Charlie English was oblivious to everything and everyone around him. Sometimes that was tolerable. Usually, it was totally fine. Sometimes I could write it off as Charlie being Charlie.
And sometimes his oblivious behavior bowled me over. Crushed me beneath the boulder of his energy like an Indiana Jones movie gone wrong.
Sometimes he lashed out with his unawareness in a way that punched straight through my flesh and blood and landed hits on the softer, secret places of my soul and spirit.
But he’d been forgiven for so much over his lifetime. Nobody had ever expected anything from him, so nobody ever held him accountable.
At this point, he couldn’t do anything to fix the chasm that had grown between us. I was as unfixable as he was unaware. But I loved this job and his family too much to walk away.
And that was probably what would kill me in the end.
two
The night had been... tense. To say the least. Ally wasn’t the fastest server I’d hired, and she messed up two really big tickets. But she was also new to the job, and I knew she was smart enough to figure it out. She just needed practice.
Craft was a trial-by-fire business. Ideally, I would have loved to hire waitstaff based on competence and not simply availability and willingness not to quit before the end of the week. Introduce them to the job slowly, build up their stamina and expertise before turning them loose on all the persnickety drinkers of Durham, North Carolina and watch their performance, giving helpful criticism. I wanted to make Craft an atmosphere where they fell in love with the ethos of the small business as quickly and infinitely as I had.
But, in reality, it was the exact opposite kind of job from all of that.
Will had settled down some since he met Lola and stopped scaring off every trembling college girl who walked in looking for a job. But there was COVID-19—aka the food service mass exodus, where everyone fled the food industry when it was shut down or highly regulated. Just as we were getting back on our feet post-pandemic, employees became mythical creatures nobody could seem to find or hire. And now that people were finally returning to the blue-collar work force, they seemed excessively picky about what they were willing to tolerate as far as working conditions went.
Which was good for them.
It just sucked for us. In an already difficult industry, I was left begging for scraps and trying to convince twentysomethings that the tips were worth it.
To their point, it was hard to plan your life and bills around what you may or may not get tipped from entitled customers.
I sighed and slunk onto the nearest high-top barstool. It had been a night. And my feet were killing me. Why I thought it was a good idea to break in a new pair of Blazers was beyond me. Cute shoes but they had terrible arch support.
But the important thing to note was that I’d survived the night. I’d slung approximately one million drinks, taken twice as many food orders, nonalcoholic beverages, and random requests, pacified five angry customers for various reasons, stopped serving three customers closing in on over-the-limit, dealt with Ally’s two messed-up tickets by making it rain free drinks and food coupons, and stopped one fight from happening in the bathroom.
That had been a coincidence. The two gentlemen had reached one tequila shot too many and had miscommunicated something involving one of their girlfriends. I had just happened to step out of the girls’ bathroom after a routine paper towel check and was able to intervene. I offered a round of Sexy 7 Ups for the table, reminded them that they’d be banned forever and ever amen if they so much as pinched each other, and then somehow escorted them back to their table even though they were easily twice my size.
It was Friday night, and the bar was usually packed, but people weren’t always so wily. There must be a full moon.
I pulled my cash from my apron and started counting my tips. If my mental tally was anywhere close to accurate, I was at close to six hundred bucks.
Ally stopped by my table, eyes wide at the fat stack of ones, fives, and tens in my hand. “Geez, Ada, I want to be you when I grow up.”
I smiled patiently at her. She would be so lucky. “Keep working hard,” I told her patiently. “The secret is making sure they never have to wait for you with an empty glass. Stay on top of drink orders, and this is easy.”
Her mouth twisted in doubt. “There’s got to be more to it than that. I feel like I already do that.”
My lips puckered, trying to trap a response inside my mouth. I’d had to find her multiple times tonight when her tables had flagged me down for help. And once, when she’d stepped outside for a smoke break, I’d had to cover her ass before her table got up and walked out.
But I was desperately trying to keep servers staffed, not run them off. “Well, maybe just keep working on it,” I suggested. “It gets easier as you go.”
“But I never leave my ta—”
“Tomorrow night will be better for you. And, hey, since you don’t actually smoke, maybe you can skip the pretend smoke breaks. You’ll make your customers happy.”
She rolled her eyes. “But then I don’t get a break.”
“Yeah, me neither.” I jutted my chin toward the bar. “Charlie doesn’t either.”
“Miles gets a bunch of breaks.”
“He actually smokes.”
