Chapter Six
Juniper
S plit-second fast in my head but dead-drunk sluggish in my reflexes, I turned toward the bartender like I was slow-motion auditioning for a cartoon, and my voice came out just a little slurred. “Hey! Where’s our shit?”
The bearded hipster wannabe looked up from wiping down the bar. “I cleared your empties. Want another round?” The asshole smiled.
“Not our glasses, our phones and her purse!” I slapped the table for emphasis. “They were right here.”
The asshole’s eyes went wide as he held his hands up. “Wasn’t me, man. There was nothing on the table but empties. I didn’t touch anything except those shot glasses.” He glanced up and down his bar at the lumps on stools. “Anyone see these ladies’ belongings?”
A chorus of no’s echoed, and that was my undoing.
I lunged for the nearest barfly like a woman on a mission. Which happened to be the seedy creep who’d checked out my twins. “It was you!” I got a solid grip on the old jerk’s greasy hair.
The bartender rushed at us with shocking speed. “Hey now, leave Old Man Bob out of it. He didn’t take your stuff.” Gripping my wrist, he shook my hand loose, then let go of me. “He hasn’t gotten off his stool since he came in this morning.”
“Well, our phones didn’t grow legs and walk off themselves.” I pointed a now-greasy hand attached to my wobbly arm at the row of barflies. “ Someone took our shit.”
Reenie gently pushed my arm down. “It’s okay, Juni. I didn’t really have anything in my purse, anyway.” My sensible friend looked calmly at the hipster jerk bartender. “Can you ring up our tab and give me my credit card, please?”
Oh, hell no . “We’re not paying for drinks when they stole our shit.” I jabbed my pointer finger, and by proxy my newly reextended arm, at the row of eyes that were all on us now. “Which one of you assholes did this?” I demanded.
The bartender struck down my arm with a chopping motion like he knew karate, then quickly shoved his hand into his pocket as if he were afraid I’d bite it off. “Hey, guys. Anyone see anything?”
Blank stares and head shakes.
Tears of anger welled, and the ticking feeling in my head became a horrible itch.
The hipster wannabe bartender looked at me like he gave a shit, but he didn’t. Every man I’d ever met was a liar. “I’m sorry. I’ll get your contact information and call you if anything turns up. I swear.” He reached behind him, grabbed Reenie’s card, and handed it to her. “No charge.” His voice softened for her. “I really am sorry.”
“Call,” I scoffed as my bestie took her credit card. “How are you gonna do that, genius ? We have NO PHONES!”
Reenie grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the exit.
“Hey,” the asshole bartender called after us. “Leave me your contact info.”
I didn’t bother telling him it was pointless.
Our shit was gone, and Reenie had only given her number to exactly two people since I’d met her six months ago.
Me and some stranger named Charlie, no last name, who she was going to marry tomorrow in the Bahamas, or Fiji, or Bali. Whatever. It was some tropical island. I was shit at geography. My cell was gone. I couldn’t pay for dinner, let alone a new phone, and the only person I called friend was leaving.