Chapter 11
11.
Opening Night
“Disco Witches always have their dancing shoes ready—just in case.”
—Disco Witch Manifesto #5
“We got just two hours until this bar opens,” Vince said, stepping out of the liquor closet with two bottles of Johnny Walker Black. “I need to run over to Mulligan’s Grocery to pay our tab and grab more limes. Elena, darlin’, would it bother your decorating if I borrowed wee Joe for a bit?”
Elena’s eyebrows raised in amused disbelief as they often did around Vince. “Aye-aye, Captain … darlin’.”
“Much thanks. Now, Joseph, I hope you’re clear on the order of the speed rack like I taught you. Left to right: rum, vodka, gin, brandy, whiskey, bourbon, tequila, triple sec, vermouth! Got it?”
“Yeah, Vince,” Joe muttered.
“You better. I’m testing you when I’m back.”
As soon as Vince had left, Joe’s body slid down the wall into a head-buried crouch. “He’s going to kill me.”
“No he’s not,” Elena said as she affixed a large, desiccated starfish to the old-fashioned fishnet on the back wall.
“He will,” Joe said. “I was gonna stay up all night cramming the Mr. Boston , but I fell asleep in the middle of the Gin Rickey. Nothing stuck. The only cocktails I have memorized are the martini and Sex on the Beach. That takes rum, right?”
“Vodka with peach schnapps,” she corrected.
“Figures I’d screw up anything to do with sex. He’s going to fire me.”
Elena offered Joe a sympathetic pouty face. “It’s okay, hon. It’ll work out fine. Dory loves you, and that’s the only important thing.”
“Thanks for saying that.” Joe took in Elena’s decorations. The plain walls were now draped with old netting, green glass balls, and artificial fish. Vintage photos of whales and naked sailors hung under each fixture. “By the way, you did a kick-ass job with this place. You’ve got a great eye.”
Elena sighed and readjusted the space between a plastic lobster and a giant seahorse. “This bar is immune to a makeover. It’s like trying to make Anita Bryant look like Cyndi Lauper.”
“That’s not true. It really looks great.” Joe thought how much Elena had changed in only a few days. Her hardness had been replaced with a sweetness and vulnerability. Every so often he’d see her stop what she was doing and stare into the air with a melancholy look on her face. Did Elena have an Elliot somewhere too? Or some other kind of heartbreak? He was about to broach the topic, when Vince burst through the door with the small crate of limes.
“Have you been practicing,” Vince shouted, “or yabbering like a lazy gobshite?”
Before Joe could respond, Elena interrupted. “You lucked out with this one, Vince. He’s like the Boris Becker of bartending.” She winked at Joe. “I will let you two gobshites —whatever the hell that means—get to whatever you’re doing next.”
“Hold on there,” Vince said. “Joe and I want to buy you a drink for the great job you did with the redecoration. Place looks pure class. Joe, get the lady a drink!”
“That’s okay,” Elena said. “I’m good—”
“Come on!” Joe said, not wanting to be left alone with Vince. “Let us buy you a beer at least!” He pulled their three most expensive beers from the cooler and set them on the bar. “We got Heineken, Corona, Amstel even! What’ll it be? Have all three if you want.”
Elena stared at the three icy, sweaty bottles for what seemed to Joe an unusually long time. “I really … um … can’t,” she said, anxiously throwing her decorating materials in a bag. “But that’s really sweet of you. I have to go to a meet—to meet some friends. But that beer looks really good … I mean wet and all. Okay, I’ll check in later. Good luck tonight. Bye!” She blew a kiss to Joe and bolted out the door.
“Well, she was certainly in a hurry,” Vince said, puzzling his brow.
“Yeah,” Joe said. “I hope she’s okay, and nothing bad is going on.”
“Not really our business.” Vince slammed the limes on the counter. “What is our business is this bar, which is opening”—he looked at the merman clock—“in exactly one hour and forty-three minutes. Now, Joseph, do you think you can relieve at least some of my terror by showing me you’ve memorized the order of the speed rack?”
“Um, I think so …”
“Don’t think , Joseph. Know! Now let’s see it!”
Joe stared at the bottles on the bar top as if they were nine brawny Irish thugs about to shove his head down a toilet. “Is it … rum, vodka, brandy …?”
Vince pinched his eyes like he was in pain. “What in Christ’s name am I going to do with you? Memory is a bartender’s most important skill.” His voice ached with frustration. “You need to remember customers’ names, what they regularly drink, whether or not they paid their tab, whether they earned a shot after their third drink—and you need to remember all that while you’re making two drinks and serving a third and setting up the goddamn speed rack like I taught you!” He slammed his fist on the bar top, causing Joe to jump.
“For Chrissake, Vince!” Joe snapped. “I swear to God I’m trying my best, but you’ve been running me like crazy and acting like a dick, and I’ve barely had any sleep in the last week, and I’m …” He stopped himself. No way did he want to cry in front of Vince.
“Okay, okay. You’re right.” Vince sighed and softened. “I’m being an ass. I’m sorry. The thing is, we just have to make sure we’re offering, hands down, the best bar service in the Pines.”
Exasperated, Joe looked around at the shabby bar. Even with Elena’s Herculean decoration efforts, she was right; the bar couldn’t be made into anything more than what it was: a booze-serving, sleazy shoebox.
“Why? Will it really matter that much?”
“It will, Joseph, it will. You see, Scotty Black—that same shoibag who made us do the load-in from the other side of the harbor this morning, the same putrid turd who lied about giving you a job out here—has been scheming to shut down Asylum Harbor for good.”
That must’ve been the “situation” he and Dory had been talking about. “But doesn’t he earn money from Dory renting the space?”
“He does, plus a percentage of the till. But he claims having an unpopular bar in the harbor hurts his other businesses. And there’s a clause in their agreement that says Scotty can cancel Dory’s lease if Asylum Harbor doesn’t turn a profit for at least two of the four months we’re open. So, my point is, it’ll take all our charm, looks, and outstanding service to convince these early season lads to stick with us through the summer. If we don’t, then Asylum Harbor closes, Dory’s heart breaks, and you and I will be out on the boardwalk begging for our supper. Now do you understand?”
Joe nodded.
“Good, good. That’s grand. But in order to provide top-quality service so we can stay open, you’re going to need to start remembering things, starting with”—he slammed a bottle from the speed rack back onto the counter—“how to set up the feckin’ speed rack like a bartender and not a bloody eejit!”
“Why you calling my buddy an idiot?” Ronnie called out from the doorway. He wore a sleeveless denim shirt unbuttoned to his belly button, Playgirl model style.
“I can’t talk now, Ronnie,” Joe called from the bar, not wanting to piss Vince off again. “We’re in the middle of something—”
“Just a quick flyby.” Ronnie tossed Vince one of his top-shelf seductive smiles. “Hey, Sid McVicious, you better be nice to my Joey.”
Joe watched as the Irishman narrowed his eyes to cold green slits, a wolf ready to devour a wounded deer. This is it, Joe thought. He’s gonna explode.
“Who the feck are you?” Vince’s voice turned into a low leonine rumble.
“The name’s Ronnie Kaminsky. I’m Joe’s happiness mentor and bodyguard. Who the feck are you?” The Irish brogue attempt made Vince smile—something Joe barely ever saw.
“You can call me Vince, but what in Saint Agnes’s tit is a happiness mentor ?”
“It just means I guide people to become their best selves.” Ronnie sauntered into the center of the bar. “Really my main job is being Joe’s best friend.”
“Are ya now? I will say I’m surprised wee Joseph here has any friends other than the sparrows and bunnies singing circles around him in the meadows.”
“Don’t take my buddy for granted,” Ronnie said. “He may look like an adorable, furry Disney character, but he’s got a killer’s instinct.”
Vince and Ronnie briefly held their deadpan stare before bursting into laughter. When the laughter subsided, they shook hands, scanning each other’s faces, sniffing each other’s scent, their muscular fingers exploring the skin and veins on the other man’s wrists. Joe might as well have disappeared into the rubber sludge mat.
Vince finally released Ronnie’s hand. “You’re working over at the Flotel, right?”
“Really I’m just killing time there until the Promethean opens,” Ronnie lied. “But I should be head bartender at High Tea by mid-June at the latest.”
Joe was astounded by Ronnie’s blatant dishonesty. Although, it was unlikely he and Vince would still be talking after Ronnie accomplished his pump-and-dump revenge plan—something about which Joe was feeling worse and worse.
“Careful Scotty Black doesn’t make you do anything you’ll regret,” Vince said.
“Trust me.” Ronnie lifted his upper torso over the bar closer to Vince, then said in a husky whisper, “I’m a very big boy, and I never do anything I regret.”
The men were back staring into each other’s eyes. Joe wondered what it would be like to be them at that moment, two muscle studs in their prime, both confident and hungry for each other. He knew it was just a game for Ronnie, and probably for Vince as well, but still, the sight of their mutually rapacious longing highlighted all that was missing in his life—all that he doubted he’d ever have again.
“I’m afraid your wee friend and I have to get back to work,” Vince purred. “I’d ask you to stop by at the end of my shift, but we don’t close until four in the morning.”
“I don’t mind. I rise very, very early.” Ronnie let his torso slide off the bar and turned to leave. Just before he walked out the door, he looked back at Vince (as Joe knew he would) and tossed his chin upward like he was an extra-sexy Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca .
As soon as he was gone, Vince’s smile vanished. “If you think pimping out your hot friend is gonna make me go soft on you, think again. Now start prepping the limes! We’ve only a little over an hour left, so I don’t have time to quiz you. But if I hear you’re messing up the drink orders later tonight, I’m nipping off your fingers with my teeth.”