Free Write - The Waiter

The Waiter

 

We were not able to get together until Friday this week. Rather than find a "victim" for the prompt we selected one of three photos. After next week we will go back to doing the exercise from two countries thanks to sharing a prompt over the internet. Confession, I cheated and changed the last sentence.

Rick's Free Write 

He wanted to be an actor. That hadn’t happened. And now with AI it was even less likely.

Now that he wasn’t good looking. Not Cary Grant or George Clooney. More Chevy Chase but without the goofy expressions.

He managed to work his way across the country from Iowa to Los Angeles. Waiting tables. Picking vegetables. Grand Canyon tour guide for awhile.

He’d been in California for three years now. Had a few parts as a non-speaking crowd extra. But never a real role. Never more than a token payday.

As he served the espresso to the sidewalk table, the redheaded customer asked, “Are you an actor?”

“No, Ma’am,” he politely replied, and started to head back to the kitchen.

She called to him in a sultry voice. “Would you like to be?”

Julia's Free Write

He noticed his hands first.

Sitting on a terrace in a lovely little town in Southern France, having on the spur of the moment stopped to take a break in his long drive, he observed.

He reveled in the sun as at home it was still icy and cold. April in Northern Scandinavian can still be brutal.

A proper French terrace, the waiters and waitresses could have been the same as 200 years ago: white, long-sleeved shirt, black or black and white striped vest, black trousers. Slight accent though.

This one was of an indeterminate age: he could have been 50 (graying in his mid-50’s) or 64 and a half and almost retired.

His espresso was served as is de rigueur on a silver platter and held by a freshly washed and ironed linen napkin.

The hands, however, were not those of a waiter. Intrigued, he started a conversation - not usual but. as he was a “foreigner”, tolerated.

It turned out that before landing in France the waiter had been a logger, where?

Next county over from the traveler’s hometown!

D-L's Free Write

"Espresso," the waiter said as he put the cup on the table. 

He had the most beautiful blue eyes, Elizabeth Taylor eyes, Sandy thought. 

Her first morning in Paris, her trip of a lifetime.

Her first sip burned her mouth, but she didn't know how to ask for water.

The man at the next table offered her his glass of water. Should she take it? Was it poisoned? Drugged?

Her mother was aghast that her daughter would go to a foreign county not knowing anyone, not knowing whatever language they spoke.

Sandy wanted an adventure. Worked two jobs and saved for six months. Now she was here, watching people at sidewalk cafés, watching people walk by. 

The waiter had left the bill, a little scrap of paper on a tiny, round black tray. She looked in her wallet. Maybe they would take American money. All the world loved American money.

She asked the waiter in English. "We take only Euros." His beautiful blue eyes said, "another dumb tourist."

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the airline industry  top stories . He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, She is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/