Andrea strikes fear into waitresses. She claims the booth like a queen on her throne, posture perfect, the very image of corporate decorum. She is the lady inspecting her fiefdom; a clipboard appears in front of her while a pen clicks in her hand. It clicks again. A clock clacking away. Or worse yet, a stopwatch beeping as the seconds pass.
“I am having the Asiago Peppercorn Steak.”
This is a command and nothing less. The late-teen before her wilts away, as if curtsying. And this is Andrea inspecting her subject: her eyes ravage the girl’s figure and mannerisms. But she is not interested in appearance. She objectifies the girl as only she can:
Economics.
Andrea knows this waitress’ value. On instinct, she has reduced the girl’s existence to an algorithm based on simple sunk and prospective costs and returns, and had she had the time or inclination to do so, she could calculate that value to four decimal places. This is peasant work though—so long as this girl maintains some semblance of efficiency, Andrea lets that algorithm fizzle into the recesses of her mind. An estimation will suffice for now.
All of these things have value. From the bartender to the hostess, the kitchen to the tacky decor—every corner of this establishment was allotted a slot in the larger machine, each one another variable in a tremendous equation. This subtle economic operation is almost elegant in its efficiency. She almost smiles.
It was her idea after all. This was just another barely mediocre neighborhood chain before she arrived. But then she studied it, she reduced it, repackaged it, and finally re-engineered a dying franchise into a calculated and terribly, terrifically efficient experience. Décor? A premeditated attempt at establishing a familial atmosphere. The strangely warm color scheme? A nod to research correlating warmer colors with hunger. Use of glass throughout the dining area? To promote the illusion of openness, encouraging diners to eat faster since they lacked the ambience for private conversation. Even the adjectives in the menu were carefully selected to draw one into the more profitable items. And of course the high school theme was an attempt at capturing the most romanticized memories—easy emotions to capitalize on. Walls were lined with local high school memorabilia, each one carefully harvested from…
A curiosity.
Photos line the wall to her left. A boy and a girl grace each one, with some variation of the words “Homecoming King & Queen” under each. Numbers follow: 2009, 2008, 2007… Her eyes stop at 1991.
She stares at a younger girl, one with a starry, bemused look. She is pretty. Not beautiful yet, but pretty. The girl’s eyes are wide with a sense of…quiet satisfaction and amusement. She knows she doesn’t quite belong in that picture. A calculated fluke in the voting process. Her arm is wrapped around the Homecoming King awkwardly, as if the very idea of embracing the character were repulsive. It was repulsive. Andrea remembers.
“Jeanette let me tell you something about moving people,” a younger girl was saying. “Most people want to be led. Most of the rest don’t care. A few people think they know where they want to go when really they’re more lost than everybody else. Barely anybody actually has any idea what they’re doing.”
“Whatever Ann. We are people. We aren’t little pieces to be moved. We know what we want. Do you read at all in English class? 1984 ring a bell? Identity was a big theme. And how the hell did we end up on this topic anyway?”
“We always argue this and I always win.”
“Whatever Ann.”
A pause.
“I’ll make a bet with you Jean. I’m going to be homecoming queen.”
The other girl bursts out laughing. “You? You and what cheerleading squad?”
Andrea remembers a younger girl planning. She remembers a girl outlining the words “split the vote” in one of her many, many notebooks. She remembers talking to some friends and not talking to others. A push in the right direction there and a word of discouragement could do wonders. The cheerleading squad would have three people vying for the spot, the powerful honors student voting block would have five wistfully yearning for the title for college application purposes, but the drama club, the bohemians, and a few others would only have her. Other groups had their splits. In the end, it was enough. And it was too easy.
Jeanette saw this as some sort of miracle, but she would. She was always too simple for these things. While she was the student council president (a situation which afforded a friend like her fascinating social perks), she was surely more preacher than politician. It was always broad strokes with her—big events and loads upon loads of excitement. Simple, blunt, and visceral. That one never appreciated the slight machinations of life.
“Fireworks Ann! They’re going to get in so much trouble.”
For an illegal display, the show was impressive. These weren’t simple bottle rockets but roman candles, mortars, fountains, and cones all set off in quick succession. There was no sense in prolonging the show when the police were already on the way. That was the charm of course. No one set off that many at once. It was a powerful display of chaos, shocking and awe-inspiring.
The girl looked up once and sniffed, “Fireworks. So crude.” A not-so-subtle explosion punctuated the statement. Jeanette clapped with excitement.
“Ann they’re going to set off a second batch before they run! Ann! Ann?”
Ann was already leaving. These things couldn’t hold her interest for long.
Lost in her thoughts, Andrea does not notice the waitress come by with her food. Neither does she notice steak disappearing into her mouth with every idle bite. She looks down now, staring at an empty plate. A pair of numbers appears over the dish, one for how much the item cost and the other for how much it cost to buy the product from the purveyors. A third and fourth float down indicating reported sales volume and predicted sales volume with her new menu design, to be released in the Fall. Her estimates are always correct.
There would be a dessert order of course. Portions were designed such that dessert was an option for the average American family. She orders simply to keep the kitchen sharp. As she waits, she notes that she still has a clipboard to attend to.
The evaluation is of her design. It is not complicated: a column of questions with a column of empty space for simple answers. How long between order and delivery for each course? Quality of food? Bar service? Rate items that apply from one to five. Decimal values are encouraged. There are twenty questions in total for this type of visit. Another visit for kitchen efficacy would follow in a week or so. The final question slides into view:
Your overall experience?
She pauses for a moment. Her hand is already drawing a “3” next to question twenty, but she finds herself glancing at the upper-right corner, reading the rating scale she herself devised:
3 - Adequate: Pleasant and effective, but delivery lacking in enthusiasm and/or excitement.
She leaves Applebees thinking about that rating. She ponders it as she drives home; muses over it as she unlocks the door to the simple studio she owns downtown. She turns on the lights, openly wondering at her own blank, white walls.
