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The author celebrating her first story being accepted for publication in 2011 \u2014 a year before she decided to move to New York City.<\/p>\n\u201cWhat\u2019s your name?\u201d Catherine O\u2019Hara asked me, leaning forward in the booth. \u201cWhat\u2019s your story?\u201d<\/p>\n
I was standing in a swanky restaurant in New York City wearing a black dress short enough to satisfy management, my hands clasped behind my back in case a manager appeared. I had just broken the most important rule of the job: Never acknowledge a celebrity.<\/p>\n
Three months earlier, I had dropped off my resume anywhere I could in hopes of securing a job that would supplement what my $35-a-week publishing intern stipend wouldn\u2019t get me, which was, of course, everything but my subway fare.<\/p>\n
I was hungry in every sense of the word. By the end of the day, I was offered three serving jobs and took them all. One was at this legendary restaurant continuously full of rock stars, Oscar-winning actors and models. <\/p>\n
During my interview, the manager had ignored my flimsy (both in substance and content) resume and assessed my body instead. My waist. My chest. My legs. He said they had a place for me as a cocktail server in the private lounge where the windows were tinted, the tables were low and loungy, and the only clientele allowed in were ultra-wealthy patrons and celebrities.<\/p>\n
The manager told me to show up later that night for my first training shift and emphasized that the dress code was all black, dresses only, hemlines not to exceed the end of my fingertips when my arms were hanging by my sides.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe prefer the skirt to graze your first knuckles,\u201d he said, making a fist and pointing to the ridged top of his hand to make his point.<\/p>\n
I was 22, fresh out of college, and ready to do whatever it took to become a writer. If I can make it here… I thought.<\/p>\n
When I walked in for my first shift, I was surprised to see a friend from college working at the host stand. Back in Colorado, he\u2019d been a boisterous theater kid \u2014 lanky with bright blue eyes and flamboyant energy. Now he looked hollowed out \u2014 dark under the eyes, less \u201cyouthfully thin\u201d and more underfed. He seemed tired and nervous, and his eyes flicked around as if we might get in trouble for hugging.<\/p>\n
The author celebrating her first story being accepted for publication in 2011 \u2014 a year before she decided to move to New York City.<\/p>\n
The server I was assigned to shadow approached the host stand to retrieve me. She was gorgeous, waifish, and in place of the air of sadness my college acquaintance had, she\u2019d built a bitter bubble of sarcasm around herself.<\/p>\n
She walked me quickly through the labyrinthine back-of-house, dodging catcalls from her co-workers and managers deftly. She listed off rules as I struggled to keep up. Three of them stuck out.<\/p>\n
1. We were required to try everything on the menu, which perked me up as a hungry, broke person used to only eating family meal slop before a shift.<\/p>\n
2. We were a \u201cpooled house,\u201d which meant the managers gathered and then divvied up our tips (after shaving a cut).<\/p>\n
3. We were not allowed \u2014 under any circumstances \u2014 to reveal that we recognized a celebrity. We were to treat everyone as an anonymous guest. Asking for an autograph, a photo, or even announcing that you were a fan of anyone famous would result in immediate termination.<\/p>\n
Perhaps this last rule sounds easy enough to follow, but during my first training shift, Jay-Z, Adam Sandler and Mariah Carey were among our guests. <\/p>\n
I lasted one month at this restaurant. Long enough to eat my way through the menu and gather enough celebrity run-in anecdotes to last a lifetime. My cocktail party stories suddenly involved run-ins with Bill Belichick, Jon Bon Jovi, Jonah Hill and Josh Hartnett, among many, many others. But not even these exciting encounters could make up for the depleting atmosphere of working in a place where every staff member was a hopeful singer, model, actor or artist.<\/p>\n
After my first shift, I witnessed the server who was training me earn over $1,000 in tips \u2014 then walk out the door with only $220 after management\u2019s cut. When I asked about the tip breakdown, my manager was finishing a line of cocaine in his windowless basement office. His explanation made little sense, but he laughed at my confusion, and I left his office feeling dejected and violated.<\/p>\n
However, what really convinced me that I couldn\u2019t survive there long was when I realized that my co-workers all seemed to be struggling with disordered eating. Years earlier, after my dad had died suddenly of a heart attack, I\u2019d developed my own eating disorder \u2014 a coping mechanism that came with consequences. I\u2019d slowly healed in college, partly thanks to a tight circle of wonderful friends. Now, without them and being surrounded by behaviors that I instantly recognized as potentially damaging, I felt my anxiety rising in a new \u2014 though disturbingly familiar \u2014 way.<\/p>\n
During my work shifts, my trainer-server and I worked through the restaurant\u2019s menu, each night picking something new for me to try, and we\u2019d sit on the back staircase (there was no break room) while she explained the dish to me. No matter what it was \u2014 tuna on crispy rice, a black truffle pizza, half a roast chicken on a mountain of garlic mashed potatoes \u2014 she refused to have a bite.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo way. I\u2019m trying to be an actress,\u201d she told me. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t even eat a cucumber here. They put sesame oil on everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
She joked about it \u2014 \u201cI don\u2019t eat, really. None of us do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though I wasn\u2019t attempting to make it as an actress, I still began to leave food on the plate, uneasy about doing so, but also worried she might have a point. She was putting her goals first. Hunger as discipline. Emptiness as a badge of ambition. Maybe fed girls didn\u2019t make it in NYC.<\/p>\n
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The author right after she moved to New York City in 2012.<\/p>\n
By the time I walked in for my last training shift on a Sunday night, I was thinner, my spirit was beaten down, and I was worried about the road I seemed to be headed back down.<\/p>\n
I was also still broke. I\u2019d trained for seven shifts at $10 an hour, and I was relieved when my trainer asked me to take this shift alone. The managers were nowhere to be found, as usual, and she wanted to meet up with her boyfriend \u2014 a musician who was always cheating on her. The restaurant was slow, she told me I now knew what I was doing, and, best of all, she would let me take all of the tips I made home.<\/p>\n
At nearly 9 o\u2019clock, three women walked in: two women I\u2019d never seen before and the one and only Catherine O\u2019Hara. I froze. My mind flashed to O\u2019Hara\u2019s squiggly sideburns in \u201cBeetlejuice.\u201d Her iconic \u201cKevin!\u201d in \u201cHome Alone.\u201d The dozens and dozens of times my sister and I had watched \u201cBest in Show.\u201d All of the characters she\u2019d played that shaped my sense of humor. My sense of joy. How could I possibly serve her without telling her I loved her?<\/p>\n
They sat in a window booth with Catherine in the center. When I went to greet her party, her friends enthusiastically interrupted to tell me they were taking her out for her birthday. She shook her head sheepishly, embarrassed and amused.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been friends forever,\u201d she told me. \u201cThey don\u2019t let me get away with anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a writer, I try to avoid cliches, but reader, her eyes truly sparkled with life and kindness.<\/p>\n
Soon, they were my only table. I folded napkins a short distance away from them and watched the three friends enjoy each other\u2019s company \u2014 and one of everything from the starter section, plus a burger, the tuna and the chicken. They shared a bottle of wine and giggled like girls.<\/p>\n
Over the course of their meal, I realized that in just a few weeks, the restaurant I stood in had distorted what success should look like, but no one could extinguish the aura of true success that radiated off Catherine. She had \u201cit\u201d \u2014 that thing I\u2019d come to NYC to prove I had, too, and \u201cit\u201d wasn\u2019t thinness or ambition at all costs, or even talent, though of course she had that, too. It was her sense of self \u2014 how she held herself and confidently, yet humbly, moved through the world \u2014 that no one could rival… or take away from her. <\/p>\n
By the time I dropped the chocolate souffl\u00e9 off, their table held the last lit candle in the restaurant. <\/p>\n
I placed the dessert in front of Catherine, and then I took a breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not supposed to bother our famous diners,\u201d I said, \u201cbut I just have to tell you how much your acting means to me and my sister. \u2018Best in Show\u2019 is our favorite movie, and your character is my favorite.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMe?\u201d she said, genuinely incredulous. \u201cYour favorite!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry to bother you. I just had to say something. Happy birthday.\u201d I quickly turned away, mortified.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was her sense of self \u2014 how she held herself and confidently, yet humbly, moved through the world \u2014 that no one could rival… or take away from her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWait,\u201d she called after me, \u201cWhat\u2019s your name? What\u2019s your story?\u201d<\/p>\n
She insisted that I join them in their booth and asked what kind of artist I was.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery server in this city has an interesting story,\u201d she said, gesturing her spoon toward me, her mouth full of birthday souffl\u00e9, and the trio\u2019s attention now fully, yet comfortably, on me.<\/p>\n
I told her all about my dream to be an author and about the short story I was working on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat if one of the characters dies?\u201d she riffed, delighted.<\/p>\n
Were we collaborating? I could hardly breathe.<\/p>\n
I was glad to have refused their offer of a bite of souffl\u00e9 because the manager suddenly appeared from his basement lair, and I immediately popped out of the booth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll just grab you the check,\u201d I said, with my arms behind my back again, in an attempt to look professional. She winked at me as I walked away.<\/p>\n
She paid the bill herself, though her friends tried, and though my tip out didn\u2019t reflect it, she left me 100% on their $400 bill and a note that read, \u201cI know your day will come. Keep writing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The manager wouldn\u2019t let me keep the receipt, but I didn\u2019t need it.<\/p>\n
Catherine had given me something invaluable that night. Her kindness has always stayed with me. She showed me a different way to be an artist \u2014 to be a person. She chose passion, curiosity, individuality and humility in an industry that often made that feel impossible.<\/p>\n
I never went back to the restaurant again after that night. I left before the thinness of the place convinced me I had to disappear to deserve a future. There were plenty of other workplace cultures ahead of me that would also try to normalize self-erasure as ambition, but years later, when I sat down to write this essay just days after Catherine O\u2019Hara\u2019s death, I could still clearly conjure that moment with her. Thanks to her, I still try to follow my appetite, to seek fullness and to believe, even on my hungriest days, that my day will come.<\/p>\n
Sammi LaBue<\/a> is the founder of Fledgling Writing Workshops <\/a>(\u201cBest Writing Workshops,\u201d Timeout NY) and basically obsessed with the feeling of having an idea and writing it down. Her latest project is a recently finished memoir written in collaboration with her mom titled \u201cBad Apples.\u201d Some of her other essays can be found in BuzzFeed, Slate, Literary Hub, The Sun, Glamour and more. To follow her writing journey and find opportunities to write with her flow, visit fledgling.substack.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Do you have a compelling personal story you\u2019d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we\u2019re looking for here<\/a> and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.<\/a><\/p>\n