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PenguinFriday
"Come on Jenna, I haven't seen you in days. Can't you at least enjoy yourself for one night because ever since the accident, you've been acting very weird?" Emma said as Jenna reluctantly followed Emma down the sidewalk. After the cellphone incident, Jenna tried hard to make excuses to stay home as she tried to figure out what was happening but Emma was persistent in getting Jenna out of the house.
It didn't take long before the two of them made it to Osteria Lupa Romana, an Italian that was only a horrendous bus ride away, which Jenna was glad when she persuaded her friend for them to walk.
"Don't worry, tonight will be a normal night. I promise." Jenna said hoping that she could fulfill her promise as she walked into the restaurant. Being a Friday night, things seemed busier than normal as she watched the workers move around crowded restaurant. "You know, maybe we can find somewhere else to go which would have less people." Jenna said as she thought about if an accident happened in front of everyone there. She could easily imagine some sort of disaster happening if someone recorded an incident she might cause on their phone and uploaded it to YouTube or something. Who knows who would be knocking on her front door the next day, but all she knew it would be nothing more than trouble.
"Nah, it'll be fine. You gotta learn to let loose and live a little Jenna." Emma said as the two followed a waitress to their table
"Well, it's easy for you to say it's not li-" Jenna started to say before she bumped into a woman about her age carrying a large tray. A large crash followed as Jenna watched in horror as the dishes fell to the ground. "You got to be kidding me. I am so, so sorry." Jenna said looking around at the mess around her.
The day had been long. Vida had been working since the early afternoon without a break so that she could be paid for all the time that she had been working. For some reason it had been busy all day, normally on Friday they didn't get busy until the afternoon. She had been running back and forth and cleaning tables fast then the other waitresses. Since the wreck she had been trying to work harder to make her boss happy. The day before the wreck she had fallen asleep and the day of the wreck her performance had been lacking.
Vida stood in the back for a moment to catch her breath. There had been a few costumers that had been less than happy with their orders or the way that had been served. She couldn't help it that all of them wanted to talk to her and she wasn't that good at talking to adults.
"Hey Vianna" One of the other waitresses called to her.
"It's Vida..." She said under her breath. She looked over at the girl. "Yes?"
"Vianna. Vida. Same thing. Whatever." The woman approached her. "So what have you been doing differently?"
Vida stared at her trying to figure out what she was talking about. "Well... I ate breakfast this morning without a cat drinking the milk out of the bowl at the same time. Also I remembered to brush my teeth finally."
The girl gave her a strange look. "That's nice.. I meant with your skin."
"Oh. OH! Yeah, well.. You know. Soap and stuff. Coconuts and baby bottom soft." She looked around nervously then spotted her order ready to go. "Oils. No bacon. Oh look at that. Food. People are hunger. You know, they want to get fat and not die today and such hah.." She laughed nervously and ran off to grab her food.
Vida held her head low as she came out of the kitchen in a hurry. Vida successfully dodged a couple of costumers and other waiter/waitresses before she turned right into someone. She saw all the dishes falling off the tray as she slipped to follow them. She hit the ground hard and laid there for a moment. It took her a moment to gather herself so that she could reply. "I'm fine. It's fine. Everything is fine." Vida stared at the mess all over the floor wondering what her boss was going to say when he saw this. She put her hands through her hair seeming not to notice just yet the large shard of glass embedded into her arm. "He's going to kill me..."
"Are you sure. Oh god, I'm such a klutz." Jenna said as she stooped down and started to pick up some of the scattered pieces of silverware. "Seriously, it was my fault let me help you out."
"Well not really kill me, but you know. He won't that means he has to bury me and that-" Vida looked at the girl that was helping clean up the mess. "Oh wait! You don't have to help. I can do it. It was my fault." Vida quickly went to cleaning the mess picking up the broken plates. She remembered as she was picking up the plates that she had drinking on the tray as well. "Glass. Glass! Miss... I can do it. I wouldn't want you to get hurt."
"No, it's fine. As long as we are careful neither of us will get cut up." Jenna said as she reached for a spoon and watched it move away from her as magnets would if the same polarity were facing towards the same side. Jerking her hand back before anyone else could see, she turned towards the girl. "But you know, we might want to get a broom and a dustpan just in case. I wouldn't want you to get hurt either."
Vida didn't notice the spoon since she was so scatterbrained at the moment with all the sudden commotion. "Oh me getting hurt, that's no problem. The other bad I got this nasty bruise that looked like I belly flopped into a bed of rocks and the next day-" She stopped herself suddenly. "Wait... Well anyway. I am fine, no worries. Apparently I get over things fast." Vida started to stack the broken dishes on the tray quickly so that she could get out of the way.
"That's nice, I guess some people are just able to get better quickly. My uncle could get over a cold so quickly, my dad always wondered if he had a superpower or something." Jenna said with a small laugh before trying again, this time with a fork. However unlike the spoon, the fork came charging towards her palm once she was inches away from grabbing it. A small hiss of pain escaped Jenna's lips, more out of being surprised that purely out of pain. After grabbing the fork with her other hand, she turned over her hand and could see a small imprint of where the prongs of the fork collided with her palm. “Don’t worry, I'm fine." Jenna said as she placed the silverware on the tray. "No blood, no foul as my father would say."
"Haha I guess." Vida replied really unsure of what she should say in response. She really wasn't good at this whole talking to people thing. She would have liked it more if the girl would have just left her to doing the cleaning and gone back to her friend. Although, this was one of the first conversations she had held with another adult in a while that didn't involve someone yelling at her. "Yeah no blood...” She looked back at the floor then noticed there was blood on the floor. Her eyes followed the droplets to her pants. She stared at it until she saw another drop fall from her arm. She lifted her arms to see the shard of a glass embedded into her forearm. "EH!" Vida stood up quickly only to fall again. "Um.. ah. Well.. I think I have this now. You have your friend to eat. I mean eat with. You shouldn't eat someone. I heard it is bad.. I mean it is bad, no one had to tell me that."
With a slight nod, Jenna stood up. "Alright, hopefully you won't get into too much trouble." She said with a slight smile before joining Emma at the table as she cautiously looked around, hoping no one saw her incident. The girl seemed nice and she would hate to see her in trouble due to her running into the girl.
Vida nodded back to the girl as she left for her table. She was a little jealous that she was there with a friend. Vida didn't remember the last time she was able to go out with a friend and enjoy herself. Oh yeah.. Never. Quickly she put everything on the tray and ran back to the back. Setting down the broken dishes she made her way to the first aid box. Vida grabbed a bunch of gauze, brand aids, and roller tape. Quickly she made her way to the bathroom to tend to her wound.
Not much longer she came out of the bathroom with her arm wrapped up and an angry boss waiting on her. "Vida!"
"Y-yes..?" She knew what was coming next.
"How could you be such an idiot to crash into a customer and what is worse made her help you clean up."
Vida's eyes opened wide. "No no I didn't make her, she wanted to. I mean I told her not to and she did it anyway. I could have forced-"
"Enough!" Her boss wasn't one to sit and listen to her rambling, he was used to it by now. "Go mop up the floor."
"Yes sir.."
"So who was that girl?" Emma asked as Jenna joined her friend.
"What do you mean, I never met her before in my life." Jenna asked as she looked at friend with a confused expression.
"Well, people don't normally help others out like that on a whim. It's her job to do it anyways." Emma said as she flipped open her menu as she glanced towards the waitress every once in a while as she mopped.
"It's not like I'm hurting someone by helping her out. It'll make her job easier since I was the one that caused that accident in the first place." Jenna said a little surprised at her friend's reaction to the aid she gave to the girl.
Vida filled the mop bucket with water and some cleaner and wheeled it out to the dining room. Ringing the water out of the mop she placed it on the floor and started to clean up the mess that she had made. Around her she could hear some people laughing at her and mumbling. For some reason she always had a bad time with people even when she didn't do anything. "Maybe if I smiled more, but then I would look like an idiot.. I am an idiot though." She mumbled to herself as she mopped. Finishing the job she went to the back and put her mop up and washed her hands.
"Ve Anna" the same girl from earlier called to her. "Your table's waiting."
"Yeah." She replied too tired to correct her. Vida dried her hands and made her way back to the dining room. Before she could get out of the floor her boss caught her arm.
"Offer them a free appetizer or dessert." He grumbled in her ear.
"Yes Sir." She replied and made her way out trying to put on her best smile. She approached the table with the girl that had helped her and her friend. "Hello and welcome to Osteria Lupa Romana. I am sorry about earlier as an apology would you like to receive a free appetizer or dessert?"
"No really, it wasn't a big deal." Jenna said with a reassuring smile. "You don't have t-"
"What, you're not skipping out on something free are you?" Emma asked as she shot her friend a surprised glance. "Come on, don't tell me you're not craving something sweet. Seriously, if you're not wanting something get an appetizer for us to share."
"Well, I guess we could get an appetizer. What do you recommend, Vida?" Jenna asked, pausing slightly to read the waitress’s name off her name tag. "Maybe some sort of finger food or something." The idea of having another incident occur seemed to be a bad idea to Jenna. Next time something bigger could occur than a fork jamming into her hand and avoiding that at all cost in front of others was something she strived to do.
Vida was somewhat shocked when the girl got her name right. Really she shouldn't be, her name an easy Spanish name that her parents had picked out. She racked her brain quickly of all the foods that they offered on the menu. "Finger foods. Well you can order the calamari, fried olives, white beans and rosemary crostini, fried squash blossoms, or mozzarella in carrozza." She thought them again in her head trying to remember if that was all of them. She figured it was then nodded to herself agreeing that that was all the appetizers. "As for what I like I’m not quite sure. I have only eaten a couple of things from here and most of that was what was left at the end of the day. But from what I have had the calamari, white bean rosemary thing and the mozzarella things are pretty good."
After a few seconds of thinking of the options Vida gave, Jenna gave a small nod. "I think we'll go with the mozzarella." Jenna said before continuing her order. "And I think I'll get the seafood alfredo with shrimp and a sprite to drink." Looking across the table, Jenna could see Emma's expression of disapproval over her choice of a drink and with a small sigh, changed her order. "You know what, I think I'll change my drink into wine. Whatever Emma is getting is fine by me." Jenna said deciding to avoid the issue of her not knowing too much about alcohol. After Emma gave her order of chicken alfredo with a glass of wine, Jenna turned her attention towards the girl. "I think we're all good. Thanks again for the appetizer."
Vida wrote down the first order that was given to her hastily as she had been taught. Short hand was the only way to go when taking down orders. When she decided to change her drink Vida looked between the two girls confused on why she would want to change her drink. "Wine.." She grimaced inwardly as she thought about the taste of wine. She had only had it once and to her it was awful. Vida thought about scratching out the girls order, but just left it as it was. If the dishes came out wrong it was on Vida and she was use to that. "Alright. I'll put the food in. I mean the order. I don't cook the food." She laughed a little before walking away from the table.
After putting the orders in Vida disappeared into the back. Her arm was feeling better as she thought it would. Unwrapping the bandage she saw that her skin was completely fine. "This might not be so bad." She washed off the blood and got the drinks. When she returned to the table she placed the wine and sprite down and quickly removed herself before getting fussed at. If they wanted her they would call one of the other waitresses to get her. Vida smiled to herself, at times getting fussed at wasn't that scary.
A smile crept on Jenna's face as Vida came back with only one glass of wine. Unlike her, Emma quickly tried to correct the mistake but the girl was gone before she could finish her sentence. "Hey, it's fine Emma." Jenna said reassuringly to her friend, hoping to avoid a conflict at the restaurant.
"Well, I guess so. At least I got you out of your apartment." Emma said with a slight shrug.
