BEg2 ch26 outspoken waitress

[Michael Bailey]

“At least this isn’t some midtown ladies’ tearoom. The waitress, Lynda, is
a classic deli veteran, who only needs to hear two seconds’ worth from
Cornelia to start muttering,
            “Thinks I’m the downstairs maid,”
Cornelia meantime making a point of asking for “Jewish” rye bread for her
turkey-pastrami and roast-beef combo. Sandwich arrives, “And you’re quite
sure this is Jewish rye bread.”

  “I’ll ask it. Hello!” Holding the sandwich up to her face, “You’re
Jewish? The customer wants to know before she eats you. What? No, she’s
goyishe, but they don’t have kosher so maybe this pick-pick-pick is what
they do instead,” so forth.

    Maxine introduces Cornelia to Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray, pours it in a glass
for her. “Here,
            Jewish champagne.”

“Interesting, a bit on the demi-sec side—excuse me, oh Lynda? would you
happen to have this drier, brut perhaps . . . ?”

   “Sh-shh,” goes Maxine, though Lynda, recognizing WASP jocularity here,
ignores.



Telltale accent on Cornelia alerts Lynda.

(Like that classic story with the “mit or mitout” - Peter DeVries
“Different Cultural Levels Eat Here”)

But here, Lynda rises to a level of teasing that Cornelia can’t help but
notice, and leaves it to Cornelia as to how she will respond.

Cornelia teases back, showing a voluble geniality setting up a conversation
expanding into Cornelia’s back story. Cornelia a more traditional wife than
Maxine, who, rather than fold herself into Horst’s world the way Cornelia
does into Rocky’s, has her own economic nexus & experience of the larger
world.

Nice little restaurant scene.

Its cognate in _Inherent Vice_ is the waitress who disparages the seafood
platter, to be largely ignored or maybe slightly acknowledged by Doc &
Sauncho.