Chapter One
JJ was in the way. The aisles were crammed, people bumped into
her-there was no place to stand. “Excuse me,” she said. She squeezed
her elbows close to her body, then tripped through a jangle of chairs.
She’d never waited tables before, and so far all they’d had time to show
her were how to change the soda syrups and where to find napkins.
Customers grabbed her arms and asked her for things she couldn’t hear
or didn’t understand. “Go Broncos,” she said.
“Do something,” a tall waitress hissed as she passed, her ponytail
whapping JJ in the mouth. The waitress was carrying a tray of drinks
high in the air and was moving fast without looking like she was moving
fast. People got out of the way. JJ tried to follow her, to ask what it
was exactly she should do, but the waitress was already far ahead, the
crowd filling in behind her, the tray of drinks traveling over heads the
only proof she hadn’t vanished entirely.
JJ did her best. She handed out napkins, refilled waters. Tried to
keep track of the servers. There were three of them: the tall blond waitress,
another waitress who was older, in her thirties or forties, and a
waiter who’d given her a quick tour earlier and told a funny joke about
a goat that couldn’t spell. His head was shaved and he was big. Really
big. Tall and overweight both. He wasn’t the type you’d imagine waiting
tables-maybe not even someone you’d want around food. But the
customers seemed to like him. One table applauded when he brought
them pitchers of beer, another chanted his name. As for the bartenders,
JJ couldn’t see the one working now, way back there behind the swarm
of customers-and had only briefly met the lanky, dark-haired guy
who’d been behind the bar when she first arrived. He hadn’t had time
to say much.
It was fun, JJ decided. Or it looked fun: the activity, the purpose.
How the servers all held their mouths in the same fixed manner. The
way they balanced trays and carried plates across their wrists and up the
insides of their arms. The food slid a bit on the plates, and the ketchup
bottles that they stuck heads-down into their aprons waggled dangerously
with every step, but nothing fell. Not even with the tall blonde
and her cloppy heels. Amazing, JJ thought, watching her swoop a tray
of bottles over someone’s suddenly raised arm.
Something good happened in the football game. People jumped
up and cheered. It was a strange mix of people. A woman dressed like
a witch stood up and covered her ears. Across the room, at the midpoint
of the long, boomerang-shaped bar, the big waiter-Keith-waved
his tray and hollered for the bartender. “Order up!” The servers
got their drinks there, at the wait station. It was marked by two silver
handlebars curving into question marks. Like the kind you saw going
into swimming pools.
Customers yelled, “Beer!” “Shots!” “Grandma,” a woman called
and held up her glass. Grandma. Maybe JJ’d heard it wrong.
The older waitress came up and touched JJ’s arm. “This way,” she
said. Her face was wet and splotched, and her short orange hair stuck
out in funny horns like she’d been yanking it. “I’m Colleen,” she said,
catching her breath. “Here-please-follow me.”
JJ helped Colleen bring food to the tables. It wasn’t as easy as it
looked. The plates were hot and the cooks expected you to grab three
or four at a time-which, for JJ, made it just about impossible to move,
let alone cross the room. It proved far simpler to take things off the tables
than to put them on, so she slipped away and busied herself with
clearing used napkins and dishes and glasses, scooping them up and
depositing them into plastic tubs by the kitchen doors. Just as she was
getting the hang of it, though, just as she was starting to enjoy the
stacking and weaving-it was almost like a sport-she went and
dropped a chicken wing into someone’s full mug of beer.
The beer’s owner held it up. “What’s this? Whatcha twin’ to give
me? A wet boner?”
Laughter from the rest of the table.
“No,” JJ said quickly, without thinking.
More laughter. In college, they were the type of guys who’d never
given her a second glance: backwards baseball caps, smirky smiles. She
resisted the urge to touch her hair.
“And where’re my cheddar fries? It’s been, what, hour and a half
since we ordered? And now I don’t even have a freakin’ beer?”
“I’m so sorry,” JJ said. “Maybe I could-”
“On the house.” The tall blond waitress reappeared out of nowhere
and set down a fresh mug and a full, foamy pitcher of beer. “See,” she
said to the guy, laying a hand on his shoulder, “we got you covered,
sweetie”-then she pulled JJ away by the wrist and backed her against
a wall. “Who told you to come in?”
“I don’t remember his name,” JJ stammered. “I think he’s a
manager-”
“He said tonight.”
“Yeah.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Wonderful. That’s just terrific.” The pendant around her neck
read Lena in gold block letters. That seemed right: sharp and direct,
like her voice. And her stare. And her breath-she was so close, JJ
could taste the menthol of her chewing gum. “Maybe you haven’t noticed,
but it’s Super Bowl Sunday. Welcome to Madison fucking
Square Garden. If you’re looking for a Girl Scout badge, try some
other goddamn place.”
And she was off.
She could be a beauty queen, JJ thought, still frozen there, getting
an image of one of those frosted dresses with tight shoulders. Or maybe
not the queen but a runner-up, a very close second.
Then it struck her: maybe she did have the wrong day.
Maybe she’d heard it wrong or written it down wrong, and really
she was supposed to come in next Sunday. Or maybe-oh god-even
yesterday. JJ tried to rethink the conversation and remember exactly
what it was the manager had said.
“More beer,” a nearby table hollered. “More everything!”
Game music blasted from the TVs: dah nah-nah-nah, dah
nah-nah-nah….
Of course, it was too late anyway. It no longer mattered. It wasn’t
tomorrow or yesterday. She was here now.
Across the room, Lena was charging toward the bar-her spine
straight, her chin up, like she was wearing that pageant gown. Like she
was off to beat up the queen.
JJ squared herself. She took a breath. She could do this.
Lena ducked behind the bar, leaving Colleen and Keith to work
the floor. Why is it, she wanted to know, that when something goes
wrong, I’m expected to fix it? She poured beers, poured drinks, slammed
off taps just in time.
“Hey, we got a bartender,” someone yelled. There was a spatter of
applause.
“Right here! Another round!”
“Six kamikazes!”
She didn’t look up. She tipped the vodka upside down. One two
three, across to the next glass of ice, one two three, next.
Where the fuck is Marna?
Keith came barreling behind the bar and started knocking things
over in the beer cooler. Lena swatted him away. “I’ll do it! Just get your
tables.”
“Seven Heinekens, pitcher Bud, pitcher Coors, double Jack and
Coke.” He hiked up his jeans and pushed himself out into the crowd,
toppling a stack of napkins with a beefy elbow. “Who’s thirsty?” he
bellowed.
“Hey, Lena.” Colleen grabbed both handrails. Her face was gummy
with sweat. “She’s not in the bathroom and I checked downstairs. Can
I get two Long Islands? Also four ciders? Please? I’m in the weeds.”
“Oh service,” someone singsonged down the bar. A regular. Not
yet, Lena thought. If they caught your eye, they had you. She ignored
the whole idiot lot-raising their empty glasses like a bunch of Statues
of Liberty. “Hey,” one of them called, “I might as well be home.”
Lena hadn’t even worked here the longest. February would be
three years-and that was counting the six months she’d quit and
worked at Retox. Three years was a long time-much longer and
they’d call her a Lifer-but not compared to some of the others.
Denny’d started as a dishwasher back when he’d first moved here out
of high school, more than ten years ago. And Keith-who’d, Christ,
been named Best Server of Denver by Westword last spring and was
still acting like he’d won an Oscar-well, he was going on at least four.
So why was it, when the shit flew, she was the one that got the mop?
“Goddamn Super Bowl,” she said to Colleen. She got Keith his
pitchers, filled three Cokes and a Diet, stabbing the last with an extra
straw to mark it. “Goddamn Marna. Unbelievable. Every other bar,
double, triple staffed, right? A little planning involved, god forbid, bar
backs, bussers-but what do we have? Who do we schedule? One
flaky-ass bartender? And what? Three on the floor? And a trainee? A
fucking deer in headlights?” She smacked an empty cardboard box out
of her way and grabbed a cluster of ciders. This was what happened
when you worked at a place with no management. As long as the doors
stayed open and the register rang-and his asshole friends were accommodated-Bill
could give a shit about the goings-on. Which, sure, led
to certain perks. Free drinks, flexible hours. None of the corporate rigmarole
you got at chain restaurants.
But there were also some big fucking drawbacks.
Lena swung open the cooler and grabbed the sour mix. It was
sticky, a line of fruit flies glued to the rim. “I should just walk off.
Don’t think I haven’t considered it. Don’t think I don’t consider it every
goddamn day I have to be here.”
“Want me to make the Long Islands? It’s just the two.”
“I got it, Colleen.” Just. Colleen couldn’t mix a gin and juice without
a recipe. “Be useful,” Lena told her. “Go deliver my drinks. And see
if someone can come in.”
“You don’t think Marna’s coming back? I’m sure she’s coming
back. I know it for a fact, Lena. It’s her divorce night and she and Lily
have plans later-”
“I don’t care if Marna’s coming back, I don’t care what your daughter’s
plans are. I just want some fucking help.”
“Hey, Lena,” someone yelled, “we need to discuss the beer
situation.”
“Yeah, Lena, give us beer!”
“Grandma.”
“Hold your goddamn panties, I’m catching up.” She scooped ice,
poured, scooped ice, poured.
“I left messages,” Colleen said when she returned. She dropped
cherries into a cherry Coke and licked her fingers. “What about Denny?
Shouldn’t I call him back in?”
“Well, let’s see. He worked all day-and a double yesterday and a
double Friday. And he’s the only one of us who cares about the goddamn
game. So, hmmm …”
“I know, but it would probably only be for a little while, right?
Through the big rush or until Marna-”
“No.” Lena topped off a Guinness with one hand and plunged a
plastic sword into an olive with the other. It wasn’t that she hadn’t
considered it. But right after she considered it, she pictured Denny
now, this instant, in his living room-in Stephanie’s living room,
though that was beside the point-bent into the screen, eating White
Castles and fries and drinking a tallboy. She could see everything: his
one-dimpled grin, the way he’d punch a fist into his open palm and
mutter at the bad plays. He would have flattened the paper bag into a
plate and squirted ketchup in a careful mound, not too close to the
edge. That’s what was so funny about Denny: within his messiness he
was somehow tidy. He had these small pockets of order.
What did they expect her to do-call him and beg? Please save us?
We can’t function without you?
Fuck no.
She stared down at the muck of drink tickets. Hopeless. The ink
had bled into furry blots. She grabbed empty pitchers and began pouring.
Bud, Bud Light, Coors. “Here,” she called to Keith and Colleen,
slopping down the pitchers, foam everywhere. She shook it off her
wrists. “Give these out for now. I got the bar to deal with.”
“Great,” they each said. But they didn’t move. They stood there
looking at her, their faces like open coconuts.
Keith: “But I also need a daiquiri and a perfect Manhattan
straight up extra bitters and seven butter Crowns. Oh, and sixteen
lemon drops.”
And Colleen: “I’m really slammed. Can I get four more Long
Islands?”
JJ overheard the last of this and caught up with Colleen. She offered,
“I’11 help.” Colleen was like an aunt, she decided. Not her aunt-who
was older than this woman and certainly wouldn’t have plucked
out then drawn back in her eyebrows-but an aunt sort of person:
quick-smiling and warm.
“With taking orders?” They’d stopped at a computer and Colleen
began poking at squares on the face of the monitor. Fast. Menu items
and modifiers. Burgers. Fries. On the side. Bourbon, Makers, rocks.
“Sure.”
“Oh god, JJ, I wish you could.” Colleen’s voice was up an octave.
She kept poking the screen. “I know you’re trying. I wish Denny was
still here to show you what to do. I don’t have time. Crap, I can
never find the untoasted bun key, it’s not where you’d expect it. It
doesn’t make any sense! And it’s a ridiculous thing to ask for
anyway!”
“Denny. The daytime bartender?”
“Denny. Yeah. He’s good at explaining. Wait. No mayo or extra
mayo? Crap. I have no idea. Extra mayo. I’m deciding. Mayo
tastes good.”
“Isn’t that him over there?”
“Who.”
“Denny.”
Colleen looked up, confused. “Denny? Where?”
JJ pointed toward the far end of the bar, by the restrooms. “I just
saw him. Kinda slouchy, choppy dark hair-”
Colleen stood on her tiptoes and scanned the crowd. “No
kidding?”
“Just two seconds ago. He was right there, he must be in the bathroom.
He was kinda behind the video game….”
“Hiding! He does that! He stayed to watch the game. Perfect.
Okay. When he comes out, have him find you a book and an order pad
and make him show you real fast how to write up tickets. Just the basics.
I’ll tell you one thing, don’t even let him complain because, you
know what, he’s lucky we don’t call him back on. Seriously. I am this
close to calling him back on. And you can tell him I said that. Actually,
wait, no.” Colleen sighed. “Don’t tell him I said that.” With that, she
turned back to the monitor.
“No worries,” JJ said. “I’m on it.”
* * *
“Grandma.”
“All right, all right.” Lena poured Grand Marnier into a shot glass
and slid it down to Fran-who used to work here and was now the
most regular of the regulars.
At every bar Lena had ever worked, the regulars were the same. Like
from one sitcom to another. Fran with her Grandmas-and her barnacle
husband, James. India the fake gypsy. Ali of them. Heebie the bookie;
Spencer, who sold cheap weed and supposedly played for the Raiders for
about five minutes in the ’80s-which was why no one would sit next to
him, you had to hear the same stories over and over. And then there was
Old Barney, who left his big mangy dog outside in the way of customers.
Just left it standing there, not even tied up, its nose pointed in.
It was five minutes to halftime. Most of these guys had been here
since open, Lena knew, though she hadn’t been around to see it. The
reason they showed up so early on game days was to squeeze out the
frat boys who would stream in from local colleges, who would elbow in
to drink ridiculous vodka drinks and shout at the TVs. You really
couldn’t blame them, the regulars. The frat boys even smelled young,
like lemon cookies and mouthwash.
She opened tallboys, set them down with a clunk, ignored requests
for fresh frosty mugs.
“Hey, Lena,” Colleen said. “Denny-”
“No.”
“Lena, you’re not listening,” Colleen whined.
“That’s right. I’m not.” Lena handed Keith a mind-eraser and a
rum and Diet and began shaking a margarita.
“Denny’s still here, Lena. He never left. He stayed to watch the
game.”
Lena stopped. The lights seemed to dim. She squinted at Colleen,
who was trying to fit three drinks into one fat palm, her lips sucked in
in concentration. For a moment Lena imagined grabbing the shaker-still
half full of margarita-and whipping it straight at her. Instead,
though, she stayed very still and kept her voice low, each word slow
and separate like nursery school: “Denny. Is. What?”
“No kidding,” Keith said.
“That’s what I said! Yeah, down at the end somewhere.” Colleen
pointed.
Lena pushed herself up and forward to get a good view. No Denny.
What she did see, however, sitting there on the last bar stool, chewing
a swizzle stick, cross-legged and staring off like some poetry reading, was
the new girl.
“Your idea of helping?” It was almost a real question, but if the
new girl had a real answer, Lena wasn’t going to wait to hear it. She
took the girl squarely by the shoulders, guided her off the bar stool, and
steered her through the crowd-stopping only briefly to let her grab
her purse and coat-then into the kitchen, around the cooks and prep
tables, to the back door. All the while, Colleen followed behind, whimpering
about giving the kid a break. If you listened to Colleen, nothing
was ever anyone’s fault.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Lena told the girl, unlocking the door,
“you’re welcome to come back. In fact, hey, here’s a deal, if you can
drum up a bartender-or someone with the vaguest idea on how to wait
tables-we’d be delighted to see you again. Delighted.” With that, she
gave the girl a light shove out the door. It snapped shut behind her,
whirling a few specks of snow into the hot kitchen air for an instant,
like confetti.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from after hours at the almost home
by tara yellen
Copyright © 2008 by Tara Yellen.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
unbridled books
Copyright © 2008
Tara Yellen
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-932961-48-5
