Hostess by Ari Kozloski

A piece from Copy Editor Ari Kozloski about work…among other things.

At the hostess stand, you have a lot of time to think about what you will do when you are not at the hostess stand.

You set reminders: “Gallery opening tomorrow @6!!” “Call dad.”

You make grocery lists: Cigarettes—a ridiculous purchase for someone who can’t inhale and has a genetic predisposition to addiction, but sometimes you crave a mouth-hit on cooler nights out with friends. Peanut butter. Bandaids.

You contemplate man’s domestication of fire. Can I have a light? That little flicker of domination. Casual. More casual than you are with customers, which is neither very casual nor appropriately professional. Your boss doesn’t notice this because what you lack in professionalism you make up for in that low-stakes deceit often called charm.

“No, Mr. Walk-in, you cannot have that four-top to yourself but, Mr. Walk-in, please understand that I’m with you. Nobody knows the frustration of curbed entitlement such as you and I, and I’m simply playing my role here. Yes, I see that the restaurant is almost hauntingly empty and you should really have your pick as far as seating. But there are things on this tablet I’m holding that you couldn’t possibly understand, and you needn’t burden yourself with such considerations anyway. I’m with you. You know that, right?”

Unless, of course, Mr. Walk-in is a regular and/or member of the cast of Friends, in which case he can sit wherever he pleases.

You think back to your first day on the job, when you were completely taken by how good the bathroom smelled. Something equally gourmand and linen-esque, with a hint of cologne.

“It’s the candle,” your manager had explained with a collusive sort of smirk. “Custom from Montauk. They’re only $24 on the website if you want.”

Because the restaurant is a zhuzhed up fish fry, you’d found both the existence and asking price of this candle absurd. You went to the website anyway and saved the tab.

Sometimes you steal things. Not the candle, but small, disposable souvenirs. You don’t want to get fired and you never really caught the klepto bug, but you’ve always liked to feel like you’re getting away with something. And what’s the occasional grab, anyway, when every shift makes your knees feel like they did when you played soccer in highschool and your brain feel like the static channel on an old TV? So you shove a “free drink” card into your pocket and trace along its edges for the rest of your shift. You’ll quit soon, let a few years go by, and when enough time has passed that the revolving door has ushered in an entirely new staff, you’ll come back to reap the rewards of your investment. One free drink, please.

You think about your grandma, who really was more like your mother than anything else, and you realize that all this time she has been a person. Not just your grandma or even your dad’s mom but also and mostly just Carol. This thought has been inaccessible, you reason, because most of her stories took on a cinematic haze owed to their inextricable ties to things you didn't understand (eg. motherhood, being white, and/or her childhood in Sparks, Nevada circa 20-years-before-caller-ID). And you don’t know what it is about this day in particular that has illuminated this truth, but you realize all of this and write on a small notepad separate from your grocery and to-do lists: GRAM IS A PERSON. So you don’t forget.

You suck in a little and try not to play with your hair. Even though you almost never touch the food, people come here to eat, and hairplay, according to your manager, infringes upon this noble intention. Your coworkers, however, are apparently immune to this expectation. At the top of your third ever shift, Jessie approaches you with his phone out. He’s hot, but only by way of his position as bartender and your senior by twelve years.

“Can I take a picture of your hair?” he asks.

His face is, well, normal. Completely devoid of any indication of shame or even sheepishness. You must be searching for such an expression for too long, because he continues:

“It’s for my friend, she’s a curly girl, too.

Aw, come on.

Thanks!”

Whoosh: a photo of you for his curly girl. And poof: your attraction to this patchy-bearded freak. Of course, it’s not the first time someone has stopped you with overly-familiar commentary on your hair—in fact, it’s not even the first time that day. Your afro brings something out of almost everyone:

White men somewhere between father and grandfather age can’t help but either thank you for taking ’em back or offer a raised fist and a cheerful “Wooh! Angela Davis!” Bald men can hardly contain their laughter as they gesture to your hair and wink: “Can I get some of that?”

Woke millennials ask if you’ve heard of Pam Grier, and compliment you for what they seem to sincerely believe is an exact likeness. The input is so constant that you even have to remind yourself not to snap at other black women when they ask for your wash day routine.

So Jessie’s not the first. But this time he’s gone and ruined himself as your work crush and/or primary entertainment source, so your irritation is compounded.

You don’t hate all your coworkers, though; you’re even fond of some. One of the servers graduated from the university you attend and has worked at this restaurant since it opened. Actor. You like talking to him because he is personable in a clumsy, sincere way that is equally comforting and comical. You dislike talking to him because he graduated from the university you attend and has worked at this restaurant since it opened, so what does that mean for you?

You seat people, too. There’s a good bit of that. And sometimes when you seat people you are unkind, condescending, and you feel terrible about it. But, good god you’ve had the reservations plotted for hours, must every party want the corner table by the window? And yes, of course the buffalo shrimp is spicy, and what kind of idiot would need to call the restaurant to confirm that? So, yeah, people are unfathomably daft; but you feel terrible for responding accordingly because you, too, enjoy dining out and would hate to be greeted and/or seated by yourself. So you smile real big for the next customer, compliment them and shift your voice into that warm, connective cruising gear that makes them feel like the only people in the restaurant.

Sometimes this warmth is forced, but other times it’s sincere. Like when there is a small blue cake icon next to a girl’s reservation.

She arrives with her friend a few minutes before 7:30, and they look at each other in a way that says “Oh, shit, I didn’t know this would be the vibe, I should have worn a longer and/or more opaque dress.” It’s sort of an old people and/or family restaurant, and you feel a little bad for this girl who looks to be celebrating aging either into or out of your exact age, which is 19. They are best friends, they tell you, and this dinner is sort of a dual birthday celebration. You love them. You joke with them about the bathroom candle—“Super yummy, right? And only $24!” You give them the last of the four booths, an inordinately coveted honor amongst the restaurant’s regulars, and steel yourself to explain this transgression to an angry septuagenarian in the next half hour.

For the last ninety minutes of your shift, you are mostly staring into the side of your manager’s head, willing her to send you home early. It takes an oppressively slow night for her to take the hint, though, so you usually get off around 9, and the first step outside feels like leaving the movie theater. The weather has changed and, oh!, it’s dark out. You feel real again. Your phone buzzes with your reminders: Cigarettes. Peanut butter. Bandaids. It’s early enough to make it to the store before they close but…the static. Suddenly your lists, everything, can wait. The downtown 6 is coming in just a few minutes and you trudge to meet it. You don’t even call your dad.

I Have Never Known Peace, and Neither Have You by Pritheva Zakaria

Poetry Editor Pritheva Zakaria shares a prose piece about the paradoxical nature of the world when it comes to judging others, and how we perceive others isn’t just black and white.

No one really knows what they look like. We only know what we look like through rear-view mirrors, makeup vanities, and obscure pictures we take of ourselves. We exist somewhere in between our school picture day photos and the dim-lit disposable camera photos we take at parties. Humans are not omnipresent beings though. Instead, we are one-track-minded individuals who can only see what’s in front of us. We are so obsessed with ourselves because we never get to see ourselves. Instead, what’s in front of all of us are people. Jealousy and resentment fill the air because of this; we’ll never get to see what we look like when we laugh, cry, smile, or sleep. We only get to see these things about ourselves either through other people or technology. Maybe that’s why I'm obsessed with people loving me and knowing me, because they are the only entities that will ever know what I truly look like. If I could rip out my eyeballs, gut myself of my visionary mobile, just to see what I look like for a fragment of a second, I would. If I could examine myself under a microscope, I would.  If I see into my imperfections, insecurities, and wrongdoings, I would. 

When I was younger my sister and I would stare into each other’s pools of eyes. It used to be my favorite game to play, my favorite pastime. But what we didn’t realize at 10 and 12 was that we would look into each other’s deep eyes just to see our own reflections. What I saw in her eyes was my small frame and crooked teeth. As young girls we were taught to value our external beauty, to keep up with ourselves, to not let ourselves go, because once you do, people would notice, and isn’t that just arguably the worst thing? Growing up is not a linear thing, it’s a back-and-forth-pulley system in which you have to learn to rewire your brain and the way you operate to preserve your own mental and physical well-being. 

Learning to let go of what people don’t see even though we think they see is the biggest part. But as you get older you’re told that whatever you do is not enough, that you’re not enough. Everything you do is manipulative and calculated, and you couldn’t possibly be sincere because all we care about is vanity. This paradox we live in is quite frankly impossible to leave, but impossible to live in as well. 

But can you blame us, we have no idea what we look like! And right next to that, we’re fed those ideas and missions of finding proper beauty and happiness. I have never known peace, because girls like me are always ready so we don’t have to get ready. Girls like me are never the first chosen to be on the team, so we always anticipate the sidelines. Putting on our best dresses for the show because we know we’re not actually a part of it. The solution to this disastrous mindset is to constantly remind yourself you are the exact opposite of the words you curse at yourself in the dead of the night. 

It’s easy for me to critique others, especially when I’m on the outside. I’ll never know what it’s like to be like you, yet my mind will still draw conclusions. We run formulas and scientific experiments in our heads about the way each and every person operates, but we’ll never ever know. The only way we could ever get a glimpse into the way someone operates is through how they treat others. 

The closest I’ll ever have to see what I truly look like is in the faces, identities, wrinkles, and past and future histories of my sister, mom, and grandma. I only know what I look like through my mother describing me as looking like my dad’s mother, and my friends demanding that I look like my sister, truly. I look at the people in my life and wonder where on earth they are getting these comparisons from, but once again, they are the only people who truly know what I look like. I swallow my pride, bite my tongue, and nod. They know best. My mother knows best. I don’t know anything, I’m not as smart as I think. These are the mantras I repeat in my head as I look into all my friends and family’s eyes.  

Determining whether or not something or someone is beautiful puts too much responsibility on humans; this is not what we’re made for. To explore, read, eat, and love, those are the things that make up my life. Placing others on a subjective scale of beauty which equates to worth and value is something I’m not cut out for. Because of this paradoxical power we all seem to have, it makes me resent myself even more. If I could love myself the way I'm told I should love myself, I would. We are constantly told that we should love our bodies and brains and hearts, because that’s all we got for the rest of our lives. But, it’s so hard when you curse your ancestral line for making you look the way you do. As if you could point your finger and blame someone for the way you look and the way you act, everything we criticize in this lifetime is ridiculous and superficial. We walk around the streets thinking that we are being judged by everyone, but the truth is, everyone is so focused on how they are presenting themselves that they don’t even have the capacity to evaluate you. I’ve never been good at listening, so maybe that’s why I can’t listen to my own advice. I’m so tough behind my screens and papers and journals, but I can’t seem to wrap my head around the idea of being beautiful in my own right. 

So the pedestal that I place my friends on, solely because they are the only beings in the world that actually know what I look like, and in some right, I’m one of the only beings that knows what they look like, reiterates the arbitrary rules that define what it means to be human. To be human means you judge yourself before you judge others. To be human means you study yourself in the mirror for hours but won’t second-look someone on the street. Being a human being with a beating heart means that you’ll break every bone in your body before your best friend’s soul is touched. If we’re all like this, then why do we even think twice about how we are perceived by others? Everyone is looking for their own ray of sunshine, no one is focusing on the big bright ball in front of you. 

My best friend is the taller, smarter, kinder, athletic version of me. My sister is the older, taller, smarter, prettier version of me. In some ways, my little brother will grow up to be the male-presenting, less-emotional, taller version of me. We all define the people in our lives through ourselves. To us, everyone is someone in relation to our beings and states of mind. And according to my state of mind, they are all versions of me. 

When you think the whole world despises you, that all your friends hate you, that simply isn’t true. In fact, we would hate ourselves to hell and back before we would ever let our friends think we can’t stand them. Maybe when they’re having a rough day, they’re just having a rough day, it has nothing to do with you. Maybe it really isn’t all about you. 

When the sun sets and I tuck myself into my twin-sized bed, maybe it will all be okay. Maybe everything that racks my brain will end up becoming the humorous stories I tell at parties that make my friends and strangers laugh. From the way my friend’s eyes crinkle up when she’s laughing to the way my little brother’s breath rises up and down when he’s sleeping, the world is always moving. Maybe to move on, you have to look for the things that make you want to see the sun in the dawn and the moon in the dusk. Every heartbreak, irrational fear, awkward first meeting, family reunion, inequality, and burnt toast is a human reminder that it will all be okay. I’ll play that game with my sister in which we look into each other’s eyes, but this time, I’ll try and try to look for her in those eyes instead of…me.

I love you, by E Yeon

I love you. I wish I could tell you exactly when and why the words ‘I love you’ became difficult to mean. Maybe the words grew heavier as I gained weight, maybe they turned bitter in junior high… it doesn’t really matter how it happened though, it happened all the same. But on February 26th, 2017, starting right around 2 p.m., I said 'I love you' over and over again and I meant every word.-I was in the lobby when I heard that Peter Hart died. I was using a communal desktop to save my data and I was happy because my crush ended up sitting next to me. I was sitting upright, overly aware of my posture and profile, and I was checking my Facebook sparingly because I wanted him to know that I could be serious when it came to my studies. So that was what I was thinking about when Peter died, whether or not I was pulling off the smart and sexy look on a Sunday afternoon.-A couple of things happened before I realized they were happening. A girl named Alex (who I don't remember ever talking to before) found me in the corner leading into the stairs, and she held me until I could say that I'd prefer to be alone. Some people brought me water, I don't know who. I tried to clean up in the bathroom and instead walked into my crush taking a shit. I changed into a black dress and tried going to church. But it was an awkward time, they were either in mid-sermon or preparing for evening service; I felt bad about interrupting the good Christians with my irregular guilt, so I ended up sitting in a bus station, near the back entrance of St. Laurence. I felt something that I can only call 'loud' come and take over me, and I felt the need to muffle it, or at least cover it up. So I started making calls.-It first started with Maria, then it was Bella, then Natalie, the other Peter, Elaine, Polina and so on. Everybody picked up within the first rings.Whoever was the first to speak asked, “Are you okay?” and the other, “Yes, are you safe?”And then it'd go, “I love you” and the other, “Me too.”It was quick and efficient, almost mechanical. But it was genuine, and everybody knew.-I called Stephen last. He was my connection to Peter, I was a good friend to him and he to Peter. Stephen was probably my favorite person from high school; I took him to Senior Dance. He was the perfect date: he embraced my godawful dancing and offered me his jacket when the first chill set in. At the end of the night, Stephen walked me to the dorm, and I felt love, so much love towards him that I thought maybe I had to kiss him. I’ve done more with people I felt less for. But I didn’t, and I brushed the feeling off as something fleeting, hormonal.-   Stephen was already crying when he picked up the phone. He was with someone else, maybe his own Alex.“Hold on, hold on. E?”I don’t know how he knew it was me. I never gave him my number. And suddenly, even though I stopped crying an hour before, even though I knew Stephen was probably hurting more, I started sobbing at the sound of his voice.“No, I'm just on the phone. I need to talk to her. E, are you still there?"“Yes, I’m okay, Stephen, are you okay?”“Yes… I mean, no, E. Fuck, I don’t know…”Then Stephen’s voice trailed off to make a sad, guttural sound and I knew he was simultaneously blowing his nose and swallowing his snot back. And I recognized the love, the love I felt for him at that moment, as the one I felt on the night of the dance. The words came more frantically and more instinctively than ever.“Stephen, listen to me. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. Stephen, I need you to know this. Please tell me you know.”It was a kind of love that I thought had to come with strings attached but no, it was just love. It just was.“Don’t leave me, Stephen. Don’t you fucking dare.”And in the midst of the overwhelming loud, a sudden silence settled within me when he replied, “I know. I won’t. I love you too.”