Lorenza Lelli

In the summer of 1975 when a job became inevitable and the heat started to make life difficult, I found a waitressing job in the very west end of Ottawa. When I called about the opening, the owner said he would come to my downtown loft to take me to the restaurant. It was at Gerry’s Steak House I met Lorenza Lelli, an Italian girl from Firenze.

It was to be my second waitressing job. The owner was about to transform his restaurant basement into a country and western bar and he needed a cocktail waitress rather than one serving food. I was hired instantly. The waitresses in the dinning room, with Lorenza among them, were eyeing me curiously. I guess they were all wondering who was the girl with the spunk to do the job. It turned out I was totally unprepared to meet the requirement.

The crowd came from farmlands nearby or truckers out for a good time. They were heavy drinkers and rowdy and coarse. The bands were always too loud in that low-ceiIing basement. I had to clip bills between my fingers and moved at lightning speed to satisfy some very thirsty mouths. It was too much even for someone like me, who was normally difficult to unnerve at most circumstances. At first I was the only server until Gerry the boss hired a tough looking girl who soon took over the entire scene in a money grabbing manner. I was considered to be ‘in her way’ and had to be ousted. The boss was sorry to see me go and swiftly offered me a position in the dinning room.

I landed as a food waitress working in the same station as Lorenza.

The owner was Gerry. He moved his family over from Lebanon before war torn the country apart. Like so many rich Lebanese who came to Ottawa at the time, he set up his own restaurant to be independent. His restaurant housed multinational staff. His cook was from Taosen, China, I was from Hong Kong, Lorenza was from Italy and his sister-in-law was from Czehkoslovakia.

Lorenza lived downtown too but she had a moped. In that year moped driver did not require a driver’s license or a helmet. She said her moped was given to her as a break off gift by her Spanish boyfriend before he returned to Spain that summer. Her brother Romano came to Canada as a young man. At the time I met Lorenza, her brother was already the manager of an Italian restaurant downtown. His wife Dagmar used to be a gymnast in her Czehkoslovakia hometown and she was studying a Physical Education degree at Ottawa University. Before coming to Ottawa, Lorenza was a flight attendant. One could imagine what influence that kind of work had on a young woman. She was every bit an Italian lady I used to see in a Sophia Loren and Marcello movie. I was totally enchanted by her accented English and her exaggerated gestures when she spoke. Having not gone through a formal education in Canada, Lorenza had to first master the language and then decide on what discipline she was to pursue to build a career. In the meantime waitressing work was a good way to make a living.

Lorenza the waitress was every bit a professional. She had almost never let a bad day influence her service. She stood firm when came to the quality of food delivered at the kitchen. On one occasion the Chinese cook gave her onion soup that was not boiling hot and she refused to take it out. The cook took up a knife and threatened to use it if she did not relent. But of course she was unpurturbed by the shouting. The person who backed off was the grumbling cook. Ever since that episode the cook learnt to keep away from that fearless Italian diva.

From Lorenza I learnt that most immigrants in Canada at the time came from Southern Italy, namely Napoli or Naples and that North and South were not that friendly. That was why she didn’t want to work in an Italian joint in Ottawa as they were all operated by southern Italians. Not having gone to Italy, my knowledge about the country was what I learnt in European History in school. I soaked up what she told me. She said her father’s side of the family had business in shoe-making but her father was a civil servant. I also got to know civil servants in Italy retired in their 40′s to make room for younger workers.

We helped each other at work and she showed me the ropes at the beginning. It was hard work but the tips were good. Like all caucasian girls I met she was always complaining about her weight and saying how petite us Asian girls were. If only she could live to see me now! Honestly, I had no idea how we could have energy for the day by sharing only a baked potato for lunch.

The boss continued to pick me up for work in the morning and Peter, my boyfriend came to drive me home until it was time to go back to school.

1975 to 1976 was my final year and making time to do something with Lorenza proved to be difficult. It was not until I came back from my course in England that I thought of visiting Lorenza downtown.

My European experience that summer left me with the desire to track around Europe. I decided to take a year off from my to-be-journalist career to earn some quick money to fulfill my wish. Tips from waitressing was almost tax free as nobody needed to know the amount of tips made. And I figured I could do very well if I could work in a classy joint. I thought Lorenza might have some idea where I could do just that.

Luckily for me, Lorenza and Dagmar both worked at Friday’s Steak House out on Elgin Street. The restaurant was housed in a historical building and it served roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. There was also a French dip sandwich-slices of roast beef in baguette to be dipped in beef juices. Kenny was the boss and he was an engineer by training. In the interview he told me he only had an opening for a lunch waitress which meant only three hours maximum per day. The offer did not actually fit my get money quick scheme. When he saw I was hesitant, he told me he was turning the space on the second floor into an elegant piano bar and when it was opened, I would be it’s first cocktail waitress. The line sounded familiar. In the back of my mind I remembered Gerry and how horrible that cocktail waitressing work was. But Kenny did look like an honest lot, so I accepted the job.

All the waitresses at Friday’s wore long dresses. I had one from attending my brother’s wedding earlier in the year and I had a nice necklace with wooden beads a friend gave me in London that summer. So I was all set to serve. Tips at lunch time were surprisingly good. Executives from Bell Canada next door filled the tables. After some teething problems with the older waitresses and the cook Joe, I found the same joy working with Lorenza. Too bad at the end of September the piano bar opened. Our work alongside each other came again only when I was asked to substitute an absentee waitress at lunch.

Lorenza was working and going to college. She was also dating different men but none of them were worthy of her. It seemed like her old Spanish boyfriend had put a curse on all her future relationships. I did my share of match making. There were my friends from Carleton University, my brother and even my late uncle. Cupid did not strike and her dream of having a family was put on hold.

We went on a trip to Toronto for a day. One of two trips we made together. She had never been there before whereas I had been there several times. We took the midnight bus after work and arrived early in the morning. Being young and energetic, we spent the day in downtown Toronto sampling the big city air and dinning in Chinatown. Ironically, Toronto would be our last trip together before I moved back to Hong Kong.

My home in the years between late 1977 to September 1980, was opened at all times to friends either in the city or those from Shawville who were in town for a few days. Peter and I had parties of all sort and cooking was never confined to one person’s work. Anyone who liked to cook could make food for others and we had friends dropping in without prior notices. Lorenza was a part of our breezy lifestyle and we included her in all our adventures. I remember one time I drove her to visit our friends in Shawville in January after a heavy snowstorm. Getting there was not as hard as we thought but walking uphill to Heather and Phillip’s property was near impossible as snow came to our knee when one foot sank into the snow-covered ground. We had laughs fooling around until help came from the owners. Heather and Phillip became friends with Lorenza and a few eligible young men from Shawville were introduced to her as a result.

Then in early 1980 my mother suffered from depression. She was never diagnosed with one but she called me at any hours she pleased and usually ended up in uncontrollable sobs. I had to get home. The whole summer was spent in preparation to leave. I rented a car to carry some of Peter’s stuff over to York University where he was to spend two years finishing his MBA. I invited Lorenza to ride down with me and we could hang out together. The occasion turned out to be very awkward as Perter and I had some problems to work through.

Lorenza was sad to see me go. Her desire to get a companion quickly became so strong I feared she could just get together with anyone. I spent two months in Europe before returning home. And a month later, I heard she was to marry Orest Slepokura a high school teacher with Ukrainian origin, and they were to move to a small town in Alberta where he would begin his new teaching assignment.

With a new place of residence away from her family and friends, Lorenza began her new role as wife and very soon mother of a little girl named Kathy. We managed to see each other briefly in 1981 when I visited Edmonton with my mother in the summer before flying out to Ottawa. And of course I met Orest for the first time.

Our next reunion did not work out well. I was in Richmond, BC for the month of August in 1995. Before going there I asked Lorenza if she would be interested in spending some time there as well. I told her about my small condo and that she could stay with us. Lorenza accepted the invitation and she and her family flew in from Calgary. They stayed for only one night and Orest found a motel somewhere at a sky train stop. I guess we did not know him well and he was not familiar to us. My girlfriend and I were no longer single. We had our husbands to think of and if they did not feel comfortable with strangers, we had to accommodate. We went to English Bay to look at the ocean as Kathy, her daughter had never seen an ocean before. We also went to Pacific Exhibition together. I guess our old feelings for each other were not the same. Somehow the passing time had put up a barrier between us. We were too cautious in each other’s company and Lorenza was full of anxieties. There in Vancouver we parted. The sad thing was after seeing each other we drifted further and further away with practically no communication whatsoever between us. In 2003 when we had the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong, I did receive an email from her but with nothing written. I replied by saying we were all right but I got no response in return. In 2009 when I stopped teaching the email address I was using ceased.

It was not until I met Heather and Phillip in September this year (2011) that her name resurfaced. They were asking about her and I told them we lost touch. Then Phillip had this idea of finding her in the Internet. The Facebook search did not give me Lorenza Slepokura and I could not remember Orest name at first, but there was a Kathy Slepokura and I sent her a message asking her if she was my friend’s daughter. I never got an answer from her.

Further search on goggle turned up a counselling teacher with the name of Lorenza Slepokura. Again an email to the association of teachers did not get me an answer. Then I thought of her brother Romano Lelli in Ottawa and found a website for Romano’s Restaurant. Phillip immediately placed a call to Ottawa. It turned out Romano had retired and sold his restaurant. A quick call to the Ottawa directory gave us Romano’s listed number. Heather, Thomas and I were in the living room when the call Phillip placed got through. In return for finding the right person, we were given the bad news. Our friend lost her life to cancer earlier this year. We were all speechless.

In the process of writing this piece my friend’s every facade filled my mind in all those hours. I was bathed by my thoughts on her and that’s my way of saying it had been my luck and honour to have met her.

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