He winked at me. “Yes, really.”
I turned around to go pour the beer, a lightness in my face. Possibly the beginning of a genuine smile. It was kind of sweet to have someone looking out for me.
The beer was only half-poured when the two rednecks got up and crossed over to the pool table. One of them could barely walk in a straight line, which meant it was time to cut him off, but the taller, skinny one glared at me with malevolence in his eyes.
Great. My trouble was just beginning.
Unfortunately for me, it was still early in the day. I was the only floor server on shift, so they were definitely my problem for the next hour.
I looked over at my uncle with pleading eyes, but he was busy sweating and grunting over a leaking line under the counter.
“Hey, Uncle Bruce?”
He didn't look up from where he was crouched. “Just call me Bruce. That other word makes me feel old. Makes my knees hurt.”
“Which drink did you say was the best one for servers?”
He put the wrench down and turned to look up at me. Unlike my mother and me, he didn't have blue eyes, but got the same amber-brown eyes as my Grandpa Jack. Bruce had the same dark, wavy hair and narrow nose that I inherited. My little sister Bell got lucky with blond hair and a button nose, but I got the Braun family traits. My uncle wasn't even forty, but he wore a thick, full beard that made him look older and tougher.
Bruce scratched his neck, his lower lip jutting out. “Gin. Pace yourself. No more than one an hour.”
“It's just that those guys are such ass**les.”
“A doctor doesn't hold back the medicine, kid. If those guys put you on edge, have a drink so you're on their level. It's what we do in the hospitality business.”
“But you don't drink at work.”
“Not where anyone can see me.”
I poured myself a shot glass of gin, ducked down behind the bar, pretending to be retrieving something from the floor, and downed the gin shot in one swallow.
“Like a champ,” Bruce said, and he offered me his fist to bump.
The gin burned all the way down to my stomach, where it pooled as fire. Good fire.
Twenty minutes later, I walked over to the rednecks with a bounce in my step. At my gentle suggestion, the shorter guy switched to beer, though the freaky guy with the buzz cut hair ordered a double rye and coke and told me he was “just getting started.”
He paid for the round and gave me a generous tip.
Muttering my thanks, I turned to get away quickly, but he called after me.
“Hey, how much for a smile?”
This was during the quiet part of the song playing over the stereo, and his voice carried through the bar. I stopped in place, my back to the guys.
Over at his table, at the other end of the L-shaped pub, Sawyer looked up at me from his sketch book. I glared at him. If he hadn't told these guys to behave, they could have just had their rowdy time, but they'd had their pride injured. Their proud manhood challenged.
How much for a smile?
I treated the question as rhetorical and continued my way back to the bar. I felt safer behind the counter, able to breathe better thanks to the division of wood and stone.
What was it with guys trying to make you smile? First they get you to smile, then they know they have power over you—the power to make you obey. Soon you do things you don't want to.
Bruce looked up at me from under the counter. “Need me to bust some heads out there, or do you have it under control?”
“I can handle a couple drunk rednecks.”
He grinned, the upper part of his beard splitting along the knobby scar on his upper lip. My uncle had been born a premature baby, with a cleft palate. After Bruce was out of intensive care, they'd given him surgery to correct the split on his lip and the roof of his mouth. Now he wore a partial denture with false teeth bridging the gap, but his lips didn't quite match up. He probably thought the beard gave him camouflage, but it only made people more curious. So it always goes with secrets—the cover story becomes the clue.
“Not rednecks. We call them customers,” he said, gently correcting me.
“Maybe I'll marry one of them.”
Bruce's expression was caught between horror and laughter. “I can never tell if you're joking.”
“Me neither.”
Bruce raised his eyebrows in amusement. “You gotta roll with the punches, kid. People come here to get away from all that civility nonsense. Suits and ties and bullshit. I've never worn a tie in my life, and I don't plan to, not even at my funeral.”
“What about at your wedding?”
He laughed. “Who'd marry me? Women want tall, good-looking guys, like my friend Sawyer over there with the sketch book. He's been watching you like you're HBO.”
“Don't change the topic. Why don't you have a girlfriend? You have your own business.”
“Why don't you have a boyfriend?”
“Because I'm raising a little girl who doesn't need strange guys hanging around, confusing her.”
“Did… your mother do that a lot?”
That familiar lump of anger started up my throat. The alcohol warming my blood made it seem possible for me to forgive her, and I didn't like that. I would always love my mother, but I would never forgive her.
Bruce got a phone call and disappeared to the office.
I sliced up a couple more limes. We didn't need any more, but I liked the clean smell.
The bar started to fill up over the next hour, and one of the other servers started her shift. To my relief, she took the pool table side, rednecks and all.
Sawyer kept trying to talk to me, but I was pissed at him, pissed at the whole world. I just wanted to get through the night.
Toward the end of my shift, my purple-haired coworker Lana came up and wrapped her arm around my waist. Lana was a very touchy person, putting her arm around me at least once every shift we shared. She was older than me, in her thirties, and she had a teenage son. Her wedding ring was real, unlike mine. I liked her, so I tried not to shudder and pull away from her half-hug.
“Wanna earn some easy money?” she asked.
“I told you, Lana, I'll babysit for you any time.”
She laughed and tossed back her dyed-purple hair. “My cutie-pies at the pool table are makin' ridiculous bets.” Lana flashed me her easy grin, her round cheeks dimpling. “They're gettin' me to ask you to go humor them. They'll give you a hundred bucks if you sink a ball.”
I tried not to gag over her referring to them as cutie-pies. “Forget it. Fuck those guys.”
“You won't lose, though. And if you do, you won't lose money.” She grinned and nodded in their direction. “Just go over there.”