Breakfast and a Bloody Mary

My husband and I arrive in Boston too early to check-in to our hotel room, so breakfast seems like a more appropriate option than sleeping on the couch in the lobby. Though it’s barely 8:00 am, we are warmly greeted by our waitress who displays more energy than us on a good day. Slightly hunched and little hard of hearing, you can’t help but feel enamored by the obvious passion she has for her work. “She started at this hotel when it first opened 42 years ago, and she was 43 at the time”, she proudly tells the table next to ours. When she offers to bag-up an orange or apple to go, you know this is more than a job for this 85 year old woman. It gets her up in the morning – literally and figuratively.

After a long nap, it’s off to dinner before watching a late season baseball game. “I would like a Bloody Mary. Are they spicy here?” I asked the waitress. With an interesting aloofness she tells me she doesn’t know. The people who own the restaurant don’t allow the employees to try the drinks, just the food. Is it just me – or was that a strange answer? “Okay…would there be anyone who would know”, I wondered out loud. She says she’ll ask the bartender….. I couldn’t help but think about the stark differences in these two experiences. So much so, I want to know more about her story – is today a bad day or does she always bring this level of indifference when she clocks-in.

We chat on and off throughout dinner and she warms up. The wife of a college football coach, she’s spent the last ten years moving around the east coast following his career. With each move she finds whatever job allows her to spend her days with her daughter. Yet, it's not until she shares her husband’s dream of being a head coach one day that she lights up for the first time. We pay for dinner without fanfare or an offer to box-up desert for our travels. I leave knowing this is not a job she enjoys. She's given in to circumstances.

We’re in the 8th inning. Boston is up. It’s tied 8-8 and the bases are loaded with 2 outs. The crowd roars. As they contemplate a win, I'm wondering if she knows it doesn't have to be this way. I want to ask her, "What's your dream?"