CHAPTER 4
“O kay. Let’s go do our homework,” Rory said to the two near-teenagers in front of her.
“I don’t want to,” Simon replied.
“I don’t want to, either, but we have no choice,” Rory said as she ran a hand over the back of the eleven-year-old’s head. “Come on. I’ll help you with yours if you help me with mine.”
“I can’t do your homework,” he argued.
“You can’t even do your own ,” his twelve-year-old sister, Stacey, teased.
“Shut up,” he told her.
“Hey, let’s get the homework done so you can watch TV before your mom gets home,” Rory said and motioned for them to move from the kitchen, where they’d just eaten the dinner she’d made for them, and into the living room, where they had tossed their backpacks onto the floor after she’d picked them up from school.
She had started graduate school that previous fall, and the jobs she could find that worked for her schedule didn’t pay very much, but being a part-time nanny did. It also helped that she was going to school to become a social worker and loved kids. She worked for two families on a regular basis and also babysat through an app where people could request her services, and if she was free, she’d take the job. Rory was CPR and Heimlich certified, had an undergraduate degree in early childhood development, and didn’t mind taking care of babies through teens who just needed a little adult supervision after school, so that gave her a better chance at being selected by the parents.
Simon and Stacey had been clients of hers for about a year now, and she liked to consider the kids to be her clients, not the parents, because she wanted them to be happy at the end of the day. Besides, if she made them happy, the parents were usually happy as well. Simon and Stacey’s parents, for example, had gone through a divorce two years prior, so the kids were still adjusting to spending most of their time with only their mother and visiting their father every other weekend, and Rory liked to check in with them from time to time to see how they were feeling. She had the permission of their mother to do so, and it gave her much-needed practice, so she considered it a win-win for all. She never violated the kids’ trust, but she did let their mother know if she should also check in with one or both of them.
Being a nanny paid better than most jobs Rory could get, to be sure, but it still wasn’t enough to cover all of her bills, so whenever she thought about how, in a few years, she would have to start paying off all of her accumulated student loans, it made her brain hurt. She had always known that her parents wouldn’t be able to really help, so she’d studied hard and managed to get a few scholarships and a grant, but while those helped, of course, they didn’t cover everything, and as a result, she had had one job or another since going away to school at eighteen.
As the kids got settled at the formal dining room table, Rory went to find her own bag, which had her homework in it. Sitting down with the two siblings, she checked on Stacey, who never needed as much help as her younger brother, and helped Simon with his math problems before she started on her own assignment. Just as she began taking notes on what she read from her textbook, her phone buzzed from its spot on the table, and Simon was the first to look up.
“Homework time. No phones. Rory’s in trouble,” he teased her.
“She’s an adult, Simon,” Stacey remarked, looking over and rolling her eyes at her brother.
Rory chuckled at them and looked down at her phone. It was a text from Candace, who was asking if she could stop by the bar later to help with some more of the remodel. Rory had studying to do, but she supposed she could spare an hour or two. When she replied, Candace messaged again and asked if she could also bring some of those new friends Rory had just made because the more hands she had, the better. Rory wasn’t sure if any of them would be available so last-minute, but she still texted Linden just to see because she’d do anything for Candace, who had been her best friend since she first got to school and they’d roomed together in the dorms.
Linden Washington : Can you give us, like, an hour?
Rory assumed that the us Linden was referring to was her and Asher, and she texted her back that she’d be done herself in about an hour, so that was fine. Plans made, she returned her eyes to her textbook and listened to the kids bicker back and forth until their mother arrived home.
Rory wasn’t sure if she wanted kids of her own. Part of her thought that she did, but the other part figured that she’d be surrounded by kids all day at work already, and she didn’t enjoy watching Simon and Stacey’s mom struggle with being a single parent. The father in the other family she regularly babysat for worked from home most days and stayed in his office until dinner, returning to it immediately after, which made Rory feel like she was seeing yet another mother who was more a single mother than co-parent, and it just looked so hard.
Simon and Stacey’s mom always got home from work after dinner or just in time for it, and sometimes, she would dismiss Rory right after that to spend time with the kids, but other times, she’d ask if Rory could stay for a bit longer so that she could get some cleaning done around the house. At eleven and twelve, the two siblings didn’t really need much supervision, but having Rory there to keep them entertained or help them with their homework gave their mother time to do laundry, vacuum, or do other housework without being distracted. Rory knew that if she ever had kids herself, she’d want a true partner to share them with, but when she thought that these two women probably also wanted that and ended up divorced or having a husband who never spent time with the kids, she got a little worried. She supposed no one could predict a divorce, but to Rory, that was scary.
After she finished checking Simon’s English homework, she said her goodbyes to the kids and hit the road. Her life was busy, and as she drove, she tried to plan just how she could do it all. She had a paper due in a couple of days that she’d have to work on later tonight, but she could give Candace an hour or two of hard labor first. She also had her own chores around the house, but she figured she’d have to make time for those another day instead of doing them before she started on her paper like she’d planned initially.
Arriving at the bar, Rory found a spot to park a block away and walked the rest of the way. It was a nice night, and she really took in the bar’s surroundings for the first time. It wouldn’t be for tourists. Candace’s goal had been to make a local bar that, if tourists happened to find, so be it, but she didn’t want it to be like the bars in the Quarter, even though those made a lot of money. She wanted a bar that was more like her uncle’s old place, where she’d have regulars whose drink orders she could memorize and have them ready when she saw the person walk in, or even before that if she knew that they’d come in at the same time every day.
“Hey,” Rory said to her best friend when she walked in.
“Oh, hey. Thank you for coming,” Candace replied. “I stupidly thought I could get this place open by Friday all on my own.”
Rory laughed and said, “Well, I can give you two hours of help before I need to go home to study. What can I do?”
“Can you finish the last coat of stain on the bar while I try to rearrange these tables for the tenth time and then take some photos for the website?”
“Sure,” Rory replied. “Where is it?”
“Under the bar where you left it,” Candace told her.
Rory walked around the bar and opened the half door in order to get behind it.
“You know, if you want to make some extra cash, I could use the help,” Candace added as she pulled a table one foot to the left and stared at it.
“Bartending?” she asked.
“You’ve done it before.”
“Not in a while. And I wasn’t very good at it,” she said before she found the can of dark stain and the brush she’d set next to it after cleaning it.
“I’m expecting the kinds of customers who order beer and maybe some basic shots, Rory. I’d be here to make the more complicated drinks, and I’m hiring, too.”
“I thought you were just going to run it by yourself for a bit.”
“Yeah… That was dumb of me,” Candace replied. “I’ve decided that I want to offer light appetizers, too, but to do that, I’ll need someone to cook while someone’s behind the bar.”
“You didn’t think this through, did you?” Rory asked and opened the container.
“Not really, no. I mean, I did to a certain extent since I knew I wanted to own my own place, but I didn’t think it would happen for another decade, at least. When this place appeared on the market, though, I couldn’t resist. It reminds me of my uncle’s bar, which always kind of reminded me of Cheers, and I don’t think we have enough local watering holes here. I won’t make as much as I would’ve had I owned a tourist place, but I can still make a good living here if I do everything right.”
“You will,” Rory replied.
“I’ve got two positions open right now. One is for another bartender, and the other is for a line cook with experience. The menu will be basic at first, to see what sells, and if things work out, I can hire more.”
“You still want me to bartend, too?” Rory asked as she started working.
“If you want to. You’re here pretty much all the time, anyway, so I thought you might want to make a few bucks. I can only pay you minimum wage, which sucks, but you’d make tips, too, and those would be all yours.”
“I can’t work regular shifts. I never know my schedule. Sometimes, babysitting pays a lot more than what I’d make anywhere else, and I can usually get in some studying time. Here, I wouldn’t be able to if I was behind the bar.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. But if you’re already here and I need you, you can just clock in if you want. How about that?” Candace asked her as she pulled another table over to where she wanted it.
“Sure,” Rory agreed.
The door opened a few seconds later, and Asher walked in, with Linden close behind.
“Hey. Sorry, we’re a little late. Ash and I were celebrating,” Linden said.
“Linden!” Asher laughed. “We went to dinner. She just means we were celebrating at dinner.”
“Celebrating?” Candace asked.
“Asher is striking out on her own. She’s starting her own wedding planning company and just gave notice to our boss.”
“What? Really? That’s great,” Rory said, assuming that it was great because Linden had used the word ‘celebrate.’
“Yes. It’s happening, and I’m terrified,” Asher added.
Linden took her hand and said, “She’s going to kick ass.”
“But you still work there?” Candace checked. “That’s what you said, right? You two worked together.”
“Yeah, for more than a decade,” Asher said. “It’s the end of an era.” She looked over at Linden. “It’s going to be really strange, not going into that office every day where she is, but I gave our boss thirty days, so I still have a month of that before I go out on my own. Things will be complicated for a while.”
“So, you’ll be kind of competing,” Rory noted as she slid the brush along the wood.
“For a while,” Asher replied as they walked toward the bar. “But my hope is that Linden will join me one day, and we’ll be business partners.”
“You don’t want to do that now?” Candace asked.
“Not yet. Ash knows my reasons, and she’s good with it,” Linden replied. “So, what can we help with?”
“Oh, God. Anything,” Candace replied. “I’m moving furniture right now so that I can take some decent pictures for the website. If you want, the kitchen in the back could use a good scrub down. Or, if you don’t want to do that, I can offer you the chance to clean the glassware. Free drinks for a month for whatever you choose.”
“A whole month? I need to start drinking the top-shelf stuff, then,” Linden said.
“Do you want help with the furniture first? We can get that done and then clean whatever,” Asher offered.
“That would be amazing,” Candace replied.
Rory could tell her best friend was exhausted. She had been working on this bar day and night, and Rory was pretty sure Candace had even slept here at least a few times. Keith, her boyfriend, wasn’t much help because he lived two hours away and had a job that required him to work nights. He’d been trying to find one in New Orleans that would get him on a more regular schedule for a while now, and Rory knew that once he did, he would move in with Candace, and eventually, they’d get married and probably own this bar together. It was what Candace wanted, and Rory knew that the woman missed him. They’d been together for a long time, but circumstances had always meant he’d had to live at least a couple of hours away, and now that Candace was working at the bar, things were harder for them.
“Hey,” Rory said once Candace had finished taking the pictures she would need for the site.
“Do you have to go?” Candace asked.
“Not yet. I’m going to finish the bar first. But maybe you should take a minute and call Keith,” she suggested. “He doesn’t go in until midnight, right? I’m sure he’s up already.”
Candace sighed and said, “I didn’t even get to talk to him yesterday. This bar is consuming me.”
“Just call him now. Take ten minutes, Candace. You deserve it. And I’m sure he misses you, too.”
“I feel guilty… You’re working, Asher and Linden are working, and it’s all for me. I shouldn’t take a break.”
“Ten minutes. I won’t tell them if you don’t. Go outside and walk around the block. Call it research on foot traffic possibilities if it makes you feel better, but talk to your boyfriend.”
Rory gave her a light shove out from behind the bar.
“Fine. Fine. I will. But you’re not the boss of me, Rory Winter. I’m the boss of me.” Candace smiled.
“And you’re the boss of this place now, which is pretty cool,” Rory replied, smiling back.
“Yeah, it is.” Candace looked around the bar, smiling even wider.
Rory loved to see her friend this happy. She wished the woman didn’t have to work quite as hard, but she supposed that was what made it all worth it in the end.
An hour later, she’d finished her task, and Asher and Linden were done as well. Candace remained there, but she promised that she would be leaving soon, so Rory left and went home to shower the smell of the stain off her skin and get to the studying she should’ve been doing all along.