The Hierarchy of Desire
With both aching arms outstretched and loaded with plates, she walks slowly across the dining room to table 19 and places the plates down in front of the bodies that ordered them. “ Escargot Bourguignon. Pasta puttanesca.” She rolls the syllables around in her mouth like bits of velvet. If you saw her, you’d see eyes glistening wetly as if she were intoning a love poem she’d written herself, but no one looks up from their plates. At table 8, she introduces herself ( I am your hole-filler, your anonymous food-bringer, faceless feeder ), takes their order, and scoots back to the kitchen where her boss, Igor, is waiting by the door. His lips are pursed, but he’s not asking for a kiss. “Full hands in, full hands out,” he reminds her, and his eyes inspect her so thoroughly it feels surgical. When she first started working here, her apron could not conceal her effervescent flesh but now she can wrap the apron strings around twice and still has enough left to tie a bow. Night af...