Read Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir for Free Online Page B

talking to people.”
    “Good. Juve will train you, and I will see you tonight!” Patrick stood up and kissed me on each cheek. Juve handed me a stack of flyers. “The students are leaving classes,” he said. “Hand these out. And congratulations!”
    Just before nine o’clock I went to Juve’s apartment, and we continued on to Le Chic together. The wooden door was open, revealing a dim, tiny vestibule with a bar and a seating area beyond. The walls were brick, and the whole place was dark. It looked like a cellar.
    Patrick was standing behind the bar. “Welcome,” he said, as he handed me a menu and started pointing out which beers were on tap, which in bottles, and the different liquors for cocktails and specialty drinks. “Would you like something?”
    “I’m good for now, thanks,” I said, translating the American idiom directly into Italian. Patrick looked at me blankly. “No, thank you,” I said, correcting myself.
    It turned out that working at Le Chic wasn’t nearly as easy or as straightforward as billed. In fact, it was bewildering. I didn’t always understand Patrick’s directions, especially over the pulsating music, and I had to rely on Juve to translate. It was hard to keep track of orders let alone customers, whom I could hardly expect to stand in one place all night. I couldn’t maneuver trays and had to hand-carry the full glasses two at a time. It was my job to make sure customers kept drinking, and I had to watch carefully so I could pounce on not-quite-finished cocktails and replace them before the last swallow. It felt like a lot to juggle, even without the added challenge of trying to stay awake until 1 A.M. on school nights.
    “Have a good time” was my main instruction from Patrick. If I was having fun, the customers would, too. This wasn’t at all what I had thought I was getting myself into. As a barista at home, I was friendly with the regulars, but I wore an apron and stayed behind the counter, protected. At Le Chic, I liked being out and around people, but the job made me feel used and unsure of myself. Still, once I commit to something, it’s hard for me to admit that it’s not working out.
    Patrick always offered me drinks on the job, and I couldn’t figure out what kind of message he was sending me. Since I wasn’t a big drinker I’d either turn him down or nurse a single glass of white wine all night.
    Every day, Juve met me outside my grammar class with a new stack of flyers, and I’d hand out a few between and after my classes. I dreaded the hour between 9 P.M. and 10 P.M., when I’d have to stand by myself in Perugia’s main square, Piazza IV Novembre, calling out, “Le Chic. Via Alessi. Le Chic. Via Alessi.” I felt vulnerable.
    Piazza IV Novembre, home to both the Duomo, a massive fifteenth-century Gothic cathedral, and an elaborately carved pink-and-white marble fountain, was the town’s main meeting spot. At night it filled with loud students milling around drinking beer from plastic cups. It reminded me unhappily of the fraternity bashes I’d attended as a freshman at UW. I’d gone to those parties, danced with those people, drunk too much. It took me less than a semester to figure out how much I disliked it. Being in school in Perugia, I felt as if I’d circled back to the same spot—ironic, since I’d come to Italy to figure out how to be my own person.
    My job made me feel like a bull’s-eye in the middle of the chaos. Guys continually came up to me to flirt, saying they’d stop by Le Chic only if I promised to be there. Brushing them off, as I would have liked, would have been bad for business. So I hoped my chirpy “You should come by” came off as inviting for Patrick’s sake and not too suggestive for mine.
    It was confusing to me. I was open to new people and experiences, but I kept ending up in situations I didn’t want to be in. Working for Patrick and Juve was part of that.
    Since most of my days included standing there mute with my