He walked in and surveyed the room. He spotted her right away, but then again, anyone would have. One look and he knew she was going to be a challenge for him. In his position he couldn’t fire someone for their appearance, but if he could, she’d be the first to go.

Working for the corporate management of Quality Foods, Inc, Kevin mostly kept to the office. Lately though, his job had started changing and he’d been forced into the restaurants they managed to do evaluations. He would go in and determine if a restaurant was being run efficiently or if changes needed to be made.

So far he hadn’t seen one restaurant that didn’t need a change. Everywhere he went there were people slacking on the job, and every single time the slackers looked just like her.

If he looked past the dark red lipstick, the smokey eyes, and the blue hair, she could be pretty, maybe even an asset to the company. He’d learned that the ones who customers responded to the most were young, attractive women with bright smiles. The woman he was assessing had a scowl on her face that matched the darkness of her appearance.

Kevin shook hands with the manager of the restaurant, George, and they talked about how things were going for a few minutes before he was introduced to the group of employees. Everyone smiled and said hello but Kevin could feel the tension radiating off them. It was the same everywhere he went. He was a consultant, and everyone knew that meant he was there to cut employees. His mere presence put that on edge, but he couldn’t do anything about that. He had a job to do and he was going to do it.

The hour before they opened passed quickly. He watched how the employees interacted and noticed they all went up to Harmony, the blue haired woman, to speak about something. She appeared to be helping everyone with one thing or another and still managed to get her own work done.

But Kevin didn’t get to his position by believing only what he could see.

When the doors opened everyone took their positions. Harmony was a waitress in the largest section of the restaurant. With that load Kevin had no doubt she’d show her true capabilities and he’d be free to let her go by the end of the night.

Slowly the restaurant began to fill up. Kevin stood behind the bar watching as customers were seated and served. Harmony’s section was the first one full, even though the others still had open tables and she had the largest section. He pulled out his notebook and wrote down ‘Seating Rotation’ so he would remember to ask George about the way they sat guests and why all sections weren’t filled at the same time.

In fact, some sections had only one table with guests while Harmony was handling six tables herself.

Something wasn’t right.

He watched Harmony intently. She greeted every guest with a bright smile and a kind word. Many of them she appeared to know personally, leaving him to wonder if she’d invited all her friends and family in to help her evaluation. He’d never seen someone stoop to that level, but he wouldn’t put it past an employee to manipulate a situation to their advantage.

When food started coming out Kevin saw that Harmony got help from the other servers to carry food to her tables. Her guests all had their food at the same time instead of in shifts as she could carry it. She returned the favor for her fellow servers and overall he was shocked by how well everything appeared to run.

Determined to find a problem, Kevin wasn’t willing to give up. When the night was over he returned to his lonely hotel room, but he found his thought occupied by a certain blue haired waitress with soulful blue eyes and too much red lipstick.

*****

Three days later Kevin was still hanging around. Harmony was getting frustrated by his presence. Her entire shift he would spend watching her, waiting for her to screw up. He was one of those corporate stiffs that thought she couldn’t do a good job just because she chose to have blue hair, purple now, and liked tattoos.

Although the tattoos part she couldn’t blame him for. He’d never see any of her seven tattoos. They were all carefully placed to be hidden under normal clothing, just in case she ever got a ‘real job’ like her mother kept insisting she do.

Harmony liked the restaurant though, at least most of the time. The customers loved her and she was equally enthralled by them. Nowhere else could she meet a new person every night and feel like they were her best friend within an hour. She was amazed how people opened up to her while they were having dinner, but she’d shared in more than her fair share of anniversary dinners, break-up celebrations, birthdays, reunions, and countless ordinary evenings where people came together just to be together.

She had the best job in the world.

She just hoped she’d be able to keep it.

Just like every other night, Harmony was given the largest section in the restaurant. She never minded though because even if she didn’t get assigned to it, she would end up with the largest section. Customers came in and asked to be seated with her all the time. She felt bad for her fellow servers sometimes because it was rare someone asked for one of them, but they weren’t as good to their customers.

Harmony never gave away things for free. She never gave discounts that weren’t issued by a manager. She didn’t do anything special, but she knew how to treat people. Every single person who came through her section mattered to her, and she made sure they knew that.

Kevin was shadowing Molly, the hostess for the night. Harmony hoped he wasn’t gunning for Molly. She was a sweet kid, about six years younger than Harmony’s 28, and just out of college. Molly was living with her parents since she couldn’t get a teaching job right out of school and working at the restaurant to support herself and her two year old daughter. Harmony had a lot of respect for someone who went through college as a single mom. It had to be tough.

The hours passed on Harmony’s shift and she was only mildly aware of Kevin’s presence. If he let loose a bit she could see where he’d be attractive, but the suit coat and tie made him look too stuffy to be any fun. Still, his rich brown eyes and broad shoulders, not to mention the flat stomach she was sure was hiding under his starched shirts, gave him a few points.

When Harmony’s six hour shift ended she was more than happy to head home, but she stayed to clean up. Only once the dining room, bar, and kitchen were clean did she even think about heading out. She waved goodbye to the others in the parking lot as they all retreated to their cars and found Kevin leaning against the car next to hers, a serious look on his handsome face.

“We need to talk,” he demanded.