Chapter 7
SEVEN
ESTELLE
Then
Estelle shoved the knife into the jar of mayo as if she was plunging it into her fiercest enemy before sloughing the condiment onto the last slice of bread in the bag.
The spongy piece flattened with the force, and even the frailty of this inanimate thing made her blood boil.
Everything around her was spineless, drifting, undefined, averse.
Including the food in her kitchen apparently.
She found a spotted banana and some chips in the pantry and shoved everything into a brown paper bag, not caring about the noise she was making. She was running late, but if she didn’t pack this lunch, Greg would forget like he always did.
Setting it on the corner of the counter, she looked around.
Over the last few months, Greg had moved on from beer to stronger stuff, and the smell of yesterday’s binge seeped out of the garbage bin.
It didn’t matter that she’d straightened the pillows on the couch or wiped down the kitchen table. This place was gross.
Her home was gross.
A wave of shame heated her cheeks before she rolled her shoulders back and tightened her resolve.
She’d tell Greg tonight after the gig that she was done.
No more ultimatums or second chances. A long time ago, he’d been someone to count on who cared if she had a good or bad day, who supported her dreams, but every passing moment made that memory fade further into the fog of the youth they’d long since left behind.
She’d be thirty-one in a few weeks; she had so much more life in her.
But only if she left Greg. That was the conclusion she’d reached. It was time.
Somewhere down the hallway, a door opened, but instead of calling out a good morning, Estelle grabbed the car keys from their hook by the door and left. If she got roped into a conversation now, she’d hit traffic on her way to the plant nursery, and that was the last thing she needed.
After making sure she had her serving shoes in the car already so she could go straight from her day job to Barnie’s later, she peeled out of the mobile home park, pretending she didn’t see the face in the window watching her leave.
On Thursdays and Fridays, Barnie’s Bar and Grill had live music from nine to midnight, and a month ago, Estelle had finally saved enough to get her guitar back and mustered up the courage to ask if she could get a spot.
After playing a tune for Barnie, he’d agreed, as long as she “didn’t expect to get paid for it.
” Which was fine. She knew nothing if not how to pay her dues.
She hadn’t sung publicly since they’d lived in Waynesboro, but she’d been writing and dreaming, and when she’d played a cover of Dolly Parton’s “It’s All Wrong, But It’s Alright” a couple of weeks ago, the patrons had enjoyed it.
She hummed it as she drove through the countryside after finishing her shift at the nursery, her fingers mimicking strumming on the steering wheel.
Tonight, she was getting the twenty minutes leading up to midnight, and she would be ready.
She’d even included two original songs in her set list. It was a gamble seeing as she hadn’t had that long to practice, but she was done playing things safe.
The restaurant was busier than usual for a Thursday, the kitchen vibrating with energy as she made her way through to the back room where there were lockers the staff could put their valuables in. They didn’t fit a guitar though, so Estelle popped her head into Barnie’s office.
“Okay if I put this in here?”
“Go ahead,” he said, wiping his beading brow. “Damn, it’s hot in here tonight.”
“I can get you a drink,” Estelle offered, tying her black apron around her waist. Barnie was a good boss. He paid fair wages and was low on the creep factor—two things that mattered more than they should.
He waved her off with a grunt while pulling the table fan on his desk closer.
“It’s packed tonight,” Estelle said.
“There’s another trade show in town this weekend. The hotels are booked full from what I hear.”
“Good for us,” Estelle said.
“Good for us,” Barnie agreed.
Estelle took off her rings and then pulled her shoulder-length brown hair into a ponytail before heading into the bar.
“Oh, thank God you’re here,” Sandy, one of the other bartenders said with a glance over her shoulder. “These guys are thirsty.”
As if to prove her right, a blonde guy in a blue Polo shirt snapped his fingers to get Estelle’s attention a second later. “’Scuse me.”
“Seems like it,” Estelle told Sandy with a smirk. Then she nodded to the guy. “What can I get you?”
“Could we get nine beers to that table over there?” He pointed to a group of identical-looking men—sales guys no doubt—at a round table in the center of the room.
“Um…” Estelle scanned the floor for one of the waitresses that normally would take table orders, but they were all swamped.
She had a choice to make. She could turn the sale down and risk losing a substantial tip, or she could step out from behind the counter this once. “Sure,” she said. “Want to open a tab?”
“You know it.” He tossed her his card, and she made a mental note to be protective of that table tonight as it had clear potential to be good for her pockets.
“Be right back,” she told Sandy, picking up the tray with the beers and rounding the bar.
The guys were rowdy but not in a threatening way, seeming to know better than to mess with the staff, and several hands helped her unload the drinks while the conversation between the men jumped between quotas and tee times and other concepts Estelle had no interest in.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked, putting the tray under her arm.
She regarded the group while they declined, one after another, her gaze landing on a man at the far side of the table who was observing rather than taking part in the interaction.
He had feathered brown hair, tan skin, a strong nose, and piercing eyes that missed nothing.
And right then, they were locked on her.
A shiver of awareness skated down Estelle’s back, but she was forced to break their contact when a busser bumped into her.
“Enjoy,” she told the table, then she pushed her way through the room back to the safety of the bar.
The next few hours saw nonstop bar traffic, which was good because it made time go by faster.
The rhythm of the work—taking the orders, gathering supplies, opening the bottles, filling glasses, serving up—became a meditation with the loud backdrop of jovial voices cushioning the space where she worked.
Estelle and Sandy exchanged a few words here and there, but it was mostly things like “right behind you” or “pass that opener,” and on the few occasions when Barnie joined them to chat with some of the regulars, they included him in their dance too, moving swiftly around his sizeable shape.
The first act was about to start playing, and Estelle had just filled up a glass with water for herself, parched as she was after several hours on the go, when Sandy nudged her shoulder.
“Your guy is here,” she said, tipping her head toward the end of the bar. “Want me to tell Barnie?”
Estelle’s eyes snapped to the seat where Greg was currently shrugging out of his windbreaker and making himself comfortable. He spotted Estelle looking and waved her over.
“No,” Estelle told Sandy. “I’ll deal with it.”
This wasn’t the first time Greg had shown up to her work, but tonight wasn’t going to be a repeat of last time when Estelle had had to beg out early to escort her drunken husband home.
Tonight, leaving wasn’t an option. She was playing at eleven forty, and nothing was going to keep her from it, especially not this man in front of her who she barely recognized anymore.
She set her glass of water down in front of Greg and tilted her head. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t come here when I’m working,” she said. “I could get in trouble.”
“But I never see you anymore,” Greg said. “Can’t a husband want to be with his wife on a Friday night?” He took a sip of the water, grimacing when it hit his tongue. Several droplets clung to his moustache when he set it back down.
“It’s Thursday, and you don’t see me because you’re drunk when I come home and sleeping it off when I leave in the morning.” She leaned closer to him over the bar to better gauge the glassiness of his eyes. “In fact, you’re drunk right now. How did you get here?”
“Bus. And I only had one beer.”
Estelle let out a tight scoff. “Right. And I’m the tooth fairy. Go home, Greg. You’re not supposed to be out tonight.”
“Come on, Stella. One drink.” He smiled as if that would still work to get her sweet on him like it had when she was seventeen, and suddenly she didn’t know why she hadn’t put her foot down sooner.
He wasn’t her Greg anymore. He was someone else.
A shell of the person who’d once made her laugh until her legs wouldn’t carry her.
She hadn’t laughed in years.
“We can talk when I get home,” she said, reaching for the water glass, but his hand came down on her wrist, stopping her.
His lower lip wobbled as he blinked at her. “I’ll do better,” he said. “I promise. I’ll find another job. We can be good again.”
Estelle stared down at his hand on her skin. His grip wasn’t so tight it hurt, just firm enough that she could feel the desperation oozing from him. “Let go please,” she gritted out, not sure if she meant only his physical hold on her or if this was it—her plea for him to set her free.
Greg was about to respond when the attractive man from the nine-beers table earlier sidled up next to him, making him wobble as he looked up at the man’s towering height.
“Everything okay here?” the man asked, his gaze going from Greg’s grip on Estelle to her face. “Is he bothering you?”
Estelle’s lips parted, a “no” on her tongue, but nothing came out.
“None of your business,” Greg said, but he at least dropped her wrist. “Can’t a guy have a drink in peace.”