A Doll of Hope

Chapter 2

A couple hours later, Christie found herself working her afternoon job as a waitress in a café. With her tools at hand, she rushed around the room taking orders, delivering food, and cleaning tables for the next customers. It was tiring work, but Christie was used to it by now. With a big smile on her face, she did one job after another as her co-workers would call out to her for her next job.

“Christie, table seven's order is up!” One of the cooks called out from behind the counter.

“Yes sir!” She stated while rushing to take the plates of food out.

“Christie, can you clean up table eleven for me?!” Another waiter stated.

“Be right there!” Christie trotted to table eleven with a tray for dirty dishes and a wet cloth in hand. Just as the cafe was getting into full swing, everyone heard a loud crashing sound. It came from the kitchen. All the waiters rushed in to see what had happened. They were all startled to see one of the head chiefs on the floor.

“What happened?!”

“One of the drawers in the upper cabinets fell out and landed on the head chief!” Everyone looked to see the broken drawer laying on the floor behind him. He was holding his foot and groaning in pain.

“Are you okay, head chief?!”

“No, I’m not okay! My foot feels like it’s split in two!” He stated while holding it.

“Somebody call an ambulance!” After about ten minutes, an ambulance arrived to take the head chief to the hospital.

“Now what do we do? The other head chief is on vacation till next week. Without either of them here, we’re very short handed.”

“Maybe we should close up for the day?”

“No way! If they found out we did that, we’d be in boiling water!” Christie thought for a minute.

“There’s no need to panic guys. I’ll take care of it.” Everyone looked at her.

“Really, Christie? I didn’t know you could cook.”

“Oh yes, I cook all the time. Everyone just go back to doing what you were doing. Don’t worry, everything will be just fine.” Everyone was still unsure about what to expect. But they realized they didn’t really have any other choice. While they went back to their regular jobs, Christie got to work in the kitchen. Everyone was pleasantly surprised at how well she was doing. It was as though there was a new head chief around. After working behind the kitchen for the next couple hours, everyone was surprised to see the head chief walk back into the café with only a small bandage wrapped around his foot.

“Welcome back, sir.”

“How is your foot feeling?”

“Much better now. Sorry to worry all of you. I just needed to put my foot in the freezer for a good hour or so.” Everyone let out a chuckle.

“Enough about that. Have there been any problems since I left?” Everyone smiled.

“No sir, everything’s been going great thanks to Christie.”

“Yeah, you should have seen her sir. After you left, she took charge like a pro. It was as though we had a new head chief in town.” Christie blushed.

“Come on, guys. It wasn’t that impressive. I didn’t do that much.” The head chief let out a smile.

“Well, whether you believe you did or not, it sounds as though you saved the day, Christie. You deserve a bit of a raise for that one.” Christie smiled and bowed her head.