2. When Do You Get Off?
DANNY
Valentine’s Day Manhattan
Shake 2 oz bourbon, 3/4 oz vanilla liqueur, and a dash of Angostura bitters with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a toothpick of Luxardo cherries and a ribbon of orange peel.
H e was late again. I glanced at my watch, then over the bar at the light Friday-night crowd. Barb and I had managed so far, but once those desperate Valentine’s-Day dates started to tank, people would pile in to drink away another lost chance at love.
Believe me, I’d been there.
Every Valentine’s Day, I turned into that guy, the one who saw love everywhere. My memories of shoeboxes decorated with red and white construction paper, the cheesy jokes on the cards, and enough chocolate to put me in a sugar coma always gave me hope that the right person was out there, wanting to be my significant otter.
And every Valentine’s Day, I was disappointed.
A lime wedge bounced off my forehead. “Look alive, Carbone.” Barb nodded at the woman with the sad eyes bellied up to my end of the bar.
“Sorry.” I leaped into action, tossing an extra cherry into her Manhattan. She’d need more than that to get through the rest of her date with Bud Light Guy, who couldn’t be bothered to fetch their drinks.
I swiped at the bar with a cloth and straightened the garnish tray, plucking a heart-shaped piece of confetti out of the olive brine. I squinted at the door like I could make him come through it through the power of my will.
Barb rolled up beside me and threw the brake on her wheelchair. “Don’t worry. He’ll show. He’s never let us down yet.”
I gazed down into her crinkled blue eyes. “What if there was an accident?”
“Pish posh. It’s much more likely your little brother lost track of time in the kitchen than a mishap on the BART. The bus might run late, but it’s safe.”
“I know.” I pulled out my phone. There were plenty of texts in my siblings’ group chat, but nothing from Leo. “I just?—”
“You worry, Mother Hen,” she said. “About everything. It’s why I trust you with my bar.”
A feeling like carbonation bubbled through my stomach. If all went according to plan, it’d be my bar this time next year. Mine and Leo’s.
“Won’t you miss this place?” I asked, scanning the polished wood, the well-worn high-top tables, the vintage movie posters on the wall.
Barb’s gaze fell on her most prized possession in its place of honor next to the bar, the West Side Story poster signed by Natalie Wood. “Of course I will. But when I’m on my world cruise, looking out at the Sydney Opera House, I don’t think I’ll be worrying about cockroaches in the dry storage or the rising price of tequila.”
I chuckled. “Fair.”
“And look.” She tipped her head toward the swinging door behind me. “There he is.”
My brother barreled into the tight quarters. A couple inches taller than me and rounder around the middle, he always seemed too big for it. He held one of his biodegradable clamshell containers in front of him.
“You have to try this, Danny. And Barb.” His round cheeks were pink, either from the February chill or from boyish delight. He opened the box, and a mouthwatering aroma drifted out.
“You were late for french fries?” I wiped my hands on the towel that hung from my front jeans pocket and reached into the box.
“Be sure to try the garlic aioli.” After Barb and I both dipped a fry in the sauce and took a bite, he said, “They’re fried in truffle oil. And I shaved a little truffle on top.”
I chewed the delicious morsel and swallowed. It was the best thing I’d eaten since our mom’s Bolognese last Easter.
“Oh, my stars,” Barb said. “My taste buds are singing.”
“Good, isn’t it?” Leo’s tentative smile was full of hope.
“Let me try one, Leo.” Walter, one of our regulars, beckoned. Leo held out the box to him.
“Shaved truffle sounds expensive,” I grumbled.
“Well, yeah, the truffles cost about twenty-five each, but there’s only a tiny amount on these. And the truffle oil is a little pricey. I paid two hundred for a gallon, but I could probably get a bulk discount.”
“Two hundred?” My voice rose to an outraged squeak. “You mean it’ll cost a grand to fill up the fryer? For that kind of money, we could replace the leaky ladies’ room faucet with the fancy touchless kind.”
“I’ll try to oven-bake the next batch,” he said. “That’ll use a lot less oil.”
“You gonna eat the rest of those?” Walter said.
Leo handed them over. “They’re good, right?”
Walter nodded, his mouth full.
I lowered my voice. “I thought we were saving money, Leo.”
“But it’s for the bar. We’ll add them to the menu.”
“Walter,” I said, “would you pay twenty bucks for those fries?”
He stuffed the last one in his mouth. “Twenty bucks? I could buy a burger and a beer for that. You’re not going to charge me, are you?”
I hit Leo with an accusatory glare as I poured a fresh glass of water and set it in front of our customer. “That was on the house. Thanks for being our guinea pig.”
“You boys can do whatever you like with the bar when it’s yours,” Barb said gently, “but the customers here are middle class. They might have truffle-oil taste, but they’ve got a peanut-oil budget.”
Silently, we scanned the patrons. They were mechanics with grease on their jeans, teachers drinking off a long day with sugared-up kids, landscapers brushing grass clippings out of their hair and onto the sixty-year-old wood-plank floor. My siblings and I had gone to school with some of them. Barb had served them for years. She’d served some of their parents too. It was a place people came to connect with the community, to have a little fun after work.
In my eyes, it was perfect.
“I’ve been thinking,” Leo said, “what if we used the kitchen to run a catering business?”
I coughed on a sip of water. “You mean on the side, in addition to the bar food?”
“Yeah. It’d bring in extra cash. And I’d manage the whole operation. It’d be my food truck on rails. Well, not literally. But I could make so much more food in a real kitchen. Banquets. Weddings. You name it.”
I pictured Leo trying to share the tiny space with the cook. Norm had worked with Barb since day one, and I was pretty sure he’d rather quit than bump shoulders with an entire catering staff, including my upstart brother with his fanciful menu.
“Do you really think there’s room for a catering business and Norm back there? Installing extra equipment would be?—”
“Expensive, I know.” Leo sighed. “Maybe we can brainstorm about it later.”
“Sure.” I’d always humored my little brother’s nutty ideas. I’d gone along with my fair share, too. But this wouldn’t be one of them. “Let’s talk tomorrow. You and I are opening.”
“Right. And sorry I was late tonight. Time got away from me.”
It wasn’t the first time. Still, I said, “Don’t worry about it. Barb and I had it under control. I’m glad you’re here now. Get their drinks?” I pointed at a group of nurses at the far end of the bar.
“On it.” He tied an apron around his waist and strode toward them.
Barb, Leo, and I worked like a well-oiled clock that night. Barb handled the accessible end of the bar like always, and Leo and I took turns serving the rest of it and carrying cases of beer and racks of glasses to the dishwasher and back. There was a rush at eight and another at ten. We floated and replaced two kegs, and Barb arranged rides for those customers who needed them. By eleven thirty, the bar was only about half full. We’d closed the kitchen, and I’d cut two servers and carried up what I hoped was the last bucket of ice when a tingle raced across my skin. I glanced toward the door.
She’d walked in, her cheeks pink and her dark curls wild from the wind. Unwinding the scarf from her neck, she strode to Barb’s end of the bar and sank onto a chair like she owned it.
I couldn’t help smiling. My dad had fond memories of an old app where the person who’d visited a particular location the most often was crowned the mayor. If that app were still around, Lucie Knox would be the mayor of Barb’s Bar. And she acted like it.
Flashing a queenly smile at another regular, she turned just as Barb set her drink on the coaster.
Another scotch night. After dumping the ice into the bin, I edged closer.
“…total nightmare, as usual,” she said. “Hey, Danny.”
Whoa. The white flash of her teeth as she smiled dazzled me. Was she wearing lipstick? I tried to be subtle as I scanned the rest of her. Black clothes, as always. She wore a dress under her black coat. My breath caught at the glimpse of her tan legs that reminded me of another night when they’d been wrapped around my waist.
She hadn’t missed my checking her out. Lucie never missed anything. It was why she was such a talented reporter. She tipped her head, and even her dark pupils glittered. “What’s up?” And then she glanced pointedly at my crotch.
I took half a step back and bumped into the back bar, rattling the bottle of Tito’s.
“H-hi, Lucie.” I bent to straighten the bottles in Barb’s speed rail so the labels faced out, but that only made more blood rush to my face. Why could I never keep my cool around her?
“Busy night?”
Barb watched us, her eyes glinting with fascination.
“Yeah, I guess.” I checked the garnish tray. Damn, it was full. “What with the holiday and all.”
“Holiday?” Lucie crinkled her forehead.
I waved at the red and pink streamers hanging from the glass rack. “Valentine’s Day?”
“Right.” Slowly, she nodded, and my heart rate slowed by a few beats. Maybe she wasn’t cruising for a post dating disaster hookup. Maybe she was just chatting, and I wouldn’t be faced with the temptation to follow her upstairs, only to have my heart bruised when she inevitably kicked me out without so much as a cuddle.
Because even if Lucie Knox were the kind of woman who was interested in anything more than a hookup, she wouldn’t choose me.
She was college educated. Brilliant. Had written that amazing piece about human trafficking when I was still in middle school. (Yes, I’d googled her.) Not to mention confident and gorgeous.
Me? I’d never been to college. I had no deep thoughts about the low value our government puts on vulnerable people like women, children, and immigrants. I was a bartender. I lived in the small apartment upstairs because Barb let me stay there for free.
I’d never be worthy of anything more than an orgasm or three to Lucie.
“Hey,” she said, her teeth gleaming under that red lipstick, lipstick I was tempted to kiss off her face, “what time do you get off?”
Which, apparently, was exactly what she wanted from me.