Let Them Eat Pancakes by Craig Carlson

Author:Craig Carlson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2020-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

For the next several days, I got bogged down with administrative work and had almost completely forgotten about Maurice. Then the following Saturday, I got a panicked call from Bruce at the end of lunch service.

“Maurice has got to go!” he said. It was the first time I’d heard the normally reserved Welshman get so worked up.

I hopped on my bike and raced across town to meet Bruce at a café across from the diner. “What’s going on?” I asked, still winded from my bike ride.

Bruce pulled out a folder from his attaché case and handed it to me. “Take a look at this,” he said. “I had a bad feeling about Maurice right from the start, so I decided to write down everything that’s happened over the past two weeks.”

“But… why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I don’t know… He’s your friend, and… I thought I could handle him on my own.”

I wanted to remind Bruce that he’d never been obligated to keep Maurice on, friend or not. But instead, I thanked him for his foresight—and for starting the ever-important French dossier.

“No problem,” Bruce said. “After all that’s happened at BIA, it’s better to err on the side of caution, right?”

I nodded. I could feel my heart racing as I opened up Bruce’s file and began to read his daily log. It ran several pages and was chock full of details, which I narrowed down to the highlights:

Day 1—Thursday, 2nd March

At the end of Maurice’s first shift, Katie (a waitress who worked at BIA for two years), asked Maurice how his first day went. “I don’t want to work weekends!” he said. Katie reminded him that at BIA, everyone works weekends.

Day 2—Friday, 3rd March

On his second shift, Maurice was trained by Tessa (a young waitress from Russia). Maurice complained that he wasn’t happy with all the side work, like cleaning and refilling ketchups. He also made a fuss about his meal break, saying he didn’t want to wait to eat until after the rush. When Katie arrived at 4pm, she asked, “How’d it go?” Maurice gave Tessa a dirty look then turned to Katie, “I preferred working with you.” Afterward, Maurice told me he was exhausted and that “it was impossible to do everything this job requires!” I started to suspect that perhaps he didn’t like taking orders from women younger than him. He said he didn’t mind. “As long as they are pretty!”

Day 3—Saturday 4th March

When I arrived at 4pm, none of the staff looked happy. I met with Maurice in my office. He said the job was a “nightmare!” That his colleagues were the rudest people he’d ever met. That they kept telling him what to do during the service. And that Savannah had called him “hon,” which he found very “disrespectful.”

Day 4—Wednesday 8th March

I arrived at 4pm. Savannah said Maurice still refused to follow instructions. Since it was becoming a pattern to have a 30-minute conversation with him at the end of every shift, I chose not to meet with him that day.

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