| OCR Text |
Show Nettie, Page 96 ravenously hungry. Her hand went involuntarily to her stomach, and Rose caught her eye. She smiled, walked over and put her arm around Nettie's shoulder. "How about a little something to put in your own stomach?" Rose asked. "I could do with a lot of something, that's for sure," Nettie grinned. Rose took a protective interest in Nettie from that day forward. Between the steward's unflinching critical eye and Rose's whispered helps, Nettie soon had the routine in the dining room down to a neat science and rarely made mistakes. Begrudgingly the steward acknowledged her progress, and added to the tables in her station as her prowess increased. Within three months of Nettie's arrival she had been assigned the best station in the dining room. Customers began asking for her tables as all seemed to like her. She was unfailingly cheerful and courteous, bright and not too shy to banter with them when they seemed to enjoy it. She had an instinct about people that helped her greet each guest in a manner that was designed specifically for them and their particular mood that day. Rose's friendship extended beyond the dining room. Practically every payday Nettie and Rose ventured to the shops in town. Nettie's fascination with clothes grew and so did the accumulation in her wardrobe closet. She never seemed to think in terms of how clothes would look when she wore them, just the way they would look hanging in her once empty wardrobe. "Ohhhhh," she would cry as she spied a particular piece of finery, |
