Hostess (4.21)

This hostess works at a diner Henry drives to after the Author completes Heroes and Villains, trapping all of those in Storybrooke in his new story. She appears in "Operation Mongoose, Part 1".

Before the Curse
One such car is next seen being driven by Henry out of Storybrooke, pulling up outside a diner far from town. A waitress from inside this diner sees the particularly fast car and the young man who steps out of it. Henry proceeds to enter the establishment, and the waitress continues to look confused. She compliments him on his "nice parking job", before asking if he's old enough to drive. "Yeah," he lies, "Are you? I need some help." He then takes a small stack of photographs from out of his inside pocket and displays them on the counter. One is of him and Regina, the next of David, the one after that of Mary Margaret and Emma, and the final one of Emma and Henry. He asks if the waitress has seen any of these people, but, after taking a fairly good look at the photographs, she declares that she has not. Urgently, he reveals these people to be his family, so he needs the waitress to be sure. She suggests that he wait here while she asks some of the others, and the kid nods, waiting patiently as the waitress walks away and retrieves her cell phone. He hears her tell some sort of emergency services that she thinks he's a runaway, and so he quickly gathers his photographs in a need to leave. But, as he turns around, he sees something that shocks him - a book on the book stand entitled "Heroes and Villains", by Isaac Heller. The cover features a knight slaying a dragon, and, according to the yellow band at the top, it is a New York Ledger bestseller. Henry lifts it off the shelf, not sure what to make of it, before turning it around and seeing the Author's face printed on the back cover.