Donna bites her lip in concentration, tapping her pen against her chin, before she begins to mouth the words she's reading.
Her manager has told her countless times not to have her playscripts out while customers can see, but she'd secured a role in an Off-Off-Off Broadway play, and she's willing to risk the wrath for a job she's hoping she won't be at much longer.
She blows her bangs from her eyes, attempting to say a particular line several different ways, reading the motivations of characters having never been a problem for her. She knows she can morph into any character, embody them fully. It was just a matter of convincing everyone else.
"You have a table," her coworker says, sliding up next to her to get drinks, and she can feel the judgement, as they all do, when anyone says they want to be an actor. Even more so when they have the confidence to say they already are one, like Donna.
"Okay, I'll be right out," she replies, not even looking up from the script.
"He's cute, in that 'I'm good looking and I know it' type of way," she teases, hitting her playfully with her hip.
"What?" Donna asks, barely paying attention.
"Just get out there," she pushes her, and Donna shoves the script with her drink before stumbling out to her table.
They're fifteen minutes from closing, and now she'll likely be there even longer, a huff of annoyance coming out before she reaches the table.
"Hi, I'm Donna, what—are you doing here...again?" Her eyes looking at the charming man who seems to keep popping up in her life.
He grins up at her, his fingers interlaced and sitting on top of the menu with such a self-important attitude, she doesn't know whether to narrow her eyes or roll them.
"I just really like this restaurant," he says, and she almost expects him to look around, but he maintains eye contact with her.
"Right. The restaurant. That's why you're alone this time," she points out, and his grin gets wider.
"It is," a teasing glint in his eyes saying that he's amused that she's pointing out the obvious. "And you're working...again."
"Yeah, well, I definitely don't do roommates, so someone has to pay the rent," she raises one eyebrow, daring him to make a comment about her statement. "I don't plan to be here much longer though," she reasons.
"Right, the acting thing," he nods, remembering the night they met.
"And here I thought you didn't hear a word I said that night," she says, her tone one of amusement, bringing her hand to her hip, and his eyes follow.
"Oh, I heard a lot that night," his brown eyes emanating a warmth she'd like to drink in every morning with her coffee.
"Did you now?" She raises her brow.
"Yep, loud and clear."
Her lip finds its way back between her teeth in the same way she'd study a script, rapt attention and nerves tingling.
His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, his coat having long since been abandoned, leaving only the blue of his pants to indicate what suit he'd chosen that morning, and she can't help but trace the veins in his arms with her eyes, but it's the clench of his jaw that draws her out of her reverie, indicating he knows exactly what she's doing.
"So you left," she nearly whispers, and his eyes give a brief glance of regret.
"Donna," her name not sounding like a title coming from him, but rather a prayer.
"Your job," she clarifies, biting her tongue of the could've beens from lingering on her lips.
"How do you know that?"
"I'm Donna, I know all," she reasons with a flourish of her hands, casually sweeping her bangs from her face.
"Well, you're right, I'm back working with Jessica now," he states, proudly.
"Thanks to me," she says with a smirk. "You're welcome, by the way," a wink shot his way. "We make a good team."
"We'd make a great time if you came to work with me."
She narrows her eyes at him.
"Ask me that again and you'll pay. Literally."
"Promise?" He teases, causing her to blush.
She shakes her head at him, her bangs falling in her face.
"So does this mean I get credit for your successes, as well?" His eyes alight with amusement.
"That depends," and she dashes off before he can answer, appearing before him, tossing a script on the table. "Run lines with me."
He stares back up at her with a look of amusement and horror on his face at her antics.
"I don't do theatre," he tries to reason.
"Yes, I remember, you don't like going to the theatre," she rolls her eyes. "But you owe me..."
He playfully narrows his eyes at her.
"Fine, but I'm going to need a drink," he says, flipping through the script.
She slides down into the seat across from him, completely ignoring her other table.
"This is going to be fun."
She can feel the buzzing of her phone in her pocket, and there's a momentary dispel of a sigh, the tray in her hand precariously overloaded with plates threatening to topple into the lap of a man she'd caught staring at her ass multiple times. The thought of dropping his fried rice all over his all too fancy suit bringing a smile to her lips as she places his plate, unfortunately, in front of him, instead of all over him, and he gives her a wink, mistaking her professionalism for kindness, knowing all too well that he'll likely slight her when it comes to a tip.
Rushing back to the safety of the kitchen, she flashes a quick look for her trainee, before pulling out her phone, only to have him tap her on the shoulder, scaring her into a jump that has her whipping around with a glare.
"What did I tell you, Harold?" She says in a voice usually reserved for young children, her trainee having taken the title of shadowing all too seriously, and somehow found a way to sneak up on her multiple times today, when he wasn't actually spilling water on customers, and stumbling through the menu with a jittery nervousness that she can't remember having when she'd started.
"Don't sneak up on you…?" He phrases this as a question, as if she'd not already warned him of this, and the staring, and the general clumsiness he seemed to exude. There was no way he was going to make it, and sometimes she wonders if they make her train every new server that comes in just so she can kindly break them until they either thrive or quit. Quickly.
She should take it a compliment that she's viewed so competent that they trust her with imparting all her customer service wisdom on the new people, but it's difficult not to feel like it's just another way to be needed, to put the time and effort into an investment that will ultimately end up leaving for something bigger and better while she's…here. At this point, she doesn't expect anyone to stick it out with her.
Donna nods with a quirk of her eyebrow.
"Did you check table ten?" Knowing full well that he hadn't, instead talking about video games with one of the bussers.
"Uhh, no…?" Her lips pursing at his need to phrase everything like a question.
"You might want to do that," she suggests with a forced smile. He won't last the week, she's sure of it.
As he runs off, nearly tripping to get to the table, her fingers absentmindedly skim cross the pages of the book she has stashed with her drink, longing for their slow period so she can escape what is already building as a headache from this shift.
Grabbing a quick drink of the once hot coffee, now bitter tasting, she heads back out, noticing that Harvey's just been seated in her section. A small smile peeks on her lips, as she saunters over, noticing that he's pushed the menu he never looks at to the other side of the table, his eyes searching for her, but she sneaks up from behind, putting her hand on her hip as she reaches him.
"Ooooh, let me guess, you're here for the can-opener," she teases, looking around to see Harold nervously refilling water with a shaky hand. With a sigh and a shake of her head, she focuses back on Harvey, who's staring at her with his mouth agape.
"How could you possibly know that, I told you my trial started Wednesday?" He raises his brow as if in challenge of her all knowing intuitive energy, and she shrugs.
"You're never here during the lunch rush unless you need something, and you're wearing a black suit," her fingers reaching out to trace the line of his arm, but pulling back at the last second, noticing his eyes having caught her, and she continues on before the blush rises on her cheeks, not willing to tempt herself in that way today. "Which means you're hoping to charm the jury, because you think you look good in black, when really you look best in blue. Oooh," she says with a scrunch of her nose and a quirk of her lips.
"So you think I look good in blue, huh?" His words coming out like honey, with an air of arrogance that only he can make charming.
"I didn't say you look good, I said you look your best," she counters.
"That's not what you said the other time," his mouth almost puckering in satisfaction, the creases of his grin telling of his amusement.
"I said a lot of things the other time, one of which being to never mention it again," she warns, trying to act stern, but ultimately failing. Images of that time clawing their way to the forefront of her mind, having been buried, but the map to their location somehow always uncovered by his doing.
He holds up his hands in surrender.
"If we're going to do this, we have to be quick, I've got a lot of tables today, and a trainee," she says with a quick glance at the floor, noticing that Harold's once again missing, and likely to pop up in the middle of their ritual.
"How's that going?" A laugh nearly escaping him, if not for the stress surely written across her face, just briefly.
"Oh, you know, great, as usual, just living the dream," and she can't help but feel that tug in her chest, the one that likes to weigh heavily on her when she thinks about her dreams being replaced with complacency. "So are we doing this thing or not?" And there's a moment, where she can see him trying to read the slight edge to her voice, but he never asks.
"Yeah, should we go out back?"
"Sure, I don't think anyone's out there right now, but if someone sees, you'll be using that black coat to hide more than just your ego," she says with a glint in her eye, glancing back at him as he follows.
That smile from before making its appearance again, and if she didn't know any better, she'd swear it was reserved just for her the way he pulls it out.
Her phone buzzes in her apron again, and she grabs it, before grinning at the message.
We still on for tonight?
After the day she's had, absolutely.
Quickly typing her response, she tucks it back in her apron and turns to Harvey, whose smile has faded. And her face falls at his sudden change in mood.
"Umm, sorry, Don…Donna," she hears behind her.
"One second, Harold," she pleads, glancing back at Harvey, knowing that she has to get back to work, but not wanting to leave him.
"Why don't you meet me out back while I check on my tables," she tries, her eyes wide.
"You're busy, I'll just go," he says, sidestepping her to head towards the exit.
"Harvey, you don't have to leave, it'll just take a minute," she gestures to the floor, having never minded the excuse he gives her for a brief escape of the monotony of her day, but she can't ignore she does have a job to do, and his sudden impatience confuses her, although she'd never let him know that.
"Forget it, I'll be fine without it," he nearly bites back at her, and she has to school her face not to visibly flinch at his tone, but her eyes go wide, his words like hot oil splashing back at her, pinpricks of pain radiating through her. She knows that he's fine without her, always has been, no matter how much importance she wishes to assign herself to his life.
"Fine," she snaps back, but there's a slight quiver to her voice, although she doubts he even notices seeing as he's already turned his head, leaving.
She stands frozen for a second, absorbing what just happened, internalizing her worth as only how useful she can be. Intuitively reading people, anticipating what those around her needed, and then putting their needs before her own, the demanding customers she had to get back to evidence of just such a life.
"Is that your boyfriend?" Harold asks, another question with an obvious answer.
"No," she replies simply, a reality she has long since accepted, before turning on her heel and grabbing her multi-colored pen from her apron, quickly rushing back out to the floor to take an order with Harold tripping behind her to keep up.