Here's to Christmas - Skulduggery Pleasant FanFic

Chapter 3: Jamie Oliver's

Jamie Oliver first set up a chain of restaurants called 15. They were especially involved with underprivileged kids. Despite the charming motives of the restaurant chain, it was a bust. And then what did Jamie do? Did he give up and leave the 15s everywhere to drown in the culinary business? No. He set up a new chain of restaurants, titled simply Jamie Oliver's. And that's where the money came from.

People automatically assumed, simply because of the name, that the prices were out the roof; in actual fact, Jamie's cost no more than a TGI Friday's. The difference between the two (other than the culinary variations) was the service. Make no mistake; the service at TGI's was very good. But the service at Jamie's was excellent. Every waitor and waitress knew exactly what was in every single one of the dishes, down to how many calories were in it. And if someone forgot one of these small details, there was a book by the door to the kitchen that explained it all.

Valkyrie liked working there because the atmosphere was do positive; and a little extra positivity in her life most certainly wouldn't kill her.

Skulduggery sat in the bar wearing his façade (a new one that wouldn't time out) and waited for Dexter and Saracen to arrive. Valkyrie had to admit; she was really looking forward to seeing them all again together in a nice restaurant.

But in the meantime, there was waitress-ing to be done.

She spotted a party of five sitting down at a table. Two adults and three children it seemed like, the eldest maybe eighteen, the same age as her, the youngest fourteen ot fifteen. Two were a very light shade of blonde and looked like the daughters of one of the adults. The other had dark hair and an exotic complexion, and could have been the daughter of the other adult. She looked at them all, laughing anf smiling, ordering some water for the table, and sighed. How she missed that feeling of belonging.

Natalie, a fellow waitress with huge hoop earrings approached her.

"Are you ok Valie?" She asked. "You look a hundred miles away."

"Nah," Valkyrie said, trying to be nonchalant. "Just looking at that table over there. They look nice, don't they?"

Natalie nodded. "Yeah. The three girls are ice skaters. The blonde woman is the coach and the dark haired woman is the mother of the dark haired girl. It's all very retro."

The corners of Valkyrie's mouth twitched upwards. 

"Hey." Natalie said. "It's your table if you want it."

"Really?"

"Sure. No problem here. Go ahead. Take their orders."

Natalie grinned a dazzling grin and waltzed back into the kitchen. Valkyrie stood, looking at the party of five for a while, before walking over.

"Hello." She said chirpily. "Are you ready to order?"

The dark haired woman smiled back at her. "Yes, I think so. I will have the battered squid for a starter but without the chili, if that's ok."

"That's fine," Valkyrie nodded, jotting down the order. That was another thing about Jamie's; the customers were nice. She turned to the coach next.

"I'll have the battered shrimp too, chili and all please."

Valkyrie laughed. "Excellent choice."

The blonde skater, the middle one ordered just the chicken liver pate, and the dark haired skater ordered the king prawns with the sauces on the side. Then she went to eldest skater, who, close up, could have been twenty.

"Erm..." she said, "what's the crudites? How many calories?"

By the looks on the faces of the rest of the table, this question was asked a lot; but then Valkyrie took in the appearance of the skater. She was pretty and slim and had some kind of fidgety quality about her that reminded Valkyrie of a girl she knew at school who had a very bad relationship with food. She learned that in restaurants, she was happy when she wasn't patronized about asking for calorie count.