Chapter 6
THE BAR BUSINESS
“This is so gross,” I mumbled under my breath.
“There’s nothing romantic about the service industry,” Hannah replied. She cocked her head to get a better look at the toilet. “Some might say it’s shitty. Ba-dum-chhh.”
“Real clever,” I huffed, digging the toilet brush back into the bowl.
“Thanks, I’ll be here all week. And you missed a spot near the rim.”
Today was my first full day of working at the Frisky Cricket.
I had woken up buzzing with energy like a kid on the first day of school, picked out the only clean shirt I had left (Mom was mailing a box of clothes down, thank goodness), and slid gently into the Cadillac, no longer afraid of it.
It was a beautiful, blue-sky day, and I had a whole month to fall in love.
Hannah had been waiting for me, dressed casually in a gray Emory muscle shirt with a flannel tied around her waist. With a smirk, she had relayed Hatch’s first task: to clean both bathrooms top to bottom.
Either Hatch was punishing me, or he was trying to get me to quit already.
But he’d have to try harder, because cleaning the bathroom didn’t faze me—especially when the graffiti was so entertaining.
David is a bitch, said the current message I was reading on the stall door.
Below it, in faded red lipstick, was the reply YES I AM.
“So what else did he say?” Hannah asked, restocking the free tampons in the supply caddy.
“Didn’t he give you the rundown already?”
“No, Hatch is bad with drama. He doesn’t understand that the real treat is in the details.”
Drama. Did Hannah think my decision to stay was dramatic? Did she, like Hatch, view me as a temporary problem, an irritating roadblock? Or worse, did she agree with Aubrey that I was “delusional”?
I wiped my sweaty brow with the back of my forearm and backed away from the toilet. “He gave me a whole list of ways he won’t accommodate me,” I said neutrally. “Teach me, coddle me, forgive me, pay me…”
“Yeah, he loves a good litany of the saints.”
“Is he always grumpy? Or just with me?”
“Uh-huh,” Hannah answered.
We finished the bathroom and returned to the bar top, where our lone patron, a skinny, balding white man in a bow tie, was nursing a Manhattan and poring over a stack of papers. He muttered something to himself and seemed oblivious that we’d walked back into the room.
“All right, the day’s worst chore is done,” Hannah said to me. “Let’s move on to the important stuff. First things first, you need to meet the cat.” She looked across the bar top at the man with the bow tie. “Edge, I’m giving the new kid a tour. Don’t steal anything.”
The man called Edge surfaced from his pile of papers. “Steal?” he repeated in a nervous, absent voice. “No, no, I should think not.”
“Good man,” Hannah said routinely.
Outside in the blinding sunlight, I hovered by the door while Hannah called for the cat, shaking the kibble bag with a Psspsspss. We were about to give up when the skinny black cat finally appeared from beneath the porch, slinking toward us imperiously like it was her own idea to eat.
“Sweet girl,” Hannah said, bending down to caress her. “Louisa, may I introduce our favorite employee: RuPaw.”
I laughed in surprise. “Incredible. Who named her?”
“Hatch, of course,” Hannah replied, as if it was obvious that Hatch’s personality went beyond the textbook definition of curmudgeon. She trailed her fingers along the cat’s spine, then scooped her up and held her like a baby. “Come on, Ru, help me with the tour.”
Hannah led me around the parking lot, pointing out various patrons’ favorite spaces to park, warning me to avoid the spot with the pothole, and recounting the time her own car—a blue Subaru with a faded Louisiana plate—had gotten stuck in the mud after a late evening storm.
“I thought it was hopeless, that I’d have to call Baker and ask her to come get me, but then the most glorious thing happened.
” She paused for dramatic effect. “The lesbians appeared. They came rushing out of the bar like a swarm of worker bees, and Claudia started directing everyone like an air traffic controller, and Lindsey and Katie were lifting the trunk like a couple of Navy SEALs, and Allison got her pliers out for absolutely no reason—”
On and on she went, looping me around the parking lot, cradling RuPaw in her arms. The cat seemed entirely at ease, like she was used to Hannah’s storytelling.
“That was George’s favorite spot,” Hannah said, pointing under the tree where my dad had parked yesterday.
“The last few years, he kept saying he wanted a special sign placed there so everyone would know it was his spot, as if we didn’t all know that already.
He wanted it to say Proprietor, but when we asked him to spell that, he couldn’t.
Hatch got a real kick out of that. I threatened to get a sign that said Queen Mother, but somehow I never got around to it. ”
Her voice went slack. She cleared her throat and shook her head. I lowered my eyes, not sure how to comfort someone who had known my uncle better than I had.
“Anyway, that’s enough of the parking lot. Come around back and I’ll show you the delivery entrance.”
She turned around, but my eyes lingered on the FOR SALE sign.
I debated asking her what she thought about it all: the sale, the football complex, Hatch’s determination to shut the bar down.
But I wasn’t sure I had earned her confidence yet.
Hannah was warm and inviting, but there was also an edge to her that made me feel like I had to prove myself.
Plus, I wasn’t sure how close she was with Hatch.
I held my tongue and followed her to the back of the property.
Within half an hour, Hannah had given me a tour of the whole place, which was not saying much; I’d seen most of it on my first night.
Still, I learned about the back office, the safe, the utility closet, and the hallway where surplus inventory was kept.
It was a haphazard, finicky old building and every little crevice had a story or a disclaimer.
“You have to jiggle that spigot for a few seconds,” Hannah pointed out, “and there’s uneven flooring here, so watch your step, and the fire alarm trips every few days, but I’ll write down the code for you—”
“You know everything,” I marveled. I was starting to feel like I had bitten off more than I could chew, but I didn’t want her to pick up on that and possibly relay it to Hatch. I was in this now, and I was going to learn as much as she had.
By this point, more patrons had trickled in. One of them caught Hannah’s eye and gave a subtle nod of the chin, and Hannah turned to me.
“Claudia wants a White Russian,” she said, leading me toward the bar top. “Ready to play with Kahlúa?”
If I’d thought learning the physical space was overwhelming, then learning how to make cocktails was going to be my downfall.
Hannah zipped through the White Russian instructions, then mixed up an old-fashioned and a gin and tonic for another patron and their friend.
Everything was a whirl of shakers and garnishes and proportions, and there seemed to be a shorthand for everything.
Plus, making the drinks was only step one.
Step two was learning how to ring them up on the register.
“Don’t worry,” Hannah said when she saw the look on my face. “We’ll take it one drink at a time. I don’t expect you to master any of this, especially not in thirty days.”
So Hatch had told her that detail. It lit a fire in me, propelling me to pick up a clean glass and attempt a White Russian of my own.
Hannah crossed her arms as she watched me eyeball the vodka measurement.
When I handed the finished drink to her, she shook the ice cubes and took a thoughtful drink.
“Not bad,” she said, giving me an appreciative grin. “Ru, what do you think?” She held it out toward the cat, who was sitting atop the bar counter in what I was pretty sure was a health code violation. RuPaw sniffed the drink for a moment before scampering off like she had better places to be.
“Can I try it?” I asked.
Hannah hesitated, gripping the glass as she leveled me with a look. “You can have a sip,” she said quietly, trying not to let the patrons hear, “but only because I’m here. Hatch doesn’t want you drinking, and I agree with him.”
I bit down on my childish retort of But I own this place. I didn’t want to seem like a brat in front of Hannah, plus I didn’t want her to tell Hatch I was being difficult. “Understood.”
Hannah handed the glass over. I took a sip and smacked my lips, tasting the chocolate milk–esque cocktail. “Mm. Yeah, I like it.”
Hannah raised her eyebrows. “Well, from now on, you can like it in theory. Remember, freshman: No drinking, or I’ll kill you.”
A few hours later, after I’d successfully poured a couple of beers under Hannah’s tutelage, the swoopy-haired bartender who’d served me the other night arrived.
“I’m heeeeeeere,” he sang as he zipped in. He crashed a huge aluminum water bottle covered with stickers onto the counter, unzipped a bicycling helmet, and shook his sweaty hair out of his eyes.
“Midas,” Hannah said with the air of a cat tracking a canary. “So glad you’ve joined us. We have something to discuss.”
Midas looked up dopily from where he’d been clocking in at the register. When he saw me, the color left his face.
“I believe you’ve met Louisa,” Hannah said. “Did you know she’s only eighteen?”
Midas’s eyes darted back and forth from Hannah to me. After a pause, he settled his shoulders and said with forced bravado, “What’s up, South Dakota?”
I burned with embarrassment.
“Midas, we’ve talked about spotting fakes,” Hannah said sternly.
“Hers looked legit!” he protested.
“I highly doubt that.”
“Why is she here? Shit, am I going to jail? I have a race tomorrow.”
“Can you reschedule the race for after you go to jail?”
Midas deflated. “For real?”