratio that happens naturally when white blankets every surface. Skin, hair, clothes, tablecloths, decorations.
They lived on the edge.
The dining room was spacious and had two ornate, white fireplaces. Turned off for spring, there was a bouquet of fresh cut flowers in each one where the flames would usually be.
Gold and white chandeliers hung from the ceiling, 3 or 4 or 5 in a row. One side of the room was all glass, covered in parted sheer white curtains looking off to the grounds: the swimming pool, the golf course, the greenery, the blue.
As servers, we were directed to dress identically no matter our sex or race. Black, water repellent slacks, black socks, black shoes- slip resistant was mandatory but I never could find the kind that weren’t ugly and Skechers. White button-down tux shirt, black bowtie- the ones that came already tied and glued in place and just had a clasp in back were the easiest. One matching jacket usually in burgundy or black that had inner pockets where we were obliged to house a wine bottle opener, matches, and a gold crumber at all times.
My pocket just had bacon.
Broken up like chips. I could pop bacon all day long, if I needed a little pick me up.
Sometimes, I would also keep hors d’oeuvres in my special pocket.
I loved a good beggar’s purse, a bouncy tiger shrimp, or a piece of prosciutto often ripped off a tiny asparagus; leaving behind a naked green twig, -easy to chuck at a friend-… Anything I could toss in my mouth without being caught.
I was ‘cocktailing’ that night during the reception, passing red wine on a small round tray. We had to balance it on one spread palm that had to appear invisible underneath. It was all good until someone out of nowhere, without giving me eye contact, set down their mostly full glass of red wine on my tray on the opposite side, throwing off the tray’s balance.
I often took a glass from someone and then placed it on my tray to avoid things like this from happening. But in this case, all of the wine goes throttling through space and time. Somehow, one of the glasses, a mind of its own, like in a cartoon, and from across the room, aims directly for this woman’s white cashmere sweater.
It’s a hole in one! A golf reference feels appropriate here as the red wine dumps all over her back.
I see her do this scream using her mouth and her hands. It’s very dramatic but no sound escapes her lips. By some kind of magic, she doesn’t see what direction the wine comes from and doesn’t even turn around!
I duck behind some people and scurry back through the wall – like a mouse- but the wall slides open, it’s a secret passage. I tell some of my co-workers what happened. They love mischief. We huddle together and all peer at her back, now spotted with a bloody cheetah pattern trying to decide what to do. I pop a large bouncy, smooth shrimp in my mouth from my hidden pocket. The protein will help me think.
A disembodied hand from the group passes me a cloth napkin. I trudge to the bar for seltzer water and try to help this poor woman. The best move I can think of is to also find out if she knows who the culprit is.
I approach her and she has no idea who dumped wine on her. Phew! I’m not getting fired. Not today.
Helping her take off her cardigan, I lay its carcass on some cloth napkins and scrub it gently. The cheetah spots get more diluted but this baby isn’t going to make it.
“Who did this to me? The woman shrieks. “We need to find him so he can pay for my dry-cleaning bill,” she crosses her arms, still not facing me directly. “I’m sorry ma’am, it’s a goner.” I disappear into the crowd of other servers dressed exactly like me.
