Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
“I get that. As much as I love learning new things, it has to be hands-on. If it involves a classroom, I’m pretty miserable.”
He asked, “Is that why you dropped out of college?”
“That, and it felt like a waste of time when I was nineteen. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and school wasn’t providing any answers. After I quit, I traveled for a while and eventually landed here. But now, ten years later, nothing’s really changed, and that’s about to become a problem.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Three years ago, right before my Gran died, I made her a promise. She was worried about me, because she thought I seemed kind of lost. So, I told her if I hadn’t figured out a career by the time I turned thirty, I’d go back and finish my degree at NYU.”
“Wait, you’re turning thirty in December, and it’s already late August!” I nodded, and he asked, “Couldn’t you just go to school here in San Francisco?” The prospect of losing yet another housemate was clearly upsetting him.
“I could, but NYU was important to her. She taught there for over thirty years, and it was also her alma mater.”
“Do you actually want to move back to New York?”
“Not really. I like it here, but I’d hate to break a promise to someone who meant so much to me. She raised me after my mom died, and my dad was too much of a flake to step up.”
“But don’t you think she’d want you to be happy, above all else? Wouldn’t that be more important than a promise to go back to school?”
“Oh, for sure. That’s all she ever really wanted for me, and if I was happy I wouldn’t even consider moving back to New York.” I quickly added, “Don’t get me wrong, there are parts of my life I absolutely love. But I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching with my thirtieth birthday rapidly approaching, and some things really need to change.”
“Like what?”
“The biggest problem is my job. I’ve spent eight years waiting tables at the same restaurant, and it’s sucking the life out of me. I need to quit, but if I do that without a plan, I’ll probably just end up trading one dead-end job for another.”
“I hope you come up with something, because I really want you to stay in San Francisco, Timothy.”
“Me, too, and I’m sure I will.”
Even though I tried to sound optimistic for Lark’s sake, I actually felt pretty stuck. Little did I know my life was going to change drastically in the weeks ahead, in ways I never could have predicted.
2
Timothy
The restaurant where I worked was called Tommaso, which was Italian for Thomas. It was owned by a rich bastard named Tom Mason, who was as Italian as I was—in other words, not even a little.
He’d made a bundle in IT and opened the restaurant basically as a vanity project to impress his friends. But then, like a spoiled kid with a new toy, he soon lost interest. In the eight years I’d worked there, I’d only seen the owner a handful of times, and that suited me just fine. The restaurant chugged along perfectly well without him, thanks to the general manager—an angry, stressed-out individual with the unlikely name of Alan Allen. Behind his back, we always referred to him by both names, sometimes even tacking on a third or fourth Allen for good measure.
By the time I clocked in at four-thirty, Alan Allen had already worked himself into a barely contained rage. In other words, it was beginning like every other work day. “I fired two busboys, so you all need to step up,” he snapped, during our pre-dinner briefing. “If you see a dirty dish, pick it the hell up, even if it’s not your table. No excuses, and nobody gets to act like a prima donna! I need everybody pitching in, or else this dinner service is totally fucked!”
The chef joined us next and rattled off the daily specials. We took notes, and he added, “Push the halibut. There’s a shit ton of it, and it’s right on the verge of turning.” Gross.
While he was talking, I glanced at my fellow servers. Like every weeknight, ten of us would be covering the large dining room. We were dressed all in black, from our long-sleeved button-down shirts and dress pants to the little aprons tied around our hips. We’d also automatically divided ourselves into groups. The two career servers, both in their forties, stood off to one side. They had nothing but disdain for the largest group, cute young college-age kids who generally lasted three or four months in this job.
That just left Daniel and me, because we didn’t fit into either category. We were both in our late twenties and had worked here much longer than we’d ever intended, but we didn’t think of this as our career, so much as someplace we’d gotten stuck. Daniel was cranky, foul-mouthed, and sarcastic, so needless to say, he was one of my best friends.