American Waitress in Paris
by Meredith—Age 58—Oakland, CA
Unaccustomed to wearing a uniform and even less accustomed to wearing an apron, I wore both during my four-month stint as a waitress (excuse me, bilingual waitress) in the coffee shop of the Paris Hilton. Falling in love with a Frenchman during my junior year abroad had apparently brought along a number of unforeseen consequences. One of them came in the form of earning a living, which at that moment meant bobby-pinning a strawberry blond wig to my head, the better to control the real possibility of shedding random hair on eggs Benedict, duckling páte or the requisite French fries that made my American customers hunger for home.
I learned that un Coca Cola is masculine whereas, inexplicably, une Heineken would be feminine. I learned that it was a good idea to buy shoes (navy blue leather pumps) two sizes too big for eight hours of vertical work tramping around the limited confines of the coffee shop. And I learned what it felt like to undergo casual and petty mistreatment, not from the clientele who had a right to grumble about my confusing grapefruit juice for pineapple juice, but from my own peers whose adherence to hierarchy was the only firm thing they could grasp in their quest for personal pride. Or so I assume.
I was not a slacker, but I lacked aptitude.
My cheeriness quotient came up short and my commitment to embrace all things French, even or especially my newly-wedded Gallic husband, faltered. Nevertheless, a comfortable solidarity developed, not with my fellow waitresses, but with the ones at the bottom of the totem pole: the Arabic dishwashers, short order cooks, occasional busboy—Saïd, Aïssa, Farouk. One of them found my name impossible to retain, although as Mer-ay-deet, it had already been thoroughly Frenchified by my entourage. Instead, he came up with Farida as an alternate identity, a name I learned to respond to with alacrity and growing fondness. Teaching English to the French in the years that followed, I made good use of the character of the fragile Farida as she learned the ropes of waitressing. And today, in addition to confessing a bit of surprise at how one year abroad could turn into 35, I cannot help but marvel at the unusual circumstance of being that American in France who, back in the summer of 1969, was affectionately re-christened by an Algerian Arab.
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