February 2000
It was a busy night at The Haunt. Cara was having trouble remembering all the orders from all the tables she had to cover. After already having worked three months, she was used to the normal hustle and bustle that ensued during the normal weekday and had even adapted to handling the rowdy groups on weekends. But she had yet to get accustomed to the all out insanity that occurred on the Thursday of exam week. She missed the first one last semester since she hadn't yet begun to work, but she remembered the second one with horrifying clarity. She had been so surprised that she hadn't been fired after that experience probably because she had managed to destroy more glassware than was currently housed in the China Room at the White House. Exam week happened twice a semester at the University and because all the exams were given at night, Thursday was always the night when everyone had finally finished. Undergrads poured in to celebrate having survived the grueling week of exams and usually graduate students could be seen downing a few drinks before having to head out to get a good night sleep in preparation of having to grade all the exams.
Cara was more burdened tonight than usual because Sara, a fellow employee, was stuck proctoring the late exam tonight and wouldn't be in until 10:30 p.m. leaving Cara to work more tables than usual. Cara, carrying a tray full of empty glasses, rushed to the kitchen to drop off the orders for the table she sat five minutes ago. Using her back to hold open the swinging doors, she shouted, "Hey Joe. Got anything new for me?"
"I've finished the two orders for table 6 and the steaks for table 11 will be done in thirty seconds if you wait around for them," Joe replied, flipping over two burgers on the grill.
"Ok. Just let me fill these up and then I'll hurry right back to give you the new orders." Hoisting the tray up onto her shoulder she headed back toward the dinning area.
Cara was just about to head back to drop off the new orders for Joe when she heard her name. She turned in the direction of the shout and saw Kristin and her usual crowd of girlfriends. She and Kristin were both engineers and had taken many classes together and they had become good friends, often choosing to do assignments and projects together. Abby and Julie were both pre-vets and Cara had liked them often hanging out with them and Kristin a couple nights a month whenever she had off. However, the fourth girl at the table, Christina had been someone that Cara had almost detested on sight. She was a flamboyant, ego-centric girl who loved to draw attention from everything else in the room to herself. Whether it helped her being a marketing major or was just her personality, Cara had just a gut feeling that Christina was someone to beware of. And Cara had learned long ago to trust her gut. Thankfully, the group chose Thursdays, when Cara worked, to be their weekly dinner together so she never really had to interact with Christina other than taking her order.
As Cara turned and made her way towards the table Kristin called out, "Hey Cara! How are you doing tonight?"
"Good Kristin. Can I get your guys the usual?"
Kristin looked around to get confirming nods before responding, "Yeah. Hey, I never got to talk to you about what you thought of the 350 exam yesterday."
"I was completely shocked that Stevens actually expected us to draw out the full thermodynamic cyclic process for the refrigerator, especially after he said it wouldn't be on the test," Cara said rolling her eyes in obvious frustration. "But otherwise it wasn't that much different from the practice exam."
"Well, I definitely want to talk to you more about it. When do you get your break?"
Cara looked over her shoulder at the clock on the back wall. "About 20 minutes or so."
"Well, come back and join us when you get a chance."
"Sure thing. For now, let me get your orders in and then I'll be back as soon as I can."
Twenty minutes, Cara was seated at the girls' table with her order of chicken fingers and fries, listening to how exams went, weekend plans, and general college gossip.
"Speaking of plans," Christina said silkily, "Jack is working the bar tonight." As expected, every girl at the table turned to get a look at him working. Cara had been too busy earlier with all the extra tables to contemplate the person who had taken up a significant amount of her thoughts recently, but as she looked over her shoulder to the gorgeous man behind the bar, she couldn't help but appreciate the gift God had bestowed on the female clientele of the Haunt. At 24, Jack Thompson was definitely a man that had just begun to hit his physical peak. He stood six feet, three inches and had a sleek, muscular body from being an All-American swimmer as an undergraduate. Someone had once compared Jack to a high performance sports car and while she disliked the idea of objectifying anyone, she did agree that Jack gave all the impressions of being an extremely wild ride. Now, in his second year as a graduate student, he spent all of his free time working at the Haunt or building himself quite the reputation as a young, charismatic, hedonist man that made all the girls quiver in erotic awareness and inevitably, disappointed hopes. Jack saw a lot of women and there was never a single complaint out of any of them until Jack ended it. And of course, all the girls would primp and flirt in the hopes that they'd be different from all the others that had gone before them. Cara was level headed enough to know to stay away from him; better to admire him from a far than risk being burnt by the fire that was Jack Thompson.
