My suffering was really nothing compared with Denka’s. It wasn’t about the tables or the tasks—people made fun of her to her face. The worst part was that for some strange reason, Denka wanted to make friends with all those people who constantly disparaged her. She practically begged to be invited to the after-work parties.

“Why poor?” said Dorothy, and I thought about it.

“Yeah, you’re right. In the end she got everyone. She wasn’t as dumb as we thought.”

Dorothy smiled.

What happened in the end was that the restaurant manager fired Diego and one of the waitresses without paying them a cent.

Diego was a forty-something divorcé who liked to party. Not handsome, but roguish. He had a ten-year-old son, and ten years was also more or less how long he’d worked at Friday’s. He had started out in the kitchen and worked his way up to night shift manager. His administration wasn’t particularly fair, but he won everyone’s good graces with the after-parties in the restaurant, when people drank and ate for free—obviously, unbeknownst to the restaurant manager.

The day of his birthday, he planned a special celebration. A real party to which he even invited the day shift waiters. I was off that night, so I didn’t even have to invent an excuse. Denka was working, but she wasn’t invited. So while everyone else was playing music and setting out bottles of Johnnie Walker on the bar, she was finishing up cleaning the bathrooms before going home.

In the middle of the festivities, at around three in the morning when everyone was pretty drunk, the general manager showed up. He had received an e-mail.

“You remember how crazy that was?”

I remembered those days as long ones, fraught with tension. The manager set about interrogating all the night employees. He threatened mass firings if we didn’t give him details about the irregularities that, the e-mail alleged, had been going on for a long time.

“Kind of,” said Dorothy. She sat sideways and crossed her legs.

“Luckily, they didn’t even ask me anything because the kitchen guys had already spilled it all.”

It was true, it had been a relief not to expose myself to the dilemma, especially considering Diego’s departure didn’t exactly make me sad. I would be well served by a new boss, one who didn’t have long-standing friendships and would distribute tables and jobs more fairly.

“Oh, really?” said Dorothy with feigned interest.

The waiter arrived with our order, and after dropping the plates on the tables, he gave a curt “Enjoy.”