Pressed into Service

After the last bit of conversation, Danny leaned back, enjoying the vibes when suddenly…

"AH-HEM!" A very stern deliberate exclamation came from behind.

Danny twisted in the seat to look behind me, and saw a stern moustached man in a black shirt with the Hooters logo on it. "Yes?" Danny asked tentatively in his practised soft, lilting voice.

"Has the table been served yet?" he asked with an edge to his voice.

"Um.... no?" Danny replied. The man was clearly staff, but if he was checking on customer satisfaction, his tone was all wrong.

"Well maybe you should get to it!" The man glared.

It took Danny a moment to process what the guy was saying. He glanced down at how he was dressed and looked back up again ready to explain things. "Oh no, you see, I’m not meant to be serving this table…"

“Yeah you are.” It was Steven, Danny spun and glared at him. "We've been waiting ages."

The manager turned to Steven and spoke with a far more genial tone of voice

"Sorry sir, is there a problem?"

"Yeah, we ordered wings like 20 minutes ago and our waitress here has been doing nothing but sitting here and chatting away."

"Sir, I hugely apologise."

Danny flushed red, with either anger or embarrassment. "That's not it at all!"

"Face it, your manager's here. You can’t keep avoiding him like you said you wanted to, get to work."

"Yeah Dani," the mummy suddenly spoke up, "I mean I enjoy chatting with a hot chick such as yourself, but you've really gotta take our order."

Military guy joined in, "You’re not going to take our order? I'm starving!"

"Can you at least get us the menus?" asked the ghost.

Danny's stomach sank, he looked around desperately for support. Trish and Linda were a bit too far up the table, but his eyes locked on Jack. "C'mon Jack, you're cool, tell him the truth."

Jack paused, "The truth is…” he looked towards the manager, then glanced around at the other faces. The other face’s who’s joke he would ruin if he told the truth. He gulped “She doesn’t want to work as a Hooters waitress and was planning to spend the whole night with us."

Danny's jaw dropped open, eyes wide. Yeah it was the truth, but missing some important details. He tried to think of a way to respond.

The manager landed a hand firmly on Danny's shoulder. "Come with me."

Danny stood and followed almost in a daze, after a few steps he **** his mouth into action to try to save himself. Danny had never been great at standing up for himself and despite his vocal and mental protests he had still followed as told.

"Look, they're my friends," he said in his feminine voice, too nervous about what reaction he would get if he used his normal one.

"Friends or not, you still have to serve them."

"I know I look like a Hooters girl but I swear it's just a costume."

"It's a uniform, not a costume."

"I'm not working here."

"Exactly." He pulled Danny aside to an alcove near the cashier's desk, and looked at him full **** in the eye. The glare he had given before was nothing compared to what it was now. "A bit of flirty conversation with customers is fine, but you're a waitress first and foremost, a Hooters waitress. Whatever your issue or hangup is, I suggest you cram it down and act like a professional. There's tables that need to be served and customers need to be kept happy and that's what you're going to do, starting with the table you were so happy to hang out at.."

"But... but..."

"But WHAT?"

Danny fumbled with what truth to tell him. “I’ve never been a Hooters waitress, I have no idea what I’m doing!”

There was silence.

"Sandy?" the manager called out.

A tanned attractive woman with auburn hair wearing classic Hooters waitress gear like Danny, walked up.

"Yes boss?"

"This girl's behind on her training."

"I don't recognise her, is she new? A transfer?"

"Whatever, the key thing is she needs to get up to speed and serving ASAP." Danny squirmed, he had to stop this, maybe Sandy would be more easy to convince?

"Okay,” Sandy turned, “What’s your name?”

“Danny,” he half whispered.

“Short for Danielle?”

Danny nodded. The stern attitude of the man and how **** he felt dressed as he was made him feeling timid. He had put up with the mock flirting and the touching earlier, but still his mind reeled at it all.

"Well Dani, shall we get started? Then you can work here."

Danny couldn't believe what was happening, he tried again weakly. "Look, I came in with my friends," he pointed to their table, "I was just sitting down with them..."

"Right, so that's your table now. You'll be fully responsible for serving it. Now, do they have menus?"

Danny wanted to resist the sudden responsibility on him, but with Tim there he simply answered "No?"

"Okay, you can get menus over here..."

Danny followed Sandy away from the moustached manager to a small stand, and took an armful of menus that she handed to him, "Make sure everyone gets one." Danny took the chance to return to his table. He needed a breather, and hopefully this mixup would be solved in time. Besides, giving out menus was something anyone could do, not necessarily a waitress thing.

Steve was sniggering and had the biggest smile on his face as he looked up at Danny approaching with the menus. "Sorry babe, first day on the job can be a bitch."

"Oh ha ha," Danny replied acerbically, and practically threw the menu at him. A ghostly hand reached out and took another menu from Danny, and at that point Danny realised that as the only one standing he may as well hand out the rest of the menu.

"Thanks babe," mummy guy said, "I already see something I like."

He handed one to the military guy, and slapped one down aggressively in front of Jack.

Then he reached the far end of the table.

"Danny?" Trish blinked in surprise at who was serving them.

"It's just some... I mean, I'm just helping out." Trish nodded in confusion as Danny placed menus in front of Trish and Linda.

"Wow, now you're a real Hooters girl!" Linda smiled.

Danny blushed, and just continued around the table handing out menus, conscious of all the people looking at him before turning their attention back to their menus. He finally reached his place where he sat down, dumped the remaining menus in front of him, and started looking through them.

"As the waitress working here, is there anything you recommend?" the mummy addressed Danny again.

"Shut up," Danny murmured back without looking.

"AH-HEM!"

Danny's heart froze. He slowly turned to see the man behind him once again, his glare back on top form. Danny glanced around the table, while some were focused on their menus, Steve was paying attention and taking it all in. Danny wanted to protest again, but knew the whole table would get involved if he did. Hoping to defuse this quietly, he got up off the chair without a word.

The hand was on his shoulder again, and before he knew it, he was whizzed through the restaurant to another table.

It was a small family, a man, woman and teenage son.

"This is Danielle, she'll be serving you," announced the manager. Danny stumbled on what to say, he looked towards the manager, but just got another glare. Feeling trapped and wincing slightly at the feminine version of his name, Danny turned back to the family, asked lamely "Well, is there anything you would like?"

"Well," the man said, "some menus would be nice."

Danny started to roll his eyes, but a sudden bit of pressure from the manager's hand interrupted that. "Um, yes, certainly, I'll get them right now." The manager released his grip. Danny turned to face the main restaurant and hesitated. He was meant to be setting the manager straight on all this, instead he now had another table he was expected to take care of. He turned to the moustache. "Sir?" He began.

"You were shown where they were 5 minutes ago," his voice seemed restrained due to the observing customers, but there was no mistaking the tone.

"It's not that it's... there's something I need to discuss with you..." glancing towards the family, "...in private."

The hand was on his shoulder again, guiding him forward, only this time the manager had leaned over and had his mouth right next to Danny's ear in a way that seemed almost casual if you didn't hear what was being said. He spoke in a low voice to make it hard to overhear, but up close Danny heard every single hard edged word.

"Listen Dani I don't give a damn what you want to discuss. You've been a complete embarrassment to this establishment ever since you stepped foot in here and it's going to stop now. I don't care if you're on your period or crowds make you nervous or someone was really mean to you as a kid. You're a waitress now, act like one. Every time I see you I want to see you smiling, waiting a table, helping a customer, taking orders or doing something that isn't hanging around and acting like you don't belong here. You've lounged around for over half an hour and I do NOT have the patience to keep fathering you. Get moving and don't stop. Are we clear?"

Danny's heart was in his mouth, he was completely unprepared for the amount of barely restrained fury that washed over him from the manager’s mouth. As they stopped and faced one another, Danny nodded defensively.

"Good." He pointed at the counter they were next to. "Menus."

Taking a breath, and the excuse to get away, Danny picked up the three menus and returned to the table, the manager watching the whole time. Danny tried to make a show of properly interacting with the family with words like "There's a lot of great stuff" and "Hope you see something you like", before turning and... thank goodness he couldn't see the manager. Danny exhaled a breath he didn't even know he was holding.

He could see his group's table from here, but thinking of the manager made him nervous about approaching it. He needed to resolve this, but the manager did not seem inclined to listen to his pleas. This was a nightmare! If only there was someone he could talk to to resolve this that wasn’t the manager… That's it! Sandy.

Danny weaved around the tables and found Sandy just returning from a table.

"Sandy, I need to talk with you."

"Sure, just one sec..." she made her way to a machine and started punching in the order. "You can talk, I can multitask."

"Okay, so the moustache guy..."

"Tim."

"Tim..?" It seemed a demure name for someone so imposing. "Okay, so Tim is really angry with me."

"Not surprising."

"What?"

"He hates when someone looks like they're not doing anything. You've got to act busy."

"But that's my point, I shouldn't have to."

Sandy punched the last number into the machine and turned to Danny. "Look, I get you, I really do. But honestly, it's better and easier for everyone if you just go to that group's table and take their drinks order."

"Do I look like I can take a table’s drink order?"

Sandy glanced Danny up and down. "I think I get you."

Danny exhaled with the hope that he was getting through to her when she suddenly returned with a black money pouch that she quickly strapped around his waist, letting the pouch part hang down his front.

"Pen and paper are in there. Write down the table number first, 12 in this case, and then just go around the table asking each person what they want to drink."

"I can't..."

"Look, I know new jobs can be intimidating at first, but push through this and I promise it'll get easier."

"But..."

"Tim's coming!"

That did it. Without even confirming, Danny dodged past Sandy towards the group table. As he approached he slowed down. Was he really gonna do this? The joke had gone on long enough and...

He saw Tim, standing a bit of a distance from the group table, but with his eyes firmly on Danny. Danny gulped. He fished out the pen and pad from his pouch to stall for time, writing "Table 12" and circling it multiple times at the top. He looked up again, Tim was still there. He took a step towards the table, and another one.

Eyes all looked up to him, some curious, some bemused, all paying attention. There was no going back now. He felt extra conscious of the bra straps pulling on his shoulders, the air conditioned air against his pantyhose covered legs, his ample chest and his swinging long blonde hair. In nervousness he licked his lips and tasted the lipstick. He was all on display, and nowhere to hide.