Racing the Sun(22)

“Hey, I’m buying you a beer, not him,” Cole says, slurring enough to make me think he doesn’t need another beer. But according to him, he does. He stands up and walks over to the empty bar. So far we’re the only people I’ve seen in the place.

Cole hollers, “Yo, pretty bird!”

Pretty bird?

At that the bartender pokes her head around the corner, her eyes trained on him in a decidedly evil manner. “What did I tell you about calling me that?” she says in a slight New York accent. “My name is Shay and if you can’t call me that then I can’t serve you.”

Shay crosses her arms and throws a rag down on the counter in a huff. She seems like a tough little cookie. She’s also absolutely gorgeous, and I can see why Cole has stooped to calling her nicknames. She’s tall, curvy in all the right places, with long, thick, golden-brown hair and Brigitte Bardot bangs. She’s even got the Bardot pout going on, with full lips and pale lipstick, though her skin is dark bronze and her eyes are strikingly hazel. She’s definitely got a Middle Eastern bombshell thing about her.

“Sorry, sorry,” Cole says. “I was just buying a beer for my new friend here, Andrea from San Francisco, California.”

I give him a stiff smile. “Actually, it’s Amber from San Jose, California.” I look at Shay. “I promise I won’t call you any nicknames.”

She laughs at that and I’m glad. When I first started traveling I felt too shy and unsure of myself to let loose with people I didn’t really know. That’s one of the main things that has changed about me. I’m more eager to make friends, more confident talking to strangers, and I can eat at a restaurant or go to a movie alone without feeling like a loser or caring what people think.

“Go sit down,” she tells Cole. “And I’ll be buying Amber her drink, not you.” She smiles at me. “First drink here is on the house, so what will it be?”

I give Cole an apathetic shrug and then go over to the bar, where I can see the selection. I usually accept drinks from guys because it saves me money but only after I’m sure the guy knows that nothing is going to come out of it. With Cole drunk, I can’t be sure if he does or doesn’t expect anything, even if it’s only two in the afternoon.

“Whatever is on tap is fine,” I say, quickly adding, “but something light. No Guinness.”

“I like easy customers,” she says and pours me a pint of Peroni. She passes it to me and wipes her hand on her apron. “So, Amber from San Jose, I’m Shay from Brooklyn.”

I raise the beer at her. “Nice to meet you. So how did you get this gig?” I ask, nodding at the bar.

She shrugs. “My boyfriend and I came here three months ago. We drank at this bar every night for a week, not wanting to leave. The previous bartender was going back to Ireland so we just kind of swapped.”

“But what about the whole Schengen Visa thing?”

She shrugs again. “Italy is really relaxed about people overstaying their welcome, or so we were told. When we flew into Europe, we made sure to fly into Rome. They never stamped our passports for entry there so there’s no real proof of how long we’ve been here.”

“Lucky,” I say. “I have to leave in two months.”

She makes a face. “Well, you can probably stay a bit longer. A lot of the people I meet, the customs officials don’t even look at their passports when they leave.”

“Ciao, bella!” A singsongy voice comes from the door. I turn to see two Italian girls enter, all long limbs and even longer hair. They wave at Shay and sit down at a table by a window. I spy a Fendi purse being placed on an empty chair. So chic.

“Ciao! Un momento,” Shay says and then starts pouring two Guinnesses. She nods at the girls and eyes me. “Those’re Utavia and Lenora. They come here every Friday for their cheat day. They love Guinness but I guess it doesn’t mesh very well with their diets.”

I look back at the girls. So much for Italians being able to eat everything and anything. These girls obviously have to work to stay slim.

Shay runs the beers over to them and comes back to me. With only a few people in the bar we get to talking, and soon I’m two beers in and feeling a bit buzzy. She tells me all about her boyfriend, Danny, and how they were a lot like me—couldn’t find a job after college so they decided to work boring jobs and save money and just travel instead. As I talk to her, I get to thinking that maybe I’ll just do that again when I go home. Forget about using my English degree, I’ll just work at Starbucks and travel all over again. Or maybe I can even use the experience I get at the Larosas’ and teach English somewhere else in Europe.