The Serb

Chapter 2 - Fateful Meeting

Rosa's POV:

"Thank you."

I say, handing the cab driver the calculated amount of money I brought, already knowing how much it would cost me from numerous trips to here.

"Actually it will be 70 cents more. Gas prices, y'know?"

As painfull as it is, I gave him the 70 cents. Hopefully I will get enough tips today to pay for the trip back home.

Brise de Mer is a branch of a 3 star Michelin french restaurant. It is one of the most expensive in Little River.
I was luck to get hired here a year since I moved to this city, considering I never had a job like this before.
Well, I knew why they hired me: I was pretty, and really desperate - thank God Jean, the manager responsible for everything in the restaurant and who personally chooses new employees, is too professional for that. I wish more men were...
After my interview was over, he immediatly sent me to work and I stayed there till 2 a.m, to see how determined I was to get this job. It was tough, but I got used to the stressful and rigid working conditions - not that different from modeling, really.

I rush to the backdoor of the building, leading to the staff room with a male and female dressing yards.
I am a little late, so I change into my waitress uniform as fast as possible. It is a typcall five star restaurant female attire, that really made you feel like a well dressed servant.
I tie my hair in a ponytail, and put clips to make sure not a single stand falls, or Jean will have another reason to kill me other than being five minutes late.

I peek through the door that leads to the restaurant proper.
I don't want to get caught by Jean.
He is not on sight! I slip out and blend in with the other waiters.

Brise de Mer is everything one would expect of an overly expensive fancy restaurant: big, full of round tables with white towels and stuffed chairs, lit by warm yellow lights and a view to the sea. We just opened, and is already getting filled with clients like the businessmen and their furcoat dressed women.

"There you are Rosa! You are five minutes late!"

I freeze.

I turn around to see Ana, my coworker, and not Jean.

"Phew... Ana, you are awfully good at immitating a middle aged french guy." I say in a joking tone, but she genuinely got me there.

"Hehe. I just wanted to mess with ya, since I had to bail you out today." She smiles at me.

"Yes, I know you did, Ana. I promisse it won't happen again."

"It is not like you at all to get late Rosa. Did something happen?"

"Nah, nothing major. Anyway, I need 70 cents to get back home tonight, so I gotta get those tips."

"Alright, just don't make anyone's wife angry today!" She winks and waves at me as she leaves. "See ya at break!"

Ana started working here around the same time as me, and we got along instanly. Knowing that I really need this job, she helps me whenever I have problems like this.
She has a skinny frame and brown hair, similarly styled to mine. Like most waitresses here, she is pretty but Very modest. The type that can smile at clients when receiving a tip without angering their wives, as she said... Not having to deal with old rich men staring at her butt or flirting with her when she is taking their orders...

But I can't complain, I know It would be way worse in some street bar.
Nobody has ever touched me, well, at least not in an outrageous manner, because this place makes even the most obvious perverts at least pretend to have class.

...

Work went like usual, if not better than usual. Jean is calm with the staff tonight, the old rich men kept to themselves and their wives were unsuspecting.
Tips here are very generous with our clients' profile, so I already collected more than enough to pay for my cab two hours into my shift.