Kate savoured the anticipation in the softly lit dining room. Saturday night at La Traviata always stirred the senses, and the restaurant stood poised as the first of Bloomington’s fine diners came to partake of the prandial delights and parade their couture. It felt to Kate like grand theatre, her part as waitress lent elegance by proximity to the evening’s drama. Her order pad became a script in her hand and she unconsciously rehearsed tonight’s specials like lines from a great play.
Entranced by the borrowed sense of celebration, she pirouetted between tables, ensuring each white cloth was immaculate. Soon she would dance to a symphony of mingled voices, laughter and the clink of glassware and cutlery. Four hours would see crisp napkins rumpled, red wine splashed across tablecloths, and plates bearing evidence of a meal thoroughly consummated. The patrons would leave with sated appetites, their generous tips and smiles contributing both to Kate’s college fund and to her vicarious enjoyment of the evening’s headiness.
The performance was not Kate’s alone; other players began their roles. Starring as owner and hostess, Christina imperiously surveyed the rapidly-filling restaurant. D’Angelo, the fatherly maitre d’, greeted patrons as long-awaited guests. Darren manhandled a keg into position beneath the bar, flashing Kate a grin as he spirited away the empty, and Amy, a fellow waitress, raised an eyebrow in amusement. Such unspoken conspiratorial games between employees were spice to the mix, and Kate laughed.
From the kitchen, Chef Andreou assaulted the dining room with volleys of sound and smell, presiding over a violence of crashing pots and flashing knives. From the maelstrom of stovetop fireballs and gesticulated red-faced shouts, Kate delivered the first exquisite dishes to the crowded restaurant, fleeing the delicious sensory overload.
“Kate!” Darren called. He inhabited the shadows of the storeroom corridor like a banished dog, his jeans and boots out of place in the formal glitter of the dining room. “Can you give me a hand?”
Darren was one of Christina’s numerous nephews and usually finished his storeman work before Kate’s shift began. She swallowed the familiar disquiet of a stranger possessing her name, remembering the nametag on her blouse, and followed him into the storeroom.
“What do you...?”
Darren silenced her with a finger almost to her lips, his hand sudden at her back and his smile - all teeth, no eyes - encircling her. He closed the heavy door, replacing the laughter of the dining room with dull cool silence. Acrid refrigerant crept at Kate’s nostrils and her shoes were mired in stale beer spillage.
Stacked beer kegs and cases of wine filled the storeroom. Adjusting to the bare lightbulb glare, Kate saw an incongruous makeshift table of cartons laid with cutlery, glasses, and two meals.
“Have dinner with me?”
In the incandescent glow, Darren’s grin became a leer, and Kate was aware that his arm encircled her waist proprietorially.
“I... I can’t. I’m working.” Kate stammered. “Maybe at the end of my shift...?” Anything to return to the welcoming laughter and escape this uncomfortably solitary embrace. During her shift? Was he crazy, or drunk - or both?
“We’ll get to know each other. Relax - I’m a nice guy.”
Darren guided her to the box forming her seat at his table for two. Beyond it she saw a bed of tablecloths on the bare floor between two stacks of beer kegs. Darren followed her gaze.
“For after, hey?” Darren’s mouth smiled, but his eyes moved down her neck, appraising her like a dish. At his lip, saliva glistened and was caught with a flick of his tongue.
Revulsion propelled her upwards, but his quick shadow enveloped the room and Kate with it, wrenching her into stark awareness of each moment....
Cold steel at her back mirrors a blade angled above her collarbone. Darren too seems surprised at the steak knife in his hand but, as if to dispel his misgivings, it presses deeper.
“Not a word,” he says, more malevolent for this departure from his rehearsed script. Kate shrinks against a keg, its rim biting at her thighs. Kicking only sends her shoes flying. Her ponytail becomes a marionette string in his grasp, making the weapon unnecessary.
Darren’s sour malt odour penetrates her mouth and nostrils. Now she notices the stinging at her neck, the blood and perspiration trickling a threat down between her breasts toward her very core. She knows he can take what he wants from her.
“No!” Like Andreou’s frypan catching flame, a fireball of panic erupts and is gone, leaving only a terrible clarity: to escape, she must improvise her own seduction. “I meant, let’s make it nice.”
Darren accepts her abrupt capitulation as inevitable. Swallowing sourness, she allows him to draw her down by the wrists into the gloomy cavern between the stacked kegs. Kate locks eyes with his, willing each bare footstep from the sticky floor. She arches her blouse against his knuckles, countering his harsh grasp with her softness. And now his hands are upon her like giant spiders....
Violated, Kate’s senses contract to a single white-hot point of light. Her fists find the reassurance of steel keg rims to either side of her. The brilliant nucleus of rage explodes, throwing her backward as the heavy cylinders crash down in a chaos of echoes and flashing metal.
Dull silence returns. Only Darren’s feet protrude from the heap. Kate sinks onto a fallen keg, its unyielding steel now an ally.
In a second or two, Kate thinks, she will face demanding critics: d’Angelo, Christina, the police. She will return to the restaurant and reveal tragedy where only laughter was anticipated. She closes her eyes, and her heartbeat is loud in her ears, incessantly echoing the falling kegs. Weighty self-doubts crash down on her momentarily unassailable triumph.
Kate knows she has given the performance of a lifetime. Yet she is already aware that when the house lights come up and she faces the audience, there will be no applause.