in yancey’s last year of school he got a job as a bus boy in a restaurant on the outskirts of town,
the restaurant was not a fast food or takeout place, nor did it feature fine dining or any kind of exotic or “regional” cuisine.
it was just a restaurant. and that was its name - “just a restaurant”.
it did not do that great a business. yancey was told when he got the job that the restaurant might go under at any time.
yancey took the job anyway. it paid a little more than anything else he could find, and at least he was spared having to say that he had always dreamed of the job, and was ready to dedicate his life and his entire being to it.
the just a restaurant was owned and run by a woman named xenia philips. she had owned it for nineteen years.
xenia had a round body, a round head, big round black glasses that she wore all the time, and short black hair. she did not smile or laugh much, but never got very angry either. she did supervise every aspect of the restaurant’s operation, down to and including the performance of the bus boys and dishwashers.
restaurants of this rapidly disappearing type were mostly below the radar of the revolution, and xenia ran it as a dictatorship, neither brutal nor benevolent.
if the employees did anything she did not approve of, she would just tell them not to do it again. if they did wrong too many times, she would just fire them, without drama.
yancey liked working at the just a restaurant. he liked it way better than school, that was for sure.
xenia liked yancey because he never complained , always showed up and on time, did exactly what he was told, and did not make the same mistake again if he was corrected. she offered to take him on full time if he would quit school, but warned him again that the restaurant could shut down at any time.
yancey wondered if yolanda would care if he left school. he did not see why she would. the school itself endlessly preached to the students the disadvantages of not finishing the required years.
yancey was of a naturally procrastinating temperament. he decided to think about it. the possible closing of the restaurant was the only drawback to leaving school that he saw.
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