Chapter 75: Waiter Trials

"Alright. Everyone grab two appetizer plates. Majo, you're handling the two upper right hand seats of the table, Pltr you'll take the two upper left hand seats, Fresa, you handle the other right hand seats, and Lus, you'll take the last two left seats." Crrn glanced around the room, ensuring everyone understood their assignments. "And aprons off. We want to look presentable."

Lus did as the sous chef commanded, trying not to let his nerves show. A quick scan of the others showed that Fresa-Ersht was as uncomfortable with this next task as him, but the other two seemed quite sure of themselves as they picked up their opening dishes, the fried vegetables from Majo.

He followed suit, keeping his steps in line with Pltr as he walked behind her. The four of them exited the kitchen into the fancy dining room where they'd only a few hours prior been practicing their serving skills. All that was getting put to the test now, and Lus lost a lot of his confidence as he stared at the eight individuals seated at the table.

Chef Savannah was there, along with the chief security officer and then the heads of every other department as well as the two main servant managers. Lusac kept up with Pltr as she went to the left hand side of the table as viewed from the head position. Crrn's assignments put her serving the two main managers of all the serving staff, while Lus was set over the head of the personal assistants and the security chief he'd already had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting.

He really hoped she didn't remember him.

Running through all of Crrn's instructions in his mind, Lus did his best to follow all the procedures, making sure to set the dish down from the person's right side and doing his best to not invade anyone's personal space. He got both of the appetizers in hand set down and then stepped back, breathing a silent sigh of relief that nothing had gone horribly wrong yet, despite it being early in the night.

As he stood with his back to the wall, watching the diners, he caught sight of Pltr's perturbed face and subtle motions from her to move.

Suns, he'd forgotten that they were supposed to return to the kitchen immediately after depositing the food.

Lus turned and strode back to the doors, using all of his self control to keep himself from half jogging there out of eagerness to be away. Pltr was on his heels offering faintly grumbled complaints.

Fresa and Majo were already in the kitchen, the former shaking her head as he entered.

"Trust the yokel to screw the easiest step up," she said.

Crrn held out two glass bottles, either not hearing or just ignoring her comment.

"Majo, you go top off the wine. Pltr, top off the water," he ordered.

The two staff members took their respective bottles and went back out the doors while Lus waited close to Fresa, his eyes trained on the plates of food which were still waiting their turn to go out. Already it was clear that the serving part of this job was going to be the worst. Cooking was stressful, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as this, and he at least had his [Chef's Intuition] to rely on in the kitchen. So far, it hadn't provided any help with the waiter side of things.

Majo and Pltr came back, and Crrn asked them to report back on the current status of the appetizer.

"Uh, good?" Majo said slowly.

"Are they close to finishing?" The sous chef rephrased his question.

The Nemarian and Kremel cooks looked at each other and then back to Crrn.

"I didn't pay any particular attention to that, but I think so…" Pltr answered hesitantly.

Crrn grabbed the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "We covered this. While refilling glasses, always check the status of the table. It's not this hard, people."

"Sorry, Chef," Majo and Pltr said together.

The sous chef mumbled to himself as he pulled out a holotablet and checked what appeared to be a security camera. "Okay. Good. We'll give it a couple more minutes and then send the next course out. Same seat assignments as before. Go get your plates on your trays and get into position."

"Yes, Chef," they all said together, the entire kitchen coming alive once more as Majo and Pltr dropped off their bottles and then all four of the cooks retrieved the entree plates, placed them on the round trays they were each given, and got into their line from before.

An awkward pause filled the room as they all waited for Crrn's signal, but the sous chef only stared at the holoscreen in his hands and tapped his foot impatiently.

"Now," he said, and the line lurched forward, all of them moving in a single motion.

Lus's hands were sweating as he held the tray up in one hand, just as Crrn had taught him to do. This was going to be harder than last time because now he had to switch out the dirty plate with the new, full plate while balancing the tray.

Pltr was ahead of him, serving farthest up of the right hand table seats while Lus went to the middle one with the head of the assistants. He was a narrow Nemarian with burnt orange scales and wire glasses on his face. His indigo fins had taken on a dull color from his age, but his demeanor spoke of grace rather than elderliness.

Lus made sure to keep his tray balanced with left hand as he reached down to grab the used plate which sat before the Nemarian. He picked it up and smoothly moved it to the tray before grabbing the entree dish and sliding it before the chief assistant.

He took a step back, forcing himself to keep a neutral face against his inner elation at having successfully completed the maneuver without dumping all the food from the tray onto the diners.

His confidence plummeted however when it came time to repeat the process for the security chief. A stout Kremel, Lus found it difficult to keep the tray balanced an appropriate distance away. He picked up her appetizer plate, and as he went to replace it with the entree plate, he made the unfortunate discovery that he'd set the used plates in improper positions on the tray, causing it to start tipping backwards without the weight of the last entree dish to balance it.

Lus managed to set the entree down before the security head and returned his focus to the tray just in time to keep it from tumbling to the ground, but the extra motions required to balance it were obvious, and he noticed a glare from the Nemarian next to him.

"Imbecile," the old man croaked with a roll of his eyes.

The security chief said nothing about it, but she shot Lus a warning glance, and he quickly backed away, remembering this time around that he was supposed to get out of the dining room immediately.

He was the last one back in the kitchen due to his little tray mess up, and he sighed in a mixture of relief and disappointment as he left the dirty dishes back at the sink and returned to stand before Crrn with his tray under one arm.

It was only a few minutes later that Crrn sent him and Fresa out to refill glasses, him on water and Fresa on wine.

Lus was lucky in his assignment because the staff heads all preferred their alcohol so he topped off only three glasses before heading back in while Fresa was left to complete full refills for nearly all of them.

When Fresa returned, Crrn asked her and Lus the same question he'd asked the other two.

"Most of them are about halfway through. I'd give it another five to ten minutes before we send dessert out," Fresa-Ersht answered.

As much as Lus wanted to be annoyed at her for her know-it-all tone, he was also in her debt because he'd paid zero attention to where everyone was at in their meal, and her prompt answer saved him from being dressed down by Crrn.

The sous chef nodded, and they all relaxed a little as they waited for the meal to progress to the point that they could take out the final stage: dessert.

Time passed slowly standing around in the kitchen with minimal conversation, but at least no one mentioned Lusac's screw up. His nerves surfaced again when Crrn directed them to prepare to take out the final dish, his mind freely conjuring images of him dumping caramel and cake over the entire table in what would be a worst-case-scenario.

Lus put the two chocote cakes on his tray and then lined up with the others. On Crrn's signal, they returned to the dining room and once again exchanged plates. Lusac was careful to be mindful of the positioning of the used plates on the tray, and the task went smoothly this time, even with the head assistant glaring at him the whole time.

They returned to the kitchen, but Crrn didn't send anyone out to refill glasses since they were at the end of the night. Ten minutes later, he declared that the meal was over. They all went out to the empty dining room to retrieve the last of the used dishes, and the sous chef sent them all back to the kitchen to begin cleaning while he debriefed with Chef Savannah.

The cleaning went quickly, Lus and Majo on dishes while Pltr and Fresa took care of the general kitchen cleaning. Crrn returned sometime during the process, but he just stood by watching them.

Once they finished, he directed the four of them to stand in line and wait.

Lus stood with the others, shifting from foot to foot and wondering what they might be waiting for.

The answer to his question strode through the door wearing her usual stern expression. Chef Savannah stopped in front of them and everyone, including Lus, stood up straighter.

"Chefs," she greeted them brusquely. "Chef Crrn has briefed me on your meal and I have tasted the results for myself. This will hopefully be the only time I have to keep you here to give you advice. From now on, I expect you all to do better."

She stopped pacing and stood directly in front of Lus. He met her stare and tried not to let his anxiety show.

"Andrews. Your Korenta was acceptable, but could have been seasoned better. The vegetables were not cooked as evenly as they should have been. Some of the fefferfish filets were uneven. You need to work on your knife skills."

He nodded, and she moved on before he could say anything.

"Fresa-Ersht, the fefferfish was seasoned and fried perfectly. You did well with getting them breaded evenly. However, the caramel you prepared for the dessert was undercooked and too runny."

The Nemarian hung her head as Chef Savannah moved on to Majo-Deaber.

"Majo-Deaber, the vegetables were cut properly and evenly. They were also cooked well. However, your plating was too messy. Not everyone got an even representation of garoots, prootas, and brocky."

"Pltr, your breading was well-seasoned. The cakes came out nearly perfect. However, your plating was also messy. The caramel should be drizzled in a way that doesn't make the cakes look like they've bled out on the plate."

She stepped back and Lus breathed a silent sigh of relief in unison with the other chefs. It didn't sound like anyone was getting fired today.

"I would usually dismiss you all at this point, but Sous Chef Crrn has brought to my attention a serious problem that needs to be addressed." Her heavy stare turned into an outright glare.

"You are a team. You succeed as a team. You fail as a team. When you allow personal grudges to influence your decisions in the kitchen, you are risking your own success."

Her glare turned to Majo. "Majo, have you ever cut fefferfish before?"

"Yes chef," he answered quietly.

"Yet you handed the most difficult task, in which you have experience, off to a chef you knew lacked that same experience. Do you think that you would have been deemed blameless had Andrews inadvertently poisoned someone?"

Majo hung his head. "No chef."

Her glare ran over all of them. "This ends here. If you want to look down on and bully a fellow chef, that is on your heads, but it will not happen in my kitchen."

Lus felt shiver run down his spine at the deadly tone of her voice, even though he knew her words were directed more at his fellow chefs than at him.

"Is that clear?" she asked sharply after a brief pause.

"Yes chef!" They answered in unison, snapping to attention.

"Good. Dismissed."

All four strode out of the kitchen in a silent line. Lus didn't plan to say anything to anyone, but Majo stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Andrews, I apologize for allowing my emotions to interfere with the cooking process. And… thank you for not screwing the meal up for all of us."

"Uh, no problem." Lus spoke awkwardly, unsure how he was supposed to respond, but Majo seemed to accept his answer. The Nemarian nodded and continued on his way without another word, freeing Lus to return to his own quarters for the night.