LOOK BUT DON'T TOUCH

Like a

lot of young, undersexed, adult male slackers I suppose, I was a naïve, nineteen

year old virgin when I accidentally landed an ordinary, ho-hum serving job at a then

an unknown steak and buffet restaurant called Sirloin Stockade back in the early

nineties. The aspiring beige and teal looking restaurant I was to work at, located

in a far western suburb of Chicago, was in the middle of a messy and lengthy

remodeling job when I was initially hired so unfortunately for me and my anorexic

wallet, I couldn’t start working for them right away-though as luck would have it,

the construction company remodeling the restaurant was looking for an immediate

general laborer. The construction company which was in dire and desperate need of

some cheap and temporary help, which I was overwhelmingly both, was run by a couple

of sandy haired, hard working, and oxen-like brothers who wasted very little time in

giving me the job despite my overall lack of experience. My willingness to put in

long hours and work for six dollars an hour proved to be the only qualifications I

needed. Looking back on it, I’m surprised I didn’t quit within the first day or two

of working considering my extreme dislike for physical laboring though somehow and

quite miraculously, I managed to endure and even enjoy the job by the time it was

drawing to a close. The hard and physically demanding work I was “cruelly” forced

to endure on an hourly basis had surprisingly put a new found swagger in my step,

callous on my hands, and a thin layer of newly defined muscle on my previously

gelatin-like body. I was actually starting to feel like an honest to goodness, real

life man for the first time in my metro-sexual life. The kind of Clint Eastwood,

macho-like, blue collar man who would ruggedly chew tobacco, spit, and talk

boisterously about sports every chance he got. I had also hoped, though not

expecting miracles, the newer, tanner, stronger, and more masculine version of me

would stand a better chance with the ladies. Maybe macho Paul could do something

sissy boy Paul couldn’t, like going out on an actual date!

Fantasies aside and soon after my brief but no less

exhilarating delusions of self grandeur, (right around the time the construction

company was wrapping up its work on the nearly completed building) the restaurant’s

training staff of mostly attractive, twenty something year old women had arrived,

unbeknownst to me at the time. It was during this bumbling and chaotic transition

period I first gazed upon a woman who would unknowingly enchant and haunt my mind

for over fifteen years and counting. The first time I saw her, innocently enough,

she had her back towards me and was vigorously cleaning a table top before

momentarily pausing to wipe the glistening sweat off her beautiful right brow. The

instant she slowly turned around and unknowingly faced me, while wiping the back of

her right hand against her loose fitting (but oh so sexy looking) khaki pants, I

immediately looked the other away in embarrassment so she wouldn’t notice I was

staring at her. Though in all truthfulness and even as I pretended not to be

looking at her, I couldn’t stop gawking at her out of the corner of my left eye.

She was a petite woman, from what I could initially see and

make of her, who stood about all of five feet three inches tall and probably weighed

somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred and one hundred and ten pounds. She

had the most innocent, beautiful, and angelic looking face I’d ever seen in a woman

not to mention a high forehead, a cute as can be nose, a heart stopping smile as

radiant as it was infectious, flawless and perfectly tanned skin, long thick dark

brown hair, soul inspiring eyes, a mouthwatering figure, and the rare ability to

look both sexy and cute at the very same time. She looked like the all American

girl and the girl next door every guy dreamed of. She was hands down and by far,

the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on.

Being a waiter and serving the general public wasn’t

something I particularly wanted to do, nor was very fond of, but the idea of

pocketing cold, hard cash on a daily basis was just a little too enticing for me to

have passed up, especially since I was almost financially and morally bankrupt at

the time. It certainly seemed like a better and more lucrative option than getting

paid every two weeks or monthly as I had been accustomed to at my other dead end

jobs. Plus, the fringe benefits of working at this particular restaurant were like

nothing I'd ever seen before and therefore, almost impossible to have simply walked

away from.

Would you believe me if I said my decision to stick it out

and give it a try wasn’t influenced in the least by the stunning, pixie-like

brunette I saw earlier in the restaurant? I didn’t think so and you’re absolutely

right, it had everything to do with why I wanted to stay and work there.

But first things first and before the various owners and

managers of the steak and buffet restaurant would even dare open up their new

establishment to the ever critical taste buds and opinions of the finicky general

public, the entire disinterested serving staff had to attend a mandatory meeting

held by two of the company’s current and highly esteemed waitresses. Turned out the

petite brunette I’d been drooling over was one of the trainers and the only thing I

remembered about the meeting was learning her name was Diana. Other than that

little tidbit of information, I hadn’t the faintest idea or notion as to what she

said or even did during the entire duration of our meeting as not only was she drop

dead gorgeous, but she also had a very soft and feminine sounding voice that

completely and utterly mesmerized me whenever she spoke. I felt an overwhelming

sense of calm and peace whenever I heard her voice, like somehow everything was

going to be all right.

Then somewhat predictably and shortly after the conclusion

of our mandatory meeting, just seconds after I floated back down to earth and came

to my dim witted senses once again, we were instructed to pair up with a fellow

waiter or waitress so we could practice and demonstrate what we had supposedly

learned during our “all important” meeting. When it was my turn to practice and

showcase some of my raw but still developing serving skills, I heard a familiar and

divine voice just behind my left shoulder say,

“If you guys have any questions or if there’s anything I can help you with, just let me know.”

Wow, I thought, as the hair on my arms among other things rose to attention. My dream girl just spoke to me, almost even touched me…how cool.

On the restaurant’s highly anticipated and hectic opening

night and much to my giddy satisfaction, Diana unexpectedly but politely approached

me to correct a problem she had observed in my Neanderthal serving technique.

Apparently from what she politely told me, I had been setting my lightly moistened

and greasy server tray on the tables of customers as I distributed individual meals

to everyone, a big no-no in the restaurant world I was told though in all honesty, I

couldn’t have cared less. Thankfully, it wouldn’t be the last time Diana helped me

or came to my rescue that night as I constantly fell behind and struggled throughout

most of my work shift.

During the latter half of the restaurant’s frantic opening

night, I couldn’t help but wonder why Diana was helping me out so much especially

since there were other waiters and waitresses who needed help just as badly as I

had. Was I that pathetic I kept asking myself over and over again or was this how

she was with everyone else and I just hadn’t noticed until now? Either way, the

more and more she helped me the fonder and fonder I became of her.

During some down time in the back of the restaurant during

my first day or two of working as a waiter, I overheard a coworker say she might go

with Randy and Diana to a nightclub called Hurricanes after work. “Randy?” I

thought to myself. Randy was the manager of the restaurant. The guy was balding and

looked like he was in his middle to upper forties while Diana on the other hand,

looked like she was probably in her early twenties at the most. Was Diana sleeping

with the manager? I would’ve guessed she was dating an over-muscled, rich college

frat guy who probably drove a sports car, wore designer clothing, and talked

incessantly about how much he bench pressed. But hey, to each his or her own I

thought, maybe she preferred the attractiveness of money and power over the look of

youth and brawn, to which I only had one of the four qualities. What I am for

certain is, I would’ve gladly done or given anything back then to trade

places with my restaurant manager even it meant losing most or all of my thick black

hair, aging twenty something years, and gaining a hundred plus pounds as long it led

to a single hug or kiss from Diana.

I don’t remember if it was the first or second night after

the restaurant’s grand opening but I do remember what happened just before closing

time on one of those seemingly ordinary nights. It came as a complete and total

shock to me, as I was going through my required closing duties for the night, when a

woman, who also worked for the restaurant, crouched down across from me as I

vacuumed underneath one of the tables I waited on and told me her name was Randy.

She casually mentioned how she and my serving trainer, Diana, were good friends and

after a few minutes of pleasant but politically correct small talk, she uniformly

began to debrief me about the inner workings of my personal life with a seemingly

endless barrage of intrusive and predetermined questions about myself. I couldn’t

believe it, an honest to goodness, real life woman was actually talking to me and I

thought she might have even liked me on top of it. Now ordinarily, I would have

been on cloud nine and doing back flips if something like this would have happened

to me before I met Diana, but all I could think about at the moment was how Randy

was a woman and Randy the male manager wasn’t the one Diana went out with at night.

Even though I never held out hope Diana and I would ever

hook up, it was a relief to know she wasn’t shagging the manager. Meanwhile, Randy

seemed more interested in talking about Diana and me than anything else and as an

end result of our conversation I started daydreaming about the possibility of Diana

using Randy to scope me out. But the more and more I began to think about this

Utopian-like scenario, the more likely it was Randy probably just didn’t know what

else to talk to me about. I wasn’t exactly the most outgoing of guys or even

someone who was easy to approach. I was very shy around women and often gave the

impression of being distant and uninterested. Turned out Diana and I were both

nineteen years old and living with one of our respective grandmothers.

There were so many times during the first few days I worked

and mingled with Diana where I’d catch her doing something so sweet and kind I

couldn’t help but daydream being married to her. I couldn’t have created a woman

any better than her. It was if she was the design of my imagination, a dream girl

come to life. For example, the time she invited me and another shy and dorky waiter

I was hanging out with at the time, to come eat with her and another one of our

female coworkers even though neither of us considered ourselves cool or attractive

by any stretch of the imagination. As simple a gesture as it was, no woman had ever

asked me to do that before nor do I remember what we talked about or even if we

talked at all. What I do remember however, even after all these years, was the way

she sat Indian style on her bench seat nibbling on her food…she couldn’t have looked

any cuter.