In the Catskills: A Century of Jewish Experience in "The Mountains" (35 page)

“Let’s hear the rest of the stations,” Stan said.

“Stop interrupting me.” She looked at him angrily and then went back to her notes. “This is a tentative list. If anybody has a complaint, see me after the meeting. I’ll check with the office, and the final list will be posted on the bulletin board tonight.” Her voice was softer when she said, “You should all know by now that I try to be fair.”

After the list was read, the meeting broke up. Joe, Stan Macht, and Al were the only boys who stayed in the room.

“I don’t want to gripe,” Joe said, “but it cost me a couple hundred dollars bussing instead of waiting last year. I need that window station to make it up.”

“Why don’t you shut up and give her a chance?” Stan said. “You and your damn crying towel—”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Jock Strap.”

“Somebody around here is going to get their jaw broken.”

“All right. That’s enough.” Audrey Grier sat down on the chair in front of her small desk. She crossed her legs and was very careful to pull her skirt over her knees. The three boys watched. “Now I fully sympathize with you, Joe, but don’t let your red-haired temper get the best of you.” She thought that was cute and she smiled. Her teeth were even and white, but widely spaced. “I did promise you a window station, but I thought Mike Heimer might be a little stronger.”

“I carried the biggest station in the house last year,” Joe said, “and I had an inexperienced waiter. Did you have any trouble, any trouble at all from my station?”

“Why don’t you shut up and listen to her?” Stan said.

Al Brodie stood far enough off to the side to be out of the way. He made no effort to look as if he wasn’t listening.

“I could be wrong. I’m not perfect,” Audrey Grier said. “I’ll tell you what—you let Mike have the station for the first two weeks. Then I’ll try you. Maybe we’ll rotate like that all summer.”

Joe’s face flushed. He wheeled in his chair and turned away from her. “That won’t work, Audrey. What would we do about season guests? I can see right now I’m going to get screwed.”

“You won’t get screwed,” the hostess said. “You have my word for that. You just let Mike Heimer work the window station for two weeks. We’ll see after that—O.K.?” She put out her hand as if she was going to touch him, but she quickly drew it back, jangled her loose bracelets, and adjusted the chignon at the back of her head.

Joe shrugged. “All right. There’s nothing I can do about it anyway.” He looked over at Stan Macht, who was smiling. “But you, you son of a bitch, don’t you think you can push me around. Damn basketball players think they own this hotel.”

“Why don’t you drop dead,” Stan said.

Joe left and Audrey said, “Stan, take it easy, will you? I know what I’m doing. You only make it harder for me.”

“What about this jerk?” He motioned over his shoulder toward Brodie.

Al stepped closer to the table. “I’m Al Brodie. Did Mrs. Mandheimer tell you about me?”

“You a busboy?”

“No, ma’am, I’m a waiter. Mrs. Mandheimer promised me a job.”

“She did? She shouldn’t have done that. We already have a full staff. Maybe she wanted you to work in the children’s dining room. We might need two waiters in there.”

“She said the main dining room.”

“That’s funny. Well, she has so many things on her mind. I’ll tell you what—I’ll talk to her and see you later.”

“I’d appreciate that. I certainly would,” Al said.

“Oh, balls,” Stan said.

“Stan, will you stop that! There’s nothing wrong with acting like a gentleman.” She lifted her chin and seemed to tighten her nostrils. “You say your name’s Al Brodie?”

“I don’t want this guy working here,” Stan said. “He’s no good. He’s an eight ball. I could see it the first time I looked at him. He’s a goddamned phony.”

“Suppose you let me decide that,” Audrey Grier said.

“O.K., you decide,” Stan the Mong said, “but he don’t work here.”

“Stan, I think you’d better leave,” Audrey said.

“Where the hell did you ever work before?” Stan asked Al. “Did you ever work as a waiter? Name the place. Give us a reference.”

Al looked at Audrey as if it was all he could do to restrain himself.

“All right, Stan, you’ve said your little piece, now suppose we leave the rest up to me.”

“You don’t shift none of the regulars for him,” Stan said. “I don’t want my boys getting the shaft because of a yes-ma’am-no-ma’am phony like him.” He made a loud noise with his chair as he got up. “I’m leaving it up to you, Audrey. The old man wants a basketball team this year. He wants to put this place on the map. You better do what’s right.”

After Stan left, Audrey touched the bun in back of her head three times in a row. She uncrossed and then recrossed her legs. “He’s just about impossible,” she said. “But he is strong and he carries his station very well. You see, I never let my personal sentiments interfere with my work. I may like a person very much, but that doesn’t mean I’ll show him any favoritism. The same thing is true if I don’t like a person. I mean if I think they are crude and uncouth. I wouldn’t let a thing like that keep me from hiring him or treating him with all the respect due because of his professional competence. I tried to make that very clear to the boys. In my speech, I mean—I thought it came through.”

“I got it perfectly,” Al said.

“Now, about you, Brodie.” She folded her hands on her lap and got right down to business. “Have you ever worked a house this size?”

“I’ll be honest with you. You strike me as the kind of person I can talk to straight. I mean without trying to impress you. Like the way you talked to the boys. It came through. It was right to the point. A person has to be pretty sure of themselves and really know what they’re talking about to lay it on the line like that.”

“You’re not answering my question,” she said.

“The fact is there’s nobody up here I could call up and get a reference from just like that,” he snapped his fingers. “I’d rather tell you that than make up some phony names and back it up with a lot of lies.”

“I think you’d do very well in the children’s dining room,” she said. “Children require a special kind of handling. I’ve got a hunch you’d do nicely, very nicely—”

“The thing is—” Al said. He paused and let out his breath and then said very gravely, “I’ve got to make a thousand dollars this summer. If you think I can make it in the children’s dining room—well, I have confidence in you. I think you understand people very well. If you think that’s the place for me, I’ll just tell Mrs. Mandheimer I won’t be working the main dining room. After all you’re the boss.”

“Did Mrs. Mandheimer promise you a station in the main dining room?”

“She said something about shifting one of the other boys. But then again I don’t think she consulted this fellow they call the Mong.”

“Don’t worry about Stan. I just let him talk. Half the time I don’t even listen to him.”

“Well—whatever you say—”

“Let me tell you this, Al.” She uncrossed her legs, set both her feet firmly on the floor and leaned forward in the chair. She balanced her weight forward on her toes. “This is a five-and-three house—the toughest kind of house in the mountains. You really have to know the ropes to work a house like this. In the height of the season you have to carry a station of thirty or maybe more. We have a menu, but anything that’s off the menu that a guest asks for we try to get for them. In that respect our service is à la carte, like it is at the best hotels. But our people are all over you. They keep you running like it’s a hash house. There’s no sense in our trying to kid ourselves. If I see you can’t do it, I’ll save you a lot of aggravation and the house a lot of embarrassment. I can be tough when I have to be. I’d fire you like that.” She snapped her fingers, just the way he had a few moments before.

“I’ll take my chances,” Al said. “And thanks.”

“Hold on a minute. It’s not settled. You haven’t got the job yet, not by a long shot. I have a lot of thinking to do.”

“I have confidence in you,” Al said. “I just hope you have some in me.” It didn’t come off the way he wanted, and he smiled.

“You’ll know tonight,” Audrey said. “I’ll post the final station assignments on the bulletin board in the kitchen.”

“Gee, I don’t believe I know where that is,” Al said.

“Here, I’ll show you,” she said. She stood up slowly, and was careful to hold herself straight and tall as she walked across the room toward the entrance to the kitchen. To be a good hostess, she’d often thought, you have to possess the grace and aloofness of a professional model. But there had to be just enough action in the back to keep the men’s minds off the food.

Al Brodie was right behind her.

The coffee urns and the glass-washing section were in the passageway leading from the dining room into the kitchen. The kitchen itself was large, divided down the center by long stoves, back to back. On either side of the stoves were serving counters. One side was used for lunch and dinner, the other for breakfast. At intervals along the walls were doors leading to the pantry, bakery, pot-washing tubs and dishwashing machine.

There was a twenty-by-twenty bulletin board nailed to the wall beside the coffee urns. It had a redwood border and the name
Hotel Edgemoore
in black script across the front. Mrs. Mandheimer had bought it at an auction three years ago. She was very persistent about having her hostess use it. The Workmen’s Compensation laws were posted along one side, and there was a notice to all the help that said, “This is Your Kitchen. Keep it Clean.” The headwaiter who had preceded Audrey Grier had written and posted it the first day the bulletin board was put up. It had hung through summer and winter for three years. There was seldom a day during the season when some waiter or busboy didn’t pass it and say, “Yeah, my kitchen!”

“Isn’t this a mess!” Audrey Grier said. The table beneath the coffee urns was wet with hot water and leaking coffee. She pulled out a dish towel from under the urns and wiped up the puddles. Her voice lowered. “You know the kind of help we have in the kitchen.”

“Let me do that,” Al said.

“No, it’s all right.” She concentrated on the table. “I hate filth. I don’t know why. That’s just the way I am.”

“I don’t blame you, Miss Grier. Especially where food is concerned.”

“Sometimes it takes a woman. We’re naturally more concerned with neatness.” She held the wet towel out in front of her, away from her dress.

“Here, let me take that,” Al said. “Where can I wring it out?”

She gave up the towel easily. “Over there, where the boys do their trays.” She pointed to a big washbasin on one side of the wall.

Al Brodie wrung the towel out carefully. Then he rinsed it and wrung it out again. “Any place in particular you want this?”

“Just put it under the urns. The next person who notices a mess can wipe it up. Big joke.” She tightened the handles of the urns and said, “Well, there’s the bulletin board. You can get the feel of the rest of the kitchen from here.”

“Oh yeah,” Al said. “I’m beginning to feel at home already.”

“The children’s dining room is over on the other side,” she said. “You better take a look at it. You’ll probably be working in there.”

“I hope not,” he said. “I’m counting on that job in the main. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, Miss Grier. I know it sounds like polishing and all, but I knew right off that I could work with you. Really. I’m not kidding. You put everything so nice and clear, right to the point. I know I can work a station the way you’d want it worked.”

She winced. “Come on now, Brodie, you’re laying it on a little thick.”

“No, really. I’m telling the truth.”

“We’ll see.”

Mr. Mandheimer came in. He was with a portly man in a sport shirt and a roomy blue jacket. The man was carrying a wooden clipboard in one hand and a pencil in the other.

“Nobody keeps this place clean. I have to do everything myself,” Audrey Grier said so that Mr. Mandheimer could hear. She pulled the towel out from under the urn and started wiping the table again.

“The local wholesalers can’t compete with us,” the man with Mr. Mandheimer was saying. “They’re trying to get rich in ten weeks. How can they meet our prices?”

“So what d’you want for number-ten fruit cocktail?” Mr. Mandheimer said.