It had been a late night for her since the bar stayed open for a couple of hours after the restaurant stopped serving food and Stevie had her serving drinks until one in the morning.
She woke up to the sound of her cell phone ringing. Turning over with a grown, she fumbled around for it without even opening her eyes, knocking the alarm clock to the floor before she grasped the phone and brought it to her face. Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she saw that her mom was calling.
“Hello?” she answered, her voice a harsh croak. She cleared her throat and tried again, “Hello? Mom?”
“Are you asleep?”
She bent over to pick up the alarm clock, seeing that it was ten in the morning. “Yeah, I was working late.”
“Work? You found a job?”
“Yeah,” Ruby replied, rolling onto her back and yawning. “I’m waitressing at a restaurant that serves Irish food.”
“Waitressing? Again?”
Ruby groaned as she heard the disapproval in her mom’s voice. “Yes, Mom. You know that I enjoy it.”
Her mom clucked her tongue in a way that Ruby was familiar with. She could picture the woman clearly in her mind. Her eyebrows were probably pulled tight over her eyes and she likely had a hand on her hip. She would be pacing in the kitchen or living room as they spoke.
Ruby had seen her mom like that way too many times. It was her go-to when she was unhappy, and nothing made her mom unhappy quite like Ruby’s decision to stay in lower-paying food service jobs instead of going to college and pursuing a career that she had no interest in.
“I know you like it,” her mom said, her voice right on the edge of being patronizing. “But I thought that you’d explore your options a little more in the city, maybe find something worthwhile. Something that pays better.”
“Like what?”
“Anything you want. Your brother has had so much success as an accountant.”
Ruby groaned. How many times did she have to suffer through being compared to her perfect older brother?
“Doing math all day long sounds like a literal nightmare.”
Her mom laughed at that and some of the tension bled out of the conversation. Ruby knew that her mom was just concerned about her, but she wished that the woman would try to understand that happiness in a job wasn’t necessarily about how much money was made. If that was all that mattered to Ruby, she could have gotten a job in one of the factories operating in and around her hometown. The work was hard and the hours long, but the pay was great at those places.
But Ruby got satisfaction from waitressing. She always had. There was something thrilling about rushing around a busy dining room that made her feel like the jobwasworthwhile, even if her mom didn’t think so.
“So, tell me about home,” she said, changing the subject. “Anything new going on?”
“Probably nothing you want to hear about.”
Ruby knew what that meant. There was news about her ex.
“Something else going on with Derek?” Why couldn’t that guy stay out of the spotlight?
“Nothing big, but I heard from the manager at the grocery store that Derek and his wife were seen arguing in public. I guess it was a big blow up at the store near the checkout line. It got so bad that she left him there and he had to get a ride home from a friend.”
“What was the fight about?” Ruby asked, even as she tried to tell herself that it was none of her business.
“I’m not sure. A few people caught snippets of the argument, but no one really paid attention at the beginning. All I know is that the whole town’s talking about them and wondering if there’s trouble in paradise.”
Ruby didn’t really care if their relationship was strong or not. A year ago, when she was still hurt and upset about the whole thing, she would have wanted to know every detail of what was going on between them, but that was behind her now.
She talked to her mom for a couple more minutes before ending the call. She laid in bed for a moment longer, staring at her ceiling and thinking about how much her life had changed in the past year. She thought she’d be married to Derek now, happy and maybe trying to have their kids, but she was glad that she discovered his affair before the wedding. It saved her a lot of pain.
Besides, her new life already had so much potential.
* * *
It was Friday night and the restaurant was just as busy as she expected it would be. She’d been working at Walsh’s Irish Eatery for three days now, and she was pretty sure that she had the job mastered, but it was still a little daunting to walk into the restaurant and see every table full.
