15. Sawyer
The screen door slammed shut.Instantly, we were swallowed by the horde of out-of-towners as we entered The Hideout. Lucy beelined it to the counter, and we pushed our way through the crowd.
“What in the world?—”
“I know,” Mel cut me off.
“Is she okay?” Lucy pointed at Cherry zoned out in the corner, staring off into nothingness.
“She asked someone how they were doing and instead of responding, they just shouted ‘table for 4’ at her, and she has yet to recover from it,” Mel explained as she rustled through order tickets.
“Where do you need me?” I shouted out over the roaring chatter.
“Me, too!”
“You know how to serve?” Mel and I asked Lucy in unison.
“Mmhm,” she nodded, we stared at her for a beat until she continued. “Okay, actually, no… but I did play pretend restaurant when I was a kid and never had a complaint.”
Mel shrugged, I laughed. “Good enough for me,” Mel said. “These drinks need to go to table seven. And table four needs two Bloody Marys.”
“I got the drinks covered,” I said. “Think you can get those folks over there seated?” I pointed to the front porch.
“And I’ll take care of this one over here,” Mel motioned to Cherry who was on the verge of tears at the end of the bar.
Lucy headed up to the front, with a huge smile sprawled across her face. Her warmth hit the customers just like I knew it would. The people who once had a cold demeanor, with their arms folded across their chests, instantly relaxed as she approached them. You would have never guessed she just came from crying in her basement.
It pained me to see how easy it was for her to flip the switch. As if it was such a routine thing to do.
Two mimosas, a mule, and a Shirley temple—I slid them onto a tray and made my way to table seven. Seeing faces I’m not used to once the summer months hit is something I’ll never get used to. I liked knowing the regulars’ orders or being able to gauge what time of the day certain people were going to come in and how long they would stay. But in the summer months, I feel as clueless as I did when I initially took over.
I remember when the talks about buying from Gus began. I had never worked a day in the industry in my life, and he fully expected me to take over smoothly. I admired the trust that man had in me, but shit… I was terrified. He eased the stress by asking me to work a couple of days a week, to see if this was even something I liked.
I started with hosting duties, and I didn’t get such easy smiles from people. They grumbled the moment they saw me. Eventually, I moved over to serving and dropped every plate that day. By the next day, I had only dropped two. I took that progress and ran with it—I became cocky.
He reassured me when he told me it was okay if I didn’t know what I was doing, that that’s what a staff was for. That instantly hit a nerve. Hiring staff to do all my dirty work while I cashed the check—I would be no better than my grandfather. From then on, I was determined to be as hands-on as I could. I learned all of the ins and the outs, and by the third week, I was already imagining plans for the place.
“What is there to do around here?” A bold and rather annoyed-with-everything teenager interjected as I greeted the family.
“Harry, you could start by saying hello first?” The father nudged his shoulder before looking up at me. “Sorry, we don’t take him out enough.”
The whole table laughed.
A poor joke about children being like animals…I groaned over my shoulder.
I gave a strained smile and a curt laugh as I placed their drinks on the table. The mom snatched one of the mimosas and the mule for herself, and immediately started alternating between the two.
“Sorry,” Harry rolled his eyes and dramatically adjusted himself in his seat. “My parents dragged me along to this good-for-nothing town and I am depressingly bored. What can I do here that isn’t strictly for old people.”
His father clicked his tongue and gave Harry a look.
“Ha, well?—”
“I am not old,” his mother chimed in, slurring her words holding an already empty glass, the other one halfway gone.
“We’re on vacation,” the father spoke out eagerly. “We are from Michigan, visiting family for a few weeks.”
I turned to the kid, tucking the empty tray under my arm, “There’s lots to do, it’s up to you to decide if it’s something you would enjoy.”
He threw himself back into his seat and rolled his eyes again before taking a sip from his Shirley Temple.
“We are hoping to tour some colleges while we are here, too!” his dad said gleefully.
“I’m not going to college. Especially not here.”
The dad waved the kid off dismissively.
The restaurant gradually grew in noise and population. “Look, I am sorry I can’t be too much help. But I promise this is a special place. Make the most of the summer here. And as for colleges,” I look at the dad, “look closer into the city. We have a community college here and that’s about it. Nothing he will like, I don’t think. Look over those menus and one of us will be right back to take your order.” I split off from the table.
I started to make Bloody Marys, though I never took my eyes off Lucy once. She strutted through the place with the utmost grace. I fumbled my hands through the prepared garnishes. Bacon, olives, a single lime—I fed them through a pick and placed them on top of the mixed drink. Purely relied on muscle memory.
“Wow,” Cherry came up beside me. “I can’t even do that.”
I came out of the Lucy trance and looked down at the counter. I repeated the same pattern with the next one.
“You doing good, bud?” I pulled her in for a side hug with one hand, sprinkling salt and pepper on the drinks with the other. I finished them off by sticking a piece of celery into each glass.
She blows out a deep breath, “Yeah, I’m fine. Ugh, you know how I get.”
Cherry was a little ball of energy, friendly with everyone she came in contact with. Most of the time, people took it well. Sometimes, not so much. But then again, these were all people who didn’t know and love her for her, so I understood it being “too much” at times.
When I first met Cherry, I desperately needed a drink afterward. I never did well with people who could speak faster than I could think. But then I soon learned that she would do anything for anyone and every other stupid excuse of why I didn’t want to be around her vanished. Cherry was the light that I needed in my life. That, and Mel basically adopted her. Some might say I didn’t have a choice, I say that she grew on me.
Back home from New York, fresh out of college, with no work experience whatsoever. I was a fool to hire her. Now, I couldn’t imagine it any other way.
I slid the drinks in front of her. “You think you can bring these to table four? If they bite your head off, too, you send them my way.” She grabbed both of them with shaky hands and walked them on over.
I kept myself preoccupied behind the bar for as long as I could, wiping up the countertop, and organizing the plates in the order they needed to be picked up. I didn’t want to move and risk obscuring my view of Lucy.
“Hey, hey, you’re messing up my system!” Zander yelled out from the kitchen window and rearranged the plates back to how they were.
I recognized the childlike laughter coming from the back of the restaurant. It was as if I developed a spidey sense of some sort when it came to Lucy. I moved down the bar to get a closer listen but faced the opposite way to pretend otherwise.
“…lime pie is my favorite. But everything here is so good! What do you typically go for?”
“Anything sweet,” one of them said.
“You’re looking pretty sweet,” another voice chimed in.
I spun around at the rapid boiling of my blood.
She rolled her eyes and started to pull herself further from the table, but he continued to inch closer to her.
“Lucy!” I yelled out, louder than expected. The whole restaurant fell silent and turned their attention toward me. “Sorry. Hey, Lucy, can you come here for a second,” I said at a lower volume.
With flushed cheeks, she looked down at the table, then back at me. Everyone else returned to their eating and drinking.
She quickly shuffled her way over to me. “What’s up? Did I mess something up?” she whispered out.
“No, no, of course not. You okay over there?”
She looked over her shoulder at the table, they’re all refusing to look this way, except the one who got handsy took glances out of the corner of his eyes.
“That? Oh, that’s nothing compared to a night out in Downtown Phoenix.” She placed a hand on my upper arm, “I promise I’m fine. But thank you for caring.” She gave it a squeeze.
“Do you want to take a break? I know this isn’t what you had planned for the day.” I took one more look at the table, which moved on to the girl sitting beside them. I see that the piranhas were out today and they weren’t leaving until they had prey under their thumb. “What do you say?”
Lucy said nothing. Instead, she grabbed a menu and started to flip through it. She wiggled in place, doing a little happy dance. “I am starved!” She rounded the counter and took a seat at the bar.
I opened a menu as well, for no other reason than to keep myself from staring at her. I don’t think my blood pressure is ever at a normal resting point when I am around Lucy.