“Would you like your coffee warmed up, sweetie?” That earned her tip more than anything else. The sweetie was endearing and didn’t feel like a charity fuck. It felt country, and sitting in a Denny’s somewhere off I35 certainly was country enough.
I also appreciated the way she referred to a refill as warming my coffee. It showed an appreciation and experience, an experience you’d have to live. You couldn’t read it, hear about it, the simple pleasure of warm coffee on a cold day, the way your coffee slowly cools, and the way a refill warms it back up.
The waiter at Madam Mam’s was a different beast entirely. He had the moves, the posture, the restrained respect you often receive from ethnic waitstaff in Asian and Indian restaurants, but he also had that American casualness, a laxness to his posture, a comfortable stance that said equal, a stance more astonishing in that it probably never appears overseas. He stood American.
Walking by Kerbey Lane, I peeked in the large aquarium windows that faced Guadalupe hoping to catch sight of the waitress we’d had, Heather. She’d offered to comp our salsa and tea, minor items of minor monetary consequence and worth much more to us, a real gift. But I never intended to take her up on it, and then I ordered some cheesecake. In the end, that was comped, too, for four Djarum Splash. I feel bad about the cheesecake, an extravagance being added to the earlier gift, soiling it. I feel like I owe her a fat tab and a big tip.