Mine(3)
“Jesus, Mark.” I didn’t know whether to be more upset that he was taking my job, or that he wasn’t bothering to hide his racism from me anymore.
“Here’s your schedule for next week,” he said, pushing the paper across the bartop to me. I scanned the page.
“Nothing until Friday?” Panic burst up inside of me. Oh, dear God. You have such a sense of humor. I was really not going to make rent if I couldn’t work all week. “Are you shitting me?”
“Only crowd we get is weekends.”
“Not even Sunday? How about doing a Tuesday ladies’ night?” I said, casting about in my mind for a way to fix this. “That usually gets a crowd.”
“That usually loses us money,” Mark said. “Nobody comes back on other nights. We can’t afford to run them anymore.”
“Fuck,” I said. “Fuck.”
“I know,” Mark said sympathetically. He glanced back at the kitchen door, then shuffled around behind the bar. He brought out a half-empty pint of Jack Daniels.
“Here,” he said, pushing the bottle at me. “I’ll see you on Friday.”
“What, you can’t give me work but you can get me drunk?”
“Hey, if you don’t want it…”
“I’ll take it,” I said, grabbing the bottle off of the bartop. “I’m gonna have to find another job for weekdays, I guess.”
“I’ll give you a good reference if you need it,” Mark said. “You’ve been a good worker. All those damn illegal immigrants taking our jobs.”
“Sure, whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes as I turned away. “See you Friday.”
I walked down the street in a daze. I had no idea what I could do to scrounge up the cash for rent. The late fee was some bullshit like a hundred dollars, and I really couldn’t afford to pay that on top of my already shitty rent.
“Well, fuck everything,” I said, unscrewing the top of the bottle of Jack. If I didn’t have a job anymore, at least I could get drunk.
Sometimes I envied all of the Los Angeles crazies out on the street. They could do whatever they wanted to without pretending to be something they weren’t. I took another swig of Jack and watched as a man dressed in tights and fairy wings walked by, singing to himself.
I’d been on the street before. It wasn’t fun, but at least it wasn’t fake. I’d made that trade a while ago.
For a brief second, I thought about calling my mom and asking for some of the extra cash I’d already sent her way this month. But no. I couldn’t ask for it back. Last I’d heard, she was barely keeping afloat with trying to send my sister to community college.
My little sis, getting her degree. That was good. Maybe somebody in my stupid family would make something out of themselves. It certainly wasn’t me – failed actress, failed bartender. My mom always told me how proud she was. I wished that I could do something that she would actually be proud of. But the bar was set pretty low on that end.
My phone rang. It was Blaise. Shit. I grimaced as I put the phone to my ear.
“Hey sweetheart, what are you doing tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. I got these reservations for Bertesci’s. Great place, my dad knows the owner. What do you say? Seven o’clock?”
I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t go out on another date with him. He was a grade-A asshole, Hollywood’s finest. So full of himself that his ego was spilling out of his ears.
But hey, it was dinner, and I needed my grocery money for rent. I summoned up the ghosts of Stanislavski and Meisner. I’d need all of my acting chops to keep from smacking him across the face before the appetizers came.
“I’d love to!”
“Great,” he said. “Wear something tight. Not like that last dress you wore to our date, though. This place is classy.”
I wasn’t sure dinner was worth this. I gritted my teeth and put on my brightest, happiest voice.
“Sure, Blaise, can’t wait!”
Rien
I looked down into Bob’s chest. His heart was racing; it had overtaken the beat of the song already. I looked into his face and smiled.
“I’m sorry we can’t get to know each other better, Bob,” I said. “We haven’t even had a proper conversation yet. I would normally have a much better bedside manner, Bob. But I have another client coming in, so we really need to get this finished up quickly.”
The man’s eyes widened and his screams turned into one high-pitched whine behind the gag. His body twisted against the nylon straps, but they held tight. Good straps. They weren’t even that expensive.