Page 43 of Winter at Wishington Bay
‘Yes, we’ve been trying to get our waitress’s attention for a while but she seems to have disappeared.’ The table was in Corinne’s section, the other side of the restaurant. This was exactly why we had sections and why we didn’t mess around with them, no matter how gorgeous the clientele.
‘I’m ever so sorry about that. What can I get you?’
They placed an order for four of Ned’s special sticky toffee puddings.
‘Great choice. And would you like to follow those up with tea or coffee, which of course will be on the house to apologise for you having to wait?’
They took up the offer and I headed back to place it with the kitchen. As I came out, Eloise caught me.
‘What’s all this with Corinne and Gabe’s brother?’
‘She doesn’t know who he is. I didn’t get a chance to say much.’
‘Ned won’t be thrilled at her messing about with the sections so she can chat up a customer. Did you see she’s undone her blouse even more than usual? Honestly. I know Ned’s known her for years but I think she’s taking the pee with it all. She always wants to cover tables when there’s a celebrity here and then flirts like mad, and now this.’
‘I know. I don’t think Nate quite knew what to do with himself.’
‘She’s too young for him anyway. What is she thinking?’
‘I guess she clocked the cashmere coat, and expensive watch, added it to the rest of him and that was enough.’
‘Are you bothered?’ Eloise asked quietly.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t like to think he’s uncomfortable but he’s a chap and she’s young and pretty. He looked a bit taken aback to start with, but they all seem to come around soon enough, don’t they?’
Eloise raised a slim brow. ‘Spoken from experience, it would seem.’
I busied myself with my notepad and gave a small shrug. ‘Anyway, I’d better go and get these puddings. I’ve already had to give table nine four free coffees as they’d been trying to catch Corinne’s eye while she was busy trying to catch Nate.’
‘Oh God, really?’
‘Better that than unhappy customers.’
‘Absolutely. I’ll have a word with her when I can.’
I didn’t think it would do much good, but Eloise was welcome to try.
‘What are you doing?’ Corinne snapped again as I dropped off the sticky toffee puddings and headed back to the wait station to check on the rest of the bookings. I’d hardly stopped, had been on my feet for hours and had ended up covering half of Corinne’s tables as she spent more and more time loitering beside Nate’s.
I glanced up briefly from the booking ledger.
‘You’ve taken half my tips!’
I held her furious gaze for a moment while I tried to work out if she was actually serious. Realising she was, I let out a half disbelieving laugh and began walking away. My shift was nearly done and I was quite ready to go home and put my feet up with a bucket sized mug of tea. Corinne caught my arm.
‘I want those tips.’
‘Corinne. First of all, you can let go of my arm. Secondly, despite the fact that your deal for taking that table was your “entire day’s wages”, I still didn’t take your tips. I covered several of your tables because you were too busy trying to chat up one particular customer to notice that they’d been trying to get your attention for ages. I don’t think the restaurant deserves to get a bad reputation just because you can’t be arsed to do your job properly when a pretty face enters the room.’
‘You’re just jealous because he was interested in me and not you!’
‘Right. If you say so.’
‘He’s taking me out next Friday night.’
I stopped. I’d said to Eloise that they all came around eventually, but stupidly I’d had the thought that maybe Nate was different. He hadn’t seemed as bowled over by Corinne as some male customers were, but I guess he’d relaxed into it after all.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ she asked.
