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Thursday evenings are not the busiest. Margo had refilled some water for the kid with his little sister at table eight, took an order from the nervous guy at table ten, and then landed back to the counter waiting for the evening to disappoint her further.
“Slow night, hm?” Mick looks up from his definitely-not-folded-in-a-swan-shape napkins. “The bar’s doing okay though.”
Margo didn’t understand Mick's dislike for silence in a room that often dwelled with screaming kids, loud chatting, and birthdays and anniversaries celebrations paired with bad karaoke and tons of broken glasses. She rolled her eyes, resting an elbow on the counter.
“What are you looking at?”
“See that kid over there?”
Mick hovered over her like he thought he could get away with it, and Margo slapped the back of his head before he said, “Looks twelve.”
“He and his sister have been waiting for their dad for, like, half an hour.”
They both observed the kid held his sister's hands while she stood upon his knees. They looked triumphant. Margo and Mick, not so much. That looked like a perfect recipe for child endangerment.
“Shall I check the bar?” said Mick with an alarmed tone. He was on cleaning duty that day. Good luck with cleaning up that table if the kid decided to jump on it.
“Maybe,” Margo had seen her share of irresponsible parents during her six months at Ōsaka Sushi. That abandoned child was a one-time deal. Most of the time, people just forgot their children behind. Usually, it took them between one and two hours to come and pick them up.
“Hey, waitress.”
Margo’s eyes flickered to the voice. Immediately, years of waitressing took over her concern for table eight and she put on a tight and polite customer-service-approved smile. Because rude customers were never off the clock, not even on a Thursday evening.
“How can I help you, sir?”
The blonde dude winced. He had that vibe. That of an inflated balloon that had had at least a couple of beers before dinner. Smelled like it too.
“Listen, I was told to ask…” he squinted at his name tag “Margo, yeah, that’s you. It’s my anniversary tonight, and I figured you might help me to, you know, make it special?”
She could swear Mick aww’ed in the background. Okay, so maybe this dude wasn’t a rude customer. He just had the vibe of a rude customer. Margo’s woman enough to admit her own mistakes.
“Oh, that’s sweet.”
At that, the man reacted like he was allergic to the word. Great. She scanned her tables area trying to find a lady sitting somewhere, but nope, her customers' score hadn’t increased. Still two tables.
Maybe… the nervous guy? “What’s your table?”
“Eight,” he said, and Margo thought she misheard him until the dude cast an unmistakable glance to the kids’ table.
“Oh,” Of course he was the shitty dad. “You got nice kids over there. How old are they?”
“Sam’s a year and a half.” he said, squinting.
“She’s cute.” Mick chimed in like he didn’t have napkins to fold “How’s old the boy?”
“Six… months?”
“No, I mean, the older brother?” Margo continued because Mick’s dumbness must’ve been contagious. “He’s super good with his little sis, you must be so proud!”
“We only have two kids?” he sounded confused, shifting on his feet. “You looking at the right table? It’s eight .”
Eight, the same table that had a young boy engrossed in a blabbering conversation with a toddler. The same boy who told them they were just waiting for dad. This man was dad.
Margo should've had the children’s protection services on the restaurant speed dial.
Mick attempted a “Oh, so, it’s, like, your first anniversary?” with a note of hysteria.
The man squinted harder.
“We’ve been together for fifteen years.” The blond dude moved to the side and, like a cheap movie trick, the kid from table eight appeared behind him. The little girl beamed trying to reach the blondie with her chubby hands.
“Daniel,” The man obliged his daughter. The younger boy seemed split between annoyance and fondness. “I was about to…”
“Show your face?” Daniel smiled like he was about to punch him. “So you did remember about our anniversary.”
Sam smashed a hand on her dad’s forehead. “Don’t play dumb, LaRusso. Do you think I eat sushi now?”
Daniel gave him a look and Margo knew she should stop staring because clearly she didn’t have enough context to translate that look into words.
The red alarm in her head kept telling her to call the police. From that distance, without a little girl between them, narrowing her eyes and ditching her glasses, Daniel looked at most in his early twenties.
“Margo,” whispered Mick, trying to be subtle. “Shall I call the police?”
“The police?” said Daniel, almost choking.
Subtle. Yeah.
And then she could see it in the blond dude. In his reddening face. The horror. “I’m… oh, for fuck’s sake.”
Daniel blinked. “I’m thirty-two next month,” he said, with practice. Then he fumbled in his pocket and, instead of reaching for some sort of ID that could put her heart to rest, he handed out a business card “See? I’m the guy from LaRusso Auto Group. We just opened in North Hollywood and…”
“But you said…” Margo interrupted him, trying to find any sign of age in his features “You were waiting for dad. ”
“I was talking to the child?” he replied, nonplussed.
Mick blurted “But you look twelve.”
“He’s four months older than me!” complained Johnny, raising his eyes to the ceiling like it personally attacked him.
“Don’t mind him,” Daniel patted Johnny on the back, “It happens all the time. He’s overdramatic.”
“I am what now.”
“Quite overdramatic. You should have met him in the eighties.''
“Let’s see who is overdramatic the next time you get mistaken for a pedo, child bride of mine”
***
Margo stared at the receipt from table eight. Those two actually tipped her. And more than twenty per cent. Maybe she should stop judging people that quickly.
“That was…” she stopped. She hadn’t recovered from embarrassment yet, nor had the voice in her head stopped screaming to call the police. “I mean, they tipped me?”
She had had perfect customers’ service rates for six months, and some of the assholes made her change their dishes multiple times; hit on her; complained because they did uramaki with avocado but not with cream cheese and demanded to speak with her manager.
And most of them didn’t tip as good as those two.
“They were nice.” Mick commented, clearly incapable of feeling embarrassment “The twelve-years-old told me their whole life story, he was a chatty one.”
“Was he?”
“Apparently they were high school karate rivals and --”
“You know I don’t actually care, right?”
Mick shrugged. “My point is at least they didn’t report us to Jude, okay? Imagine her face. Imagine how she would’ve reacted knowing we almost called the police.”
Margo could see her face. Fucking hell, she needed a better job.
“I think they were nice, that’s it.” Mick concluded, like that improved their evening.
“I don’t know.” She sighed “The guy complained about the food all the time. Like, the whole evening. Couldn’t shut up about Salmon’s freshness and true wasabi and whatnot.”
“We’re not paid enough, Margo.”
“Clearly I’m not.”