The Waitress
Authors: Melissa Nathan
Contents
About the Book
Katie Simmonds want to be an educational psychologist. Last week she wanted to be a teacher, and the week before that a film director. Katie isn’t short of ambitions, but none of her ambitions are to be a waitress.
Hassled by customers, badly paid and stuck with the boss from hell, Katie’s life isn’t turning out as she’d planned. And a career choice isn’t the only commitment she has problems with. But just when she thinks things can’t get any worse, the café where she works is taken over by the last man in the world she wants to see again.
Maybe Katie’s been waiting at tables – and waiting for Mr Right – for far too long . . .
About the Author
Melissa Nathan was born and raised in Hertfordshire. A journalist for twelve years, she turned to writing novels full time in 1998 and shortly afterwards
Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field
and
Persuading Annie
were published. Melissa discovered she had breast cancer whilst writing her first novel for Random House,
The Nanny
, which hit the Sunday Times Top Ten in the spring of 2003. She went on to write another top ten bestseller,
The Waitress
, and finished her fifth novel,
The Learning Curve
, in February 2006. Sadly she died two months later, aged 37. She is survived by her husband, Andrew, and young son, Sam.
Also by Melissa Nathan
Persuading Annie
The Nanny
The Learning Curve
Acting Up
The Waitress
MELISSA NATHAN
To Samuel
Mark
Acknowledgements
It is a rare privilege to be able to genuinely thank someone for saving your life. Thank you, Alison Jones, for letting me see this year. Thank you all at 81, especially Marianne, Denise and Caroline, for making my visits as easy as possible.
Thank you Rosy Daniel, for making Samuel more than just a dream.
Thank you everyone at the amazing Waiting Rooms café in Palmers Green: Phillip Chard, who created its special, unique atmosphere; thank you Destina Philippou, who taught me how to make cappuccino and didn’t lose her temper when I burnt the toast, and also thanks to Angela Delusu and Nick Green. Please never forget that this is a work of fiction and the only thing that remotely resembles your café is the sense of fun and friendship at Crichton Brown’s.
Thank you Corinne Rodriguez, Sarah Sutcliffe and Rob Salter for your insights and anecdotes.
And, as ever, thank you to my fantastic team-mates in this team effort: Kate Elton, my editor, who doesn’t let her keen eye and business mind get in the way of her infectious excitement and warm heart. And thank you to all at Random house, especially Georgina Hawtrey-Woore, Rina Gill, Ron Beard, Susan Sandon, Rob Waddington and Faye Brewster.
Thank you Maggie for being more than my agent, and all at Ed Victor, for that perfect combination of professionalism and fun.
I am lucky enough to be surrounded by people who make my life a joy. Thank you, as ever, to Andrew, Mum, Dad, Jeremy and Deborah for helping me keep body and soul together. And thank you Sammy Mark, for helping me keep going.
1
It was one of those parties that would live on in the collective memory, ripening over the years with significance and irony; a party that would launch a hundred favourite anecdotes and change lives. But to actually experience it was hell. It was full of tomorrow’s celebs and high-fliers, yesterday’s love affairs and embarrassments. The laughter was loud and the talk thunderous, the noise almost drowning out the din from the music deck but not making a dent in the clash of egos.
Katie sipped at her paper cup of sweet punch again because she’d forgotten how disgusting it was. Ex-boyfriend number three, Hugh, was bellowing at her over the thumping bass. She hadn’t seen him for four years, and was frowning so hard to hear him that she looked as if she was straining. Hugh did not have a naturally loud voice, but what he lacked in ability he made up for in motivation.
‘. . . but the annual bonus,’ he trumpeted, ‘you see, is a golden handcuff.’
‘A golden what?’
‘Handcuff. Uncouth to go into details, but they really know what they’re doing.’
‘Excellent. So, how is –’
‘I mean put it this way, we’re talking more than –’
And then he did an impression of a person whose trousers had been set on fire. Katie was impressed. He’d rarely been so interesting. As he re-landed, the grinning face of their hostess, Sandy, appeared beside him. It was Sandy’s engagement party and she was very, very drunk.
‘Hello everybody!’ she greeted them. ‘Hello Hugh-Poo. If I wasn’t a taken woman, you’d be in trouble.’
Hugh gave a tight smile. ‘Anyway, if you’ll excuse me.’ His voice was slightly pained.
‘Oh dear,’ said Sandy. ‘You’re not leaving on my account, are you?’
‘No, no,’ said Hugh. ‘I must just . . .’ As he limped off, Sandy turned to Katie.
‘It’s so hard not to do it to him,’ she whispered into Katie’s left eye.
‘I know.’
‘It’s his face.’
‘I know.’
‘How am I going to be mature enough to get married?’
‘Show me the ring again!’
Sandy extended her hand in glee and Katie ooh-ed at the beautiful diamond in its platinum setting. As she did so, Geraldine, Sandy’s flatmate appeared as if from nowhere.
‘Oh my
God
,’ she muttered. ‘You’re not still showing that thing off are you?’
They looked up at her.
‘Hello Gerry,’ greeted Katie. ‘Sprinkling happy fairy-dust all around, as usual?’
Ignoring Katie, Geraldine looked down at her flatmate. ‘People will think you’re getting married for all the wrong reasons, you know.’
Sandy gave a regretful look at her ring. ‘I just think it’s beautiful.’ She gave a little sigh.
‘It is!’ squealed Katie. ‘Let me see it again.’
Sandy, never one to stay unhappy for long, extended her hand again, as Geraldine tutted. ‘Have you been remembering to take pictures?’ she asked.
Sandy gasped, ‘Oh no!’ She rushed off on heels that seemed to have turned her ankles to sponge.
‘I knew it,’ Geraldine said to Katie. ‘All that money on the newest digital camera and she hasn’t taken one shot. Money to burn.’
‘You know, you should be careful,’ warned Katie. ‘People will think you’re jealous.’
It was Geraldine’s turn to gasp. ‘Me? Jealous? Are you mad? I wouldn’t marry that man unless he . . . I don’t know . . .’
Katie raised her eyebrows. ‘Proposed?’
Geraldine sighed. ‘Piss off.’ She took a gulp of punch and then grimaced. ‘I told her she put too much sugar in this. It’s like medicine,’ she said before finishing it in one. ‘I just assumed I’d get married before her.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ asked Katie.
Then Geraldine was off. ‘All the way through college – three goddam years – I had to listen to her
pathetic
relationship problems – that girl has the emotional maturity of a boohbah. I could become a relationship counsellor just off the back of being her flatmate. The hours I wasted listening to her waffle. And all the time,’
she
took a deep breath, ‘I thought I was on to a sure-fire thing with that
wanker
. A man whose idea of commitment is to buy a newspaper. Mr Emotional-Retard.’
‘Well,’ sighed Katie, ‘you should have guessed from his name.’
‘And can you believe,’ squeaked Geraldine, ‘two years together and he chucks me during a Pizza Express meal –
a Pizza Express meal
– and then comes to the party tonight?’
‘Your ex?’
‘Yes. You know what he is, don’t you?’
‘An emotional retard?’
‘He’s a
fucking
emotional retard.’
‘So, where is he?’ Katie looked round the expanse of oak-floored room.
‘In the corner,’ said Geraldine. ‘
Don’t look
!’ She yanked the back of Katie’s halter-neck dress. ‘Jesus, Katie, I don’t want him to think we’re talking about him. He’s arrogant enough already.’
‘Did you invite him?’ choked Katie, rearranging herself.
‘Of course I did. We’re good friends. I’m completely over him.’
‘As long as no one looks at him.’
All right then Miss Smarty-pants. I’ll introduce you – and then you can tell me what an emotional retard you think he is.’
‘Ooh, I can’t wait. Lead on McMadwoman.’
Just as they turned round, Hugh blocked their path. He gave them both a big grin and Geraldine abandoned Katie to his monologue.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Goolies all straightened. Now, where was I?’
Despite herself, after talking to Hugh for a while Katie remembered why she’d been able to stay with him for so long. Ten months and three weeks to be precise. There was a comfy solidity about him, a warm reassurance that seemed to emanate from his M&S cardi. And then he started to dance. As the drum and bass shifted to a new rhythm, he did things with his hips that reminded her of her Great-Aunt Edna trying to walk on a damp day. His pupils were now so dilated they looked as if they were in the last stages of labour.
‘So where’s Maxine?’ she asked.
‘Away on business,’ said Hugh, almost losing his balance and giving up on the hip movement. ‘She does a lot of travelling with her work. She’s doing very well. They’re talking promotion within the year. How’s your work?’
‘Brilliant!’
‘Really?’
‘Yep,’ nodded Katie firmly. ‘Decided what I’m going to do.’
She looked briefly round the room, so as to avoid Hugh’s reaction. When she heard him say ‘Good for you,’ enthusiastically, she felt as if she’d just told him that today she’d learnt how to count to ten and spell ‘fish’.
‘I’m going to be an educational psychologist,’ she informed him.
There was a pause.
‘Oh by the way, we’re moving into your area,’ said Hugh.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. Time to move out of the flat and into a house. You can get so much more for your money out your way. How’s your little flat?’
‘Fine.’
‘And the waiting?’
Katie frowned. ‘Waiting?’
‘I mean, being a waitress. The waiting at table.’
Katie shrugged. ‘It pays the bills. Until I get trained up as an educational psych—’
‘Oh yes, that’s right,’ interrupted Hugh. ‘So what happened to your dreams of running your own restaurant?’
Katie pushed the memory of confiding this to Hugh in bed one Sunday afternoon to the back of her mind. ‘Ah, those innocent dreams,’ she smiled. ‘After a few years of work you realise why it was so easy being idealistic as a student. Because you hadn’t worked yet.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Hugh. ‘Mind you, I’m not doing too badly. Bonuses are amazing. Guess how much –’
‘Oh my God!’ whispered Katie, staring beyond Hugh’s shoulder. ‘Look!’
Hugh looked and turned back, unimpressed. Standing behind him was Dave Davies, champion oarsman, part-time model and lead role in all the best plays during their years at Oxford.
‘He’s come out, you know,’ said Hugh. ‘Completely and utterly gay. His boyfriend’s called Kevin.’
Katie gasped. ‘You’re
kidding
!’