Best-selling author Janet Evanovich says she was a lousy waitress, and she pays tribute to her former self in her latest novel.
The year-round Florida resident and New Jersey native said “Look Alive Twenty-Five,” the latest in her Stephanie Plum series about the fictional bounty hunter, touches on her real-life waitressing while attending college.
The book — which publishes Tuesday — centers around deli managers who keep disappearing, leaving behind only a shoe.
“I made no tips. I was just a moron,” Evanovich said in a recent telephone interview.
She said she waitressed at a Howard Johnson restaurant, those orange-roofed travel lodges and eateries common throughout the U.S. years ago. Evanovich recalled wearing “hideous, puffy sleeves” as part of her lime green and peach uniform, along with white shoes.
“My boyfriend would pick me up, and I smelled so bad from the fried clams, he rolled down his car windows,” she said.
Before she became a stay-at-home mom, Evanovich said, she worked other jobs to help make ends meet — similar to her Plum character — while raising two children with her husband, Pete, of more than 50 years.
“I had all these horrible jobs,” she said. “Telephone solicitor, a waitress, sold used cars, worked for a hospital supply company selling colostomy bags. You name it, I had the worst job.”
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