Anita's

A darkish A frame on route 50 in Fairfax, Anita's is nestled between a car wash and a car stereo store. Except for a tropically colored mural of no one's homeland, the place is mostly brown. Brown carpet, brown tables, brown pants on the staff. Someone likes brown, or at least has settled there as a comfortable decorating choice.

I chose Anita's on the advice of an ex-girlfriend who ate there a lot. I had never worked in a restaurant in any capacity, and had doubts as to whether I could muster the courage to march up to a table full of strangers and engage them in dialogue. But I had eaten out plenty, and reasoned that by virtue of association, I could do whatever it is that waiters do. Not that I had paid attention; I had to be told that you ask for drinks, bring them and take the dinner order.

Bonnie deCerbo gave me a menu and told me to memorize it and come back in two days. I glanced at it. When I returned, a younger woman named Mary Jane quizzed me on it.
I failed miserably, not knowing prices, ingredients or even what side dishes were on the plate.
Mary Jane shrugged and hired me anyway.

We wore yellow polo shirts with the Anita's logo stencilled in brown above the left breast.
Mary Jane pointed out two small tables. "That's your section" she told me. I had no idea there were territories. A terse hispanic hostess led people past my tables for about two hours while I stood dumbfounded. No one offered me any advice. Finally, a couple were seated at my table. I approached them.

"Good evening," I said, the opening statement of my restaurant career. The woman looked up at me. Something was wrong. She did not return my salutation. The man buried his face in his menu, afraid to look at me. The tension was built, and I breathed in to return to my opening statement, with really no idea what to say next. Thankfully, she relieved my burden by speaking.
"Can we sit somplace else?"

It was the first time I would hear that request, but not the last. It was the first time I would feel rushed to get food out, to remember who is drinking what, and who ordered what . It was the first time I felt the slime that builds on your face when you sweat in the presesnce of a deep fryer. It was the first fistful of ones that I scooped up, rapid reward for honest toil in its purest form: instant karma.