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The chair was empty. That was fine. That was good, actually, because if someone were sitting in it Corin would already be failing.
She put the tray down. Too loud. That was too loud and a customer would have heard that and thought something was wrong with her. Something was wrong with her. She knew that already but customers weren't supposed to find out so fast.
The teapot was ready. She had made the tea herself which was probably a mistake because her tea was never right. Victoria Housekeeping tea was supposed to be right every time. That was the standard, that was what clients paid for. Mr. Lycaon's tea was right. Mr. Lycaon's tea made people happy and they meant it when they said thank you. Corin's tea made people say "thank you" in the voice.
She did not cry at work. She had not cried at work in eleven days which was. That was good. Probably. Eleven days wasn't actually that long. Ellen had probably never cried at work. Ellen probably didn't know how to cry. Ellen was cool and perfect and didn't spill things.
Corin spilled things. Not always. But she had spilled that one time three months ago and she still thought about it sometimes. When she was trying to fall asleep mostly. It just popped into her head and then she was awake for another hour.
Focus. She needed to focus. This was practice.
Yesterday. Yesterday with Mrs. Kelley. The tray had felt unsteady. Or maybe it hadn't. Maybe her hands were just shaking and the tray was fine. But it felt unsteady and that meant something was wrong. She must have done something wrong because otherwise why would it feel like that?
Mr. Lycaon had checked on her after. "Everything alright, Corin?" Which meant he'd seen. He'd seen something. Or maybe he was just being nice. Maybe he asked everyone that. But he'd looked at her in that way. The concerned way. The way that meant she'd done something.
That was why she was here. After everyone else went home. Practicing until she could do it right. Until she could do it without almost messing up.
She picked up the cup. Her hands looked weird. Did her hands always look like this? They seemed too small or maybe too big. She couldn't remember what hands were supposed to look like. That was a strange thing to forget. Mr. Lycaon's hands always looked normal. Mr. Lycaon's hands just did things correctly without him having to think about it.
She carried the cup to the little table next to the chair. Don't drop it. She was not going to drop it. She had carried so many cups. Hundreds of cups. She had only dropped two ever and both times nobody saw so it didn't count. Except it counted. She knew about it so it counted.
She put the cup down. The handle was pointing to the right because most people were right-handed. Mr. Lycaon taught her that. Victoria Housekeeping had standards. The handbook had seventeen pages just on tea service. Seventeen pages and she'd read them all and none of it stuck when she actually needed it. Just words that made sense when she was reading but disappeared when she was holding the cup. But what if the customer was left-handed?
The cup was placed. It looked okay. Did it look okay? She had been staring at it and now she couldn't tell anymore. It just looked like a cup.
Now the pour.
She went back to get the teapot. It was heavy. It was always heavy and she always forgot and then picked it up and oh right, heavy. This happened every time. Every single time. She should just remember. Other people remembered things. Other people learned. Corin just kept getting surprised by the same stupid teapot.
She wasn't supposed to say stupid. Not about herself. Mr. Lycaon said she shouldn't talk about herself like that. Mr. Lycaon said she was capable and hardworking and an asset to Victoria Housekeeping. She had nodded when he said that. She didn't believe it but she nodded because he was being nice and nice people said nice things and that didn't mean the things were true. It just meant they were nice.
She carried the teapot to the cup. Careful. Careful. Don't tilt it. Yesterday she'd tilted something. Or thought she had. The memory was fuzzy but the feeling wasn't.
She poured.
A drop landed on the saucer.
One drop. But it was there and she had put it there and a real customer would see it. Probably. Maybe not. It was really small. But they might look down. They might see it and think this girl can't even pour tea. This girl makes messes.
She could wipe it. She could lift the cup and wipe the saucer and put the cup back down. But then the angle might be different. The placement might shift. What if she made it worse? What if trying to fix it just created a new problem?
The drop would dry. Probably. Tea dried clear. She was pretty sure tea dried clear. She should know this. This was basic stuff.
She put the teapot down and stepped back.
The tea was steaming. That meant it was hot. Hot was correct. Cold tea was bad. Cold tea meant you forgot about the customer. You weren't paying attention. Customers knew when you weren't paying attention to them. They could tell.
She looked at what she had done.
Cup. Saucer. Tea. Steam. Little table. Empty chair.
It looked like tea service. It looked like the pictures in the training manual. Kind of. If you didn't look too close. If you looked too close you'd see the mistakes. The angle was probably a little off. The temperature was probably already going down. The drop was still under there somewhere.
But just from here. Just standing here not looking too hard.
It looked almost nice.
That didn't seem right. Things Corin did didn't look nice. Things she did looked "good effort." Things she did looked "you're getting better" which was what people said when they didn't want to hurt your feelings.
She stepped closer. Something had to be wrong. There was always something wrong. She just had to find it and then she would know what to apologize for.
The steam was doing a little thing. The tea was dark but not too dark. The cup was sitting where she put it.
She tried to see the drop. She couldn't from this angle. Maybe it dried already. Maybe she made it seem bigger in her head than it actually was. She did that sometimes. A lot actually. Miss Rina said she was too hard on herself.
Miss Rina said a lot of things.
The tea looked fine. Like actually fine. Not "fine for Corin" but just regular fine. The kind of fine where a normal person would look at it and think that's tea, that's correct.
No, something was wrong. She couldn't see it and that was worse. At least when she could see what was wrong she knew what to be sorry about. This was just. This was tea. Looking fine. Sitting there. Not telling her anything.
She should do it again. She should clear everything and wash the cup and start over. Practice until she found the mistake. Because there was a mistake. There was always a mistake somewhere.
But the tea was getting cold. And wasting things was bad. And she was tired. Her feet hurt. She had been doing this for two hours and she still didn't feel ready. She was just going to practice forever and then mess up anyway when it actually mattered. Because that was. That was just how it went. For her.
She picked up the cup.
She was going to drink it. Just drink it and wash everything and tomorrow practice again. And the day after. Until maybe someday she could pour tea and not immediately start listing everything wrong with it in her head.
She took a sip.
It tasted like tea.
She didn't know if that was good. She could never tell with her own tea. It tasted like something. It was warm. It went down fine.
Probably that was okay. Probably that was what tea was supposed to do.
She finished the cup. Washed everything. Wiped the saucer and there was nothing there. No mark.
Just white porcelain.