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The Call
by Joseph Han “You’re toast, you hear me?” At this point I was on my twenty-seventh call refusing appointments and already told the man that the restaurant would be booked for the next three months. This man’s anniversary was coming up in two weeks, and the threshold between pleading and demanding broke like football players running through a banner. I explained that the manager doesn’t take phone calls concerning booking and wouldn’t make special exceptions for patrons. “We don’t serve that here sir, I apologize.” I heard him mutter under his breath but only caught the mother part. “It’s a phrase you imbecile. I mean if you don’t get me a table, I swear, sweet Jesus…” “My name is Jonah, sir, not Jesus. Though I’m not even sure he could help you right now.” His huffing suggested that he was preparing what to say next. “I will cut you up into slices of toast and burn you!” I heard him as if he were a tiny version of himself yelling into my ear canal. I flipped through the scheduling book to pretend that I was being ardent in finding him an opening for his occasion, even though he couldn’t see. “Well sir, as a matter of fact, it is the bread that is sliced and then toasted. Toast can be a verb and noun, but it’s the bread that is the direct object of the toast-ing.” I thought I heard the receiver on his end slam down, wondering if it’s actually possible for the sound of the slam that ends the conversation to transmit to the other end, like if you were to feel pain from a bullet in the brain. But that would mean that he was using something outdated like a flip phone or some landline. The restaurant I worked at was the premiere place to dine. Patrons take photos in the kitchen with the chefs. Proposals happen as often as refills of water, yet everyone claps and drinks it up the same. Those couples make reservations on the spot for anniversary dinners based on a projected wedding date. There’s a legend among the staff that a couple planned to go into labor here, but it may have just been coincidence that the water broke when their aperitif was served. I initially applied to pay my way through graduate school by collecting tips as a waiter, but the restaurant moved me to the phones with three other people and all we do is reject people. Majority of the time, callers will follow through and make a reservation for dinner three months later, and a lot of the time we get callers who forget about prior commitments and have to go through the wait again. “I’m begging you,” she said. After a while on the phone, I could hear what exasperation sounded like, which came off a person’s breath as an after-taste – the smell of alcohol. “My mother is ill and this is her last wish.” Just as I was tasked to do by the restaurant, adhering to response number seven on a list of scenario claims by callers, I forced the words. “Is your loved one capable of sustaining the duration of a fourteen-course meal?” Children have been born here, yet no one has died while dining. The closest it came to that was a choking incident on a meal that is suggested to be swallowed whole, which has since been removed from the any future rotation of courses. The extern who came up with the mode of consumption has been removed from the kitchen. “I hope you enjoy what you do,” she said. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s out of my control.” The pause in the call was filled with the voices of my coworkers repeating our refusals. “I’m sure some things aren’t.” I wanted to tell her about the secret rules in place that made sure that the restaurant ran at such a high level of sophistication, to the point of absurdity. How even if someone arrives on time for an appointment, they will lose their seats. How a certain standard of dress is upheld as a silent law, where one gentleman was refused because he wore a patterned tie on a striped dress shirt. How children under the age of twelve are not allowed. How a single toe cannot be crowded out of your footwear. How a certain amount of oil and light that it reflects on your skin is permissible. How some of the most powerful people in the state eat here two nights in a row because they can. “Do you ever think about what it would be like to eat where you are? I mean, actually tasting the food, not the experience.” Keeping the conversation beyond the recommended fifteen seconds already felt like a rebellion that I didn’t plan. My ear became a throat and I drank her voice as it flowed through the receiver like cream. “Sometimes I do. Sometimes…I just need to know.” My coworkers looked at me when they didn’t see me put down the phone and wait for a ring, which usually arrived in three-minute intervals. “Well how about this for an idea,” she said. “Put me down for three, including yourself.” The surprise took me so instantly that I began weighing the options of what I would wear, imagining what she would look like. I pictured the envy worn as masks for the rest of the evening on my coworkers’ faces. I saw carousel images of a proposal, an anniversary, life coming to be, and death punctuating all of it. A whole lifetime going through courses. I flipped through pages and hoped to find an opening among the filled slots. I flipped back and forth, hoping that I could somehow shake the finality of names and the words on the pages off so that strokes would fall like dead ants. Searching, I tried to find a place for us in the cycle. |
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