Chapter Three Bar Life
I opened my Cheetos and swapped it out with yesterday’s bag, which was also open and propped next to the beer taps. I got in trouble all the time for leaving open bags of Cheetos around the restaurant.
“Roaches,” the managers said.
But, they needed to be aired out just the right amount to get stale—which is the only way I’d eat them. Besides, it was winter. There were no roaches. I popped one in my mouth.
“Stale enough?” one of the servers asked as they walked into the bar and saw the bag. I shrugged. They weren’t. A good bag of Cheetos needed to sit open for a week before they were just the right amount of stale, but I made do.
After my Cheetos breakfast, I readied the bar. For the last week, I’d been making the transition from the dinner shift to the lunch shift and everything felt wrong. My job every night was to close down the bar so it was ready for Dean the daytime bartender, but Dean had accepted a management position at The Jane— a salary and insurance —he told me proudly, and I was now needed a few mornings a week until they trained someone new. Dean’s promotion had disrupted my daytime sleep patterns and forced me to go to bed at a regular time like a regular person. I didn’t like the way that made me feel—being regular. I was resentful and over-rested.
I unwrapped containers of sectioned lemons and limes and filled the ice bins. It felt as if I was doing everything in reverse (at night I wrapped containers and emptied the ice bins). Every few minutes Dean texted me a reminder of something I needed to do. I turned my phone off to make it stop. The morning manager, Nate, fancied me. He was always hanging around, asking questions about my life outside of the bar. He watched me dump ice into the metal bin, his elbow resting on the far end of the bar, making comments about the soccer game playing on the television like I cared. He had a bald spot and smelled of cheap cologne and onions. I didn’t blame him for the onions, smelling like grease and onions was the downfall of a restaurant job. I blamed him for being a sleazebag and always looking at my tits.
I ignored him until the first customers arrived, and then I had to ask him for a swipe. He watched my lips as he slid his card through the reader.
“You liking your new role, Yara?”
“As morning bartender?” I asked. “Feels exactly the same as night bartender, except the guests are happy and talkative. I like them better when they’ve been working all day and are miserable and quiet.”
“Sure, sure,” he said. “It’ll just take some getting used to s’all.” Nate pronounced is all as saul.
“ You have a little bit of orange on your face,” he said, gesturing to my cheek. I dusted it off without thanking him.
The Jane was well known for her breakfast cocktails so there was no avoiding early customers. A couple wandered in a few minutes after we opened, middle-aged and glassy-eyed. Their faces were puffy like they’d been drinking hard the night before. They ordered eggs, toast, and two spicy Bloody Marys, and then they told me about the son they dropped off at the University of Washington. A handsome boy, so smart, a future president, they assured me. His major—political science. When the woman told me he was captain of his high school debate team I wanted to gouge out my eyeballs with a toothpick. I once fucked a debate team captain, his name was a cheese—Colby…or Jack…or…Rodoric! That was it! I didn’t tell her that though. What was a pretty girl like me doing working in a bar? —they wanted to know. This was the hard part, blowing off their question like it didn’t bother me when it really did. Did I want a good tip, no customer complaints e-mailed to corporate? No, I just wanted to make it through this day, this month, this year. You should model , she said. Her husband nodded in agreement. I smiled dumbly and excused myself to get their food from the kitchen. I was not a face. I was tired of being called pretty. I was tired of people seeing my potential. I could be whoever I wanted to be, and for now, that was a bartender. Beauty was deceiving in the same way credit cards were. It felt like it was free, but there was high interest with little return. I breathed a sigh of relief when they left, but soon a different couple took their seats. Then another, and another, until it all blurred together. The morning crowd was hopeful and hungry for talk, their days not descended to shit yet.