Jennifer Smith: the late shift and the soap opera

Jennifer Smith is a psychology major. She's thinking about graduate school, but she's not quite sure. She's between 5'7" and 5'8" and has brown hair. Her parents live in a small town in Indiana. \nThat's where the similarities between Jennifer Diane Smith and Jennifer Lorraine Smith end. \nJennifer Diane Smith -- Friday night\nAni DiFranco provides a little "get-happy" music as Jennifer Smith drives her Kia Rio to Steak 'n Shake, where she's about to clock in for her eight-hour graveyard shift. She listens to "Virtue" and "Jukebox" before she drives from Collins Living-Learning Center to the College Avenue restaurant. \nJennifer, whose nametag says 'Jeni,' started working at Steak 'n Shake in September. \n"I was kinda nervous about it," she says. "I tend to not have people skills." \nShe works about 30 hours a week, usually nights. Jeni, a sophomore, catches naps between class and considers staying awake through a lecture an accomplishment. \nTonight is slow, and the first table's customers walk out without leaving a tip. \nBut she likes her job -- the night crew is laid back and the corporate guidelines don't infringe on her individuality. She refuses to let them.\n"I'm not wearing a hair net," she says. \nAnd you won't find a tuna salad "propaganda" button on her apron, either. \n"You're not supposed to have face piercings, I'm not sure if my tongue ring counts," she says.\nShe likes her coworkers, too. There's Nick, her manager, "he's got the most gorgeous blue eyes." \nAnd Mike, who goes with her to Bullwinkle's when they have a night off. The sexual innuendo between them is a running joke. The hugs are real, but the lusty looks and dirty jokes are just for fun. He's gay, and she is, too. \nJust after midnight, the swimming shapes of people emerge past the glass block entrance. A couple searches for prime seating. For Jeni, a slight tension arises every time people walk in the door and scan for seats. More people in her section means pockets full of tips, fewer means uninterrupted smoking breaks. Tonight, Jeni prefers the latter. \n"Think hard before you choose my section," Jeni grumbles under her breath. They retreat to a corner booth beyond her territory. \nEven if she dozes through the occasional psychology class, the restaurant is a bit of a living lab. She notices patterns from people. Whenever a troop of drunken people files in from the bars, there's always one sober person. That person offers exasperated shrugs and motherly head shakes while Jeni reasons with the hopelessly tanked friends. No worries. "Happy drunks leave good tips," she says. \nShe consistently gets the best tips from a group of women that she suspects work at Night Moves.\nIt's 12:50 a.m. The employee working the driveway window spins around to music that barely wafts to the dining room over the hiss of the grill. \n2:40 a.m. Jeni pours coffee refills for two men with big mustaches. \n2:55 a.m. "Where are all the drunk people?" Jeni says. "The bars are closing." \nAs if on cue, a group of four college-aged customers walk in. \n3:02 a.m. The grill is silent now and Steve Perry wails "Don't stop beleeeeiving" on the radio. Jeni looks expectantly at a girl who tilts her cell phone for an instant to order a glass of water. \nIt was a slow night. Amazingly so. Jeni made $16, a major cut from her $100 the previous Saturday. \n7:15 a.m. As the sun rose over Collins, she headed to bed, with about $11 and a stomach full of McDonald's breakfast. \nJennifer Lorraine Smith -- Saturday night\nThe Plum Delish nail polish is dry. Black eye liner, carefully smudged by friend Kaari Andrews, is still vivid. A spritz of Romance by Ralph Lauren, hair flipped up and sprayed.\nJennifer Smith closes her door with a resounding thud that echoes in the hallway of McNutt Bryan. Behind the door in the dark room is a picture on the corkboard. She's smiling in her prom dress and he's grinning broadly. "I wanted to go to prom with him," she says. \nHe is Scott Ulery, an IU-Southeast freshman. They had been best friends and dated for about two months until July. They hadn't talked since, until Wednesday night, when he called and invited her to a party. Tonight. \nJenn, her roommate Stacy Griffith and her friend Kaari -- all freshmen -- walk across the parking lot of the Varsity Villas. An officer looks up from his undercover cruiser at Jenn in her black pants, red tank top and tall shoes. She's 18. \nThe pre-party ritual is just as vital as the getting-ready ritual, but more surreal as the flash bulbs of cameras capture smiling moments between friends. Rap and rock compete in the air between Villa balconies. \n10:30 p.m. Jenn's cell phone rings. "It's 15 guys and no keg," she reports to her friends. "This party could be a dud, just a hang-out situation."\nFor the time being, "Blind Date" is more interesting than the party. \n"I've seen a couple (shows) where they had sex at the end," Jenn comments. No one replies. \nThat wouldn't happen in Canada, as Jenn remembers it. She lived there until she was 16. \n"It's much more moral there," she says. \n12:15 a.m. Cars radiate out from the driveway of a house on a dead end street: the party location. The door opens to an invisible wall of spilled beer and stale smoke stench.\nScott and Jenn look at each other. Neither says hi to the other. IU football, grades and Jenn's Canadian accent all pass for conversation in a dark hallway. A half-hour into the party Jenn and Scott are talking like old friends again. \n"I saw you on Instant Messenger but you just ignored me," she says to him during a smoking break in the basement. He looks at her and shrugs. She looks away. \n2:15 a.m. Scott is out of cigarettes, and Jenn is fine to drive his truck. When they get back from the Shell station neither wants to get out of the truck. It was past time for a talk. \n"He said he's really missed me as a friend, and even as a girlfriend he'll always have a place in his heart for me," she says. \nJenn is on the other line with her boyfriend Kyle as she recounts the late-night conversation on Sunday. "I was so happy, having the tension between us was awful," she says. \nIt had been a long night, and she only got to sleep two hours before waking for her 7 a.m. shift at Mr. D's. \n"I woke up and felt like I had slept 10 hours," she says.