Waitress

[Jamie Hogan]

She took your order in the cafe yesterday and you thought to yourself how maybe you had never seen a human being try so hard to smile and still not quite get it done.

There is a plain man who loves her without pretense and has told her for years that she's too good for him and at times she has believed him, but when she holds her sandals in her hand and stares off the boardwalk at the ocean he looks at her like she only just appeared there and then she thinks maybe it's the other way around.

She sings on Thursday nights at a grimy joint that won't exist in a year and her voice sounds like a hard earned lesson, like dirt being washed off of working hands, and people mostly ignore it and she tries not to care.

There are pictures of her floating around the internet that she's not particularly proud of when she's sober, but get several scotch and waters in her and she might just snatch your smart phone from your hand and google them herself, hand the phone back and give you a smile that's not nearly as forced and savor the weight of your eyes on her ass as she walks away.

When she came back that last time to see if you needed anything else and you asked her if she wanted to sit down, she did. She liked your face and it wouldn't have been the first time she's flirted her way to a bigger tip and her feet were killing her as usual, but she thought of the plain man and there was something around your eyes that she might have liked a little too much, so she said "thanks" and there were other words but she only shook her head and left the check.

[Paul de Denus]

Always a pleasure to read your posts, the way you get inside the readers head is amazing-

[Joey Delgado]

I really enjoyed this post, Jamie. I loved all the quirks and character traits you gave this woman. I love that she is ashamed of her questionable pictures until you get a few drinks in her and then she'll show them to you herself. The line, '...her voice sounds like a hard earned lesson, like dirt being washed off of working hands...' is so beautiful and perfect, and damn if I don't wanna go and hear her sing and maybe cry a little at a dark corner table. This is great work, Jamie. 

[michael brooks]

Masterful. I love it.

[Bill Floyd]

As usual, I would kill to have written any one of these sentences, much less all of them.  This is what we do, filling in the backstories for the people we meet.  You've made this a gracious yet unsentimentalized portrait.  I love the use of the 2nd person perspective; it allows you to put the reader right there in the booth.

@ Brad R: You're a DBT fan?!  "Rock n roll means well, but it can't help telling young boys lies."  Isbell is missed, and Hood writes a certain kind of song/sketch better than most, but I truly think it's Cooley's songs people will be singing 50 years down the line.  

[Joe Gensle]

Bill Lapham's point is spot-on. You deliver a character almost as if inside-out, not the trappings but the soul. An interesting takeaway for me, here, is that S1 happened "yesterday," and in S5-6, it's still past tense yet so significant that it's on the diner's mind a day later. 

[Robert Crisman]

You made this woman real as a dime. Hats off. Faved.

[Mike Handley]

As a connoisseur of waitresses and people-watching, I REALLY like the way you handled this. I don't care if you witnessed her and let your imagination run amok, or if you just pictured these two in your mind. Either way, you did 'em up real good!   

[Angela]

You told a lifetime in six sentences!  The narrator saw it unfold in the time it takes to eat lunch!  I don't know if that is bad or good, as I like to think my persona would take much longer to decipher, but I am afraid that if you looked at me it would not - which is a bit intimidating.  Regardless, it is still unique and insightful and I admire you more for having written it.

[Bill Lapham]

Your write women better than most women, and way better than any man I've ever read. Empathy, I think it is. You translate that empathy into language that moves us. Just great work.

@G- I cannot see why this isn't second-person. What makes it third?

[Brad Rose]

This is a really excellent character study.  It recalls a piece I wrote here a couple of years ago, but this is much better. Finer details, and establishes a sense of both characters and their fleeting relationship. (Also for some reason reminds me of some of the musical sketches by Jason Isabel and the Drive By Truckers)