Did I feel any bit of guilt of having the groom pound me from behind in the linen storage room? Not one bit. In fact the notion made me bite my lower lip and buck back into each and every one of his intentional thrusts.
Not five hours earlier I received a nasally, stuffy call from my friend Jenny. She actually sounded ill as she pleaded in desperation for help.
"You know I wouldn't ask you if I had any other choice. I asked everyone I could think of and no one else was available." She coughed. "And I just can't miss another day. Greg's gonna can my ass."
"I really don't think so Jen, I mean I don't even know how to make a drink." I said trying to figure out how to get out of it.
"It's really easy. You don't make anything. Just walk around with a tray all night. It's good money and it's open bar. No bills or checks."
"I don't know Jen. You know I don't even like going to weddings in real life, let alone as a job."
"Oh please Helen! I can't lose another job. And plus this is at the Carlton Club, everyone's going to be loaded..and drunk which means lots of tips. I bet you'll clear $200 if they get drunk enough."
The thought of an easy $200 raised my eyebrows. It made me wonder if Jenny knew that was exactly what I needed to pay for my GRE exam. I had been cutting back hours at work to study which made me virtually broke and the last of my student loan money was spent ages ago on concert tickets I didn't want to tell my parents about.
"Okay, what do I need to do?"
Jenny explained it was was your typical reception at the Carlton; booze, cake, and the chicken dance. As she was talking to me I walked down the hall to her apartment and knocked on her door.
"Hold up Helen, someone's at the door."
I might have rolled my eyes at that point.
"Oh good! I was going to invite you over to give you the uniform."
"Uniform?" I responded with a grimace.
She beckoned me in and stuffed more used Kleenex into her pockets. She looked like death rolled over. She pointed to the only clean clothes in the entire place, a navy blue polyester polo shirt with a large logo of a white sailboat on the left breast and a black skirt with traces of old grease stains that would never wash out. It smelled a little like laundry soap and french fries.
"So like Carl is going to be working tonight and he's cool. He'll help you out and stuff. But like totally avoid Greg if he shows up, he only checks the sign-in sheet to make sure everyones there and like totally leaves right after, unless he's being bitch and wants to do "quality" check or something. But he doesn't do really do that. Well, not often anyways."
"Greeeat." I mumbled as I neatly laid the polo over my arm.
"So like the dinner starts around 5 so you supposedly need to be there like at 3, but if you show up like around 4 or something you can miss the setup and shitty stuff."
I nodded my head and started heading out the door.
"Thank so much Helen. And oh yeah..here." She said, handing me a rectangle name tag with JENNY written in white.
Back in my apartment I looked up at the wall clock, it was already 3 and the drive to the Carlton Club was at least 20 minutes if there wasn't traffic. I shook my head into my hands before getting into the uniform that I soon found to be less than flattering. Jenny being five inches shorter than me made her appropriate length skirt graze the 'can't sit down ever' boarder on my thighs and the polo fit like a mu-mu just around the chest, yet another reminder of her well endowed assets.
I made a mental note, "She's going to have back problems when she's old." It still didn't make me feel any better as I stuffed the hem into the skirt's waistline. I looked up at the clock, pursed my lips and threw on my favorite vintage Doc Martens and headed out the door.
My beat up Nissan Sentra stood out glaringly as I pulled up at the gate to the Club.
The guard at the post with his deadpan face said, "Help parks in the back."
"Of course." I said. My sad little car found its 'people' in the back corner near the dumpsters where all the other help parked.
I found two guys with lazy cigarettes on their lips with their heads down looking at their phones while holding a conversation of a sort.
I walked up and asked, "Do you know where Carl is?"
"Yeah." The guy with the freshly cut gotee responded. "Why?"
"I'm suppose to ask him for help."
"Helen?"
"Yep."
"Jenny told me about you. I'm Carl." He tossed his cigarette behind the dumpster. "Follow me."
Carl showed me the ropes as enthusiastically as someone waiting in line at the DMV. He explained how the bar service worked, the kitchen, storage rooms, and said, "Just follow what the other girls are doing. It's not rocket science."
The next hour or so I folded napkins and sorted trays and tried to stay out of the way of the wedding planner who ran around like a chicken with her head cut off. I had to admit the place looked nice; flowers on each table, perfectly quilted cake, a string quartet setting up, and the 50 year old DJ in the background waiting for his turn to 'pump up the jam'.
Not long after, guests started to trickled in. Immediately I knew how the rest of the night was going to go. The overly primped women clammered about wine and old married men smiled too easily with winks as they tenderly requests something on the rocks. It wasn't really so bad, especially since Carl tended the bar and made some humorous remarks about guests.
"You think the guys bad, wait until later when the spinsters are drunk and start pinching asses." He said shaking his head in a laugh.
The lights dimmed and the bride and groom were announced. As the two made their way in, a round of applause and tapping of glasses ensued. When I finally got to see the two, they looked like a Tommy Hilfiger ad, perfectly all-American. She was a blonde haired doe eyed princess in a $10,000 a dress. She was radiant, all smiles, and probably smelled like roses. The groom was a tall sandy haired, statuesque, captain of the football team type. They sat at the main table as more tapping of the glasses flooded the air and forced them to kiss over and over.
