Chapter 8
FRISKY FRIDAY
By the end of the week, I felt like a tried-and-true employee of the Frisky Cricket.
I knew how to ring up drinks on the register, how to jiggle the vacuum’s power cord so it would work properly, and how to card a patron with authority.
I also knew some of the regulars by now: the man called Edge was Professor Edgerton, who taught at Rustin’s music school and was supposedly a leading authority on Dolly Parton’s entire catalogue; Claudia, who favored White Russians, was a middle-aged Black woman with short hair and faded tattoos, who often fixed things around the bar and whose wife, Melanie, talked extensively about their three French bulldogs; Midas’s roommate, Rook, was a fellow grad student who sometimes wore a cape to the bar for no apparent reason, and who changed their drink order every time they dropped in.
Hannah had taught me how to mix a variety of drinks: gin and tonic, whiskey sour, vodka cran …
and of course, Otis’s preferred Moscow Mule.
I’d learned how to pour a beer without foaming the top, and I’d memorized our small selection of “local” beers, which was really just anything brewed in the South: Hannah favored Abita from her native Louisiana, but there was also Lazy Magnolia, Terrapin, Creature Comforts, and Orpheus.
Under her very controlled direction, Hannah even let me taste-test a few of the drinks so I would know what I was talking about.
“But if you tell anyone I let you sip, I’ll deny it,” she said, giving me the unnerving stare she probably used on her students. “And I’ll have you shipped off to boarding school in Switzerland.”
I frowned. “Isn’t that a line from The Parent Trap?”
She stalked off without answering me.
So there we were on Friday night, buzzing around to prepare for the weekly “Frisky Friday,” which was, from what I could gather, a raucous night of line dancing paired with $1 off drinks for anyone who brought a friend.
Hannah and Midas acted like it was the same old boring routine, but I was enchanted.
Tonight would be my first time working the bar on a weekend.
I imagined it would feel like last Saturday night, crowded and thrumming and alive, except I would be on the other side of the bar this time.
“This music is giving me hives,” Midas griped as he changed out the Bud Light keg. “Why are you playing oldies?”
“This is Vanessa Carlton, you irreverent little prick,” Hannah said with another towel swat to Midas’s hip.
Hatch arrived around six o’clock, giving no explanation for why he was late. He hovered over everyone, micromanaging our assignments as if we couldn’t be trusted to handle things on our own.
“You need to cut those lemons smaller,” he said after I’d already cut up a dozen wedges for drink garnishes.
“How could they possibly be smaller?”
“No one wants a dentures-sized lemon with their drink.”
“How about you pop yours out and we’ll compare?”
Hannah and Midas snorted, then pretended they hadn’t been listening. Hatch ignored them and turned to me with narrowed eyes. I expected another critique of my garnishing skills, but he changed tactics and caught me off guard. “Did you call the electrician yet?”
That shut me right up. Blood rushed into my face as I tried to come up with an excuse for why I hadn’t followed through on such an easy task. The truth was somewhere between I forgot and I don’t want to deal with Grandpa’s company.
“That’s what I thought,” Hatch growled, his eyes flashing. He turned his whole body to address Hannah and Midas. “Keep an eye on her tonight. Don’t let her screw up another simple assignment.”
I burned with embarrassment and refused to look at the others. Hatch gave me a final scathing look before stomping off to the back office to “manage payroll.”
“That means he’s drinking a martini from his personal stash,” Midas said, trying to lighten the moment, “and whining about paperwork and taxes.”
I nodded and went back to the lemon wedges, making no effort to cut them smaller.
By eight o’clock, patrons had started filtering in—and most of them made sure they were noticed.
Professor Edgerton wore a three-piece suit with a purple ascot and a floral lapel pin.
He asked me to store his old leather briefcase behind the bar in his usual hiding spot.
Claudia showed up in wide-leg silk trousers with a matching vest, clutching Melanie’s hand like they were about to walk the red carpet.
A few of Hannah’s friends trickled in, Baker among them, all wearing outfits they seemed to have ordered from a femme chic catalogue.
Even Otis Penny was there, wearing a breezy linen shirt and suede smoking slippers.
He patted me genially on the shoulder and said, “Marvelous to see you, Lucilla.”
“Am I underdressed?” I asked Hannah anxiously, nodding toward my striped baseball tee and baggy jeans.
Hannah shot a look around the room as if she hadn’t clocked everyone’s outfits already.
“Compared to these flashy bastards? Yes.” Then she gestured to her messy bun and ratty old LIVE LAUGH LESBIAN cotton T-shirt.
“Compared to your fellow barmaid who fully expects to go home with stains and spills this evening? No.”
I nodded vigorously like that might help me believe her. “Okay. But, like … a lot of people look hot.”
“I mean, my fiancée certainly does, but that’s par for the course.” Hannah grinned and shook my shoulders. “Get out of your head, freshman. This is what you signed up for. And it’s fun.”
“It’s fun,” I repeated, trying to internalize the words.
“It’s fun!” Hannah said emphatically, smacking a hand on the bar top. “Midas, play some dance tunes. Louisa needs to loosen up.”
“One step ahead of you,” Midas said, and a second later “Pink Pony Club” blasted through the ceiling speakers.
When Hannah disappeared to the back hallway, Midas knocked me with his elbow. “Hey, South Dakota.” He slipped me a shot of whiskey. “For the nerves.”
“Oh, I don’t know if I should—”
“I can’t hear you!” he singsonged, throwing his own whiskey shot back.
“Haghhh! Fuck a duck, it burns every time.” He shook his floppy hair like a dog shaking water from its ears, then looked at me sincerely.
“Do what you want, darling, but it’s my understanding that Hannah and Hatch are not supposed to let you drink.
No one has said a thing about me letting you. ”
I smiled genuinely. “Even though I got you in trouble last time?”
“Psshh, Hannah doesn’t scare me. She’s all bark and no bite. And besides, last time, you were a customer. Tonight, you’re part owner.” He winked and danced his way back to the counter, where a handsome person wearing a checkered button-down was waiting to order a drink.
“Bottoms up,” I whispered to myself, and shot the whiskey back with my eyes closed.
The evening passed in a blur of pop songs and dancing.
I served a few drinks but mostly assisted Hannah and Midas as a barback.
If Hannah suspected Midas had let me drink, she didn’t say anything about it, or perhaps she was just too busy to care.
We were swarmed with patrons and discount requests and music suggestions.
I urgently had to pee, but every time I tried to slip away, another customer needed something.
It wasn’t until Hannah got into a tiff with a pair of emo lesbians visiting from Knoxville that I was finally able to slip off to the bathroom.
“But I don’t understand,” one of the emo lesbians grumbled as I passed by, “why can’t you play just one Evanescence song?”
“That’s really not the vibe tonight,” Hannah explained for the third time.
By the time the line dancing started, everyone was liquored up and ready to play.
It was mostly older folks who participated, with Claudia and Melanie taking the lead, but several younger people joined in as well.
The group of them moved like one mass, taking up an entire side of the room as they slid and shuffled and kicked up their shoes.
I distinctly heard Rook yell, “Yee-haw!” as I maneuvered past them—nearly tripping on their cape—to grab more napkins from the storage hallway.
Hatch had been in and out of his office a few times now, seemingly more relaxed, which I suspected had to do with the secret martinis.
But for the last forty-five minutes, he’d been holed up with the door shut, even as the music pulsed louder and the roar of voices reached a fever pitch.
When a wave of college students showed up and swelled our numbers to the max, Hannah pulled me over and instructed me to fetch Hatch.
“Me?” I protested. “Can’t you or Midas—”
“We’re up to our necks in drink requests and Midas and I will serve them much faster than you,” she said shortly. “Put your big girl pants on and grab the boss.”
I sighed, squared my shoulders, and went to Hatch’s office. When I knocked on the door, a full verse of music passed before Hatch answered with a gruff “Come in.”
I nudged the door open and wedged my way inside.
It was blessedly quiet in here, a world away from the thumping energy on the other side of the walls.
Hatch was reclining in his chair with his feet kicked up on the desk, looking intently at something in his hands.
When he saw me, he hurriedly stuffed it away.
“What?” he asked aggressively.
I crossed my arms. “We need backup. It’s getting pretty crowded out there.”
“I’ll be right out,” he said, making no effort to move.
I hesitated. I didn’t want to drag this out any more than I needed to, but I knew our capacity had reached a tipping point and Hannah would kill me if I came back without Hatch in tow.
“Um … It’s kind of urgent, though. We’re slammed.
Midas is mixing so many drinks that he’s threatening to sue us for carpal tunnel. ”
Hatch heaved a deep sigh, jumped up with his usual surprising speed, and pushed past me into the hallway.