For You (2 page)

Bruce's expression was caught between horror and laughter. “I can never tell if you're joking.”

“Me neither.”

Bruce raised his eyebrows in amusement. “You gotta roll with the punches, kid. People come here to get away from all that civility nonsense. Suits and ties and bullshit. I've never worn a tie in my life, and I don't plan to, not even at my funeral.”

“What about at your wedding?”

He laughed. “Who'd marry me? Women want tall, good-looking guys, like my friend Sawyer over there with the sketch book. He's been watching you like you're HBO.”

“Don't change the topic. Why don't you have a girlfriend? You have your own business.”

“Why don't you have a boyfriend?”

“Because I'm raising a little girl who doesn't need strange guys hanging around, confusing her.”

“Did… your mother do that a lot?”

That familiar lump of anger started up my throat. The alcohol warming my blood made it seem possible for me to forgive her, and I didn't like that. I would always love my mother, but I would never forgive her.

Bruce got a phone call and disappeared to the office.

I sliced up a couple more limes. We didn't need any more, but I liked the clean smell.

The bar started to fill up over the next hour, and one of the other servers started her shift. To my relief, she took the pool table side, rednecks and all.

Sawyer kept trying to talk to me, but I was pissed at him, pissed at the whole world. I just wanted to get through the night.

Toward the end of my shift, my purple-haired coworker Lana came up and wrapped her arm around my waist. Lana was a very touchy person, putting her arm around me at least once every shift we shared. She was older than me, in her thirties, and she had a teenage son. Her wedding ring was real, unlike mine. I liked her, so I tried not to shudder and pull away from her half-hug.

“Wanna earn some easy money?” she asked.

“I told you, Lana, I'll babysit for you any time.”

She laughed and tossed back her dyed-purple hair. “My cutie-pies at the pool table are makin' ridiculous bets.” Lana flashed me her easy grin, her round cheeks dimpling. “They're gettin' me to ask you to go humor them. They'll give you a hundred bucks if you sink a ball.”

I tried not to gag over her referring to them as cutie-pies. “Forget it. Fuck those guys.”

“You won't lose, though. And if you do, you won't lose money.” She grinned and nodded in their direction. “Just go over there.”

I looked around for Bruce, but he was deep in conversation with some regulars at the bar.

The two rednecks had become a group of five at the pool table, all chanting, “Aubrey, Aubrey!”

Lana told them my name? I sincerely wished I'd made up a fake name for working at the bar. It felt so invasive to have people I didn't know using my name, acting like I was their friend.

One of the guys put a pile of rumpled bills on the edge of the table. A hundred dollars.

The skinny guy handed me a pool cue and taunted me with his hateful glare. “Sink that shot and you get that money,” he said.

“What if I don't make the shot?”

“If you lose, you have to give me a big smile.”

“Fine.”

I approached the pool table. Everyone got quiet, all eyes on me.

I leaned down and looked at the balls. The orange ball was in the easiest position, so I leaned forward and rested the cue on my knuckles.

“Not that one,” the guy said, angling to get behind me as his friends all leered, practically slobbering at the prospect of me leaning over the pool table. “The green. Corner pocket.”

“Fine.”

“Get ready to smile.”

I tried to focus on the shot, to block out the noise of the bar, but that only made me more aware of my heart pounding and my hands sweating. I wiped my palms on my black skirt and leaned forward again.

Everything felt wrong. My arms felt wrong, and my legs were shaking. When was the last time I'd eaten? Was this the kind of shot that seems easy, but the white ball just follows the other down the pocket?

I was so focused on the shot, I didn't notice the guy moving up on me until it was too late, and he had his body behind me and his hands on my ass.

I grabbed one of the pool balls and wheeled around, ready to hit him with it.

The dirtbag was down on the floor, and a tattooed arm flashed before me as Sawyer pulled away from the man. One punch, and the guy was already down, holding his hands up and apologizing. Sawyer looked furious, but in control.

Holy shit, that happened fast.

Lana was there, breathless and patting my hand.

“Honey, you all right? I just saw it happening from over there and we came right over. They were getting a little handsy, but that was out of line.” Her eyes were wide and sympathetic.

Sawyer and the guy's friend were already hauling the man up and out by his armpits. I wanted to kick him, but stayed back with Lana.

“I think my shift is over,” I said.

“Get on home, then! I'll see to your section's tabs. It's the least I can do for sending you over here like this.”

People were staring, and someone was pointing a cell phone our way, taking a photo or video. Or maybe just checking their email. I couldn't tell, but I felt suspicious.

My head was buzzing from the adrenaline. I darted behind the bar to grab my purse, and ran out the back door, on the opposite side of the building as the entrance. Walking wasn't fast enough. Hearing nothing but the sound of my feet on the pavement and my own breathing was all I needed to clear my head.

How could I have been so stupid? Bruce had mentioned that he needed to get a mirror put up in that corner of the bar. I should have known those guys were trouble, but I'd lost my senses for what… a hundred dollars. Or the promise of it. And what if he'd tried to do more than grab my ass? I didn't want to think about it.

Someone was running after me, calling my name.

I thought maybe it was Bruce, but it was Sawyer, gaining on me.

“Oh, just leave me alone!” I yelled back at Sawyer. “I'm fine.”

“Let me walk you home!”

I stopped and wheeled around, ready to lay into him. It was all his fault. He'd gotten those guys riled up in the first place with his little talk.

As he got closer, I saw he had blood on his knuckles.

The world started to get blacker than it already was, the starry sky pulling itself into one small speck of light. My knees buckled.

I dropped to the grass, and he sat right next to me.

“I shouldn't have hit that guy,” he said.

“I'm glad you did.”

“My heart's pounding.”

I breathed deeply and felt my own heart, slowing down now.

We were sitting on grass next to a sidewalk, at the mid-point between two streetlights.

He was looking so concerned and enjoying his opportunity to be Mr. Tough Guy Hero.

“Thanks for everything, really.” I got to my feet. “I just want to go home.”

“Fine. I'll walk you.” He shook his hand and rubbed his knuckles on his T-shirt, leaving a smear of blood on the dark brown shirt. His knuckles didn't look cut, so it must have been the other guy's blood.

I got walking, and Sawyer skipped to catch up.

“I don't feel like talking,” I said.

He didn't respond to that, just walked silently alongside me.

After a few minutes, I decided I didn't mind his presence. When he wasn't talking, I could pretend he was a pit bull. My own personal bodyguard.

The air outside was warmer than I expected, given it was still spring. I imagined talking to Sawyer, telling him I'd lived in the country most of my life. I tried to find us places to live that were near parks and lots of trees, but a starry night sky like the one above us made me miss the country so bad. The sound of frogs around a pond was so much better than cars whizzing by on a main road.

I stumbled over some gravel, and Sawyer looked like he was about to sweep me up in his arms. Please. Yes, I was a little shaken, but I wasn't going to shatter to pieces over one stupid thing like that. Bad things happen, and you move on. You do what you need to do to protect yourself, and you keep on living your life.

He looked down at me, concern still on his face.

A boy scraped by on his skateboard. Dogs barked. We walked past a run-down house with people spilling out the front door, smoking weed and talking loud over the music. Some of the guys called after us, telling us to come join the party, but I didn't even look back. Sawyer gave them a friendly wave and we kept walking.

Before I crossed into Canada and moved here to Surrey, I used to hang out with some pretty wild girls I met at my last job. They would have marched right into that party and demanded drinks and smokes, no problem. They would have laughed and sat on the counter in the kitchen and flirted with all the guys.

Thinking about them made me crave a cigarette for the first time in months. Everybody at that fast food restaurant smoked, it seemed, and if you wanted to actually get breaks during a shift, you had to take up the habit. At first I only smoked that bargain brand, OP—Other People's. Charlotte would find me in the kitchen, scrubbing down the fryer and say, “Hey, Aubrey. Want some OP?”

I'd say, “You know me,” and follow her out to the back.

We'd sit on milk crates in the alley, practicing our French inhale and blowing smoke rings.

I would have never guessed Charlotte was stealing from me, possibly because she was so generous with the cigarettes. Even six months later, it was hard to believe the cash hadn't just wandered out of my purse on a regular basis, and the few valuables at my apartment hadn't just been misplaced.

After my suede boots disappeared, I should have confronted her, but it was so much easier to pretend I didn't know. Sometimes when she looked at me, I thought I could see the guilt in her eyes, and I made a note to myself what guilt looked like.

One day, she didn't show up for her shift, and I found out through the other girls she'd been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. Then I didn't know anymore if that look I'd seen in her eyes was actually guilt, or desperation.

She never came back to work, and one day I saw my suede boots in a thrift shop, and I bought them back for ten dollars.

Sawyer's deep voice rumbled through my thoughts intrusively. “Whatcha thinkin' about?”

“My suede boots. I think I'll wear them to work tomorrow.” We were still three blocks from my apartment, so I picked up the pace.

“But what else? You've got to be thinking about more than suede boots.”

“I'm also thinking about how people pretend to be your friends, but they're actually lowlife dirtbags, and everybody steals from everybody, and that's just how it is.”

“Ouch.”

We walked for a minute, nothing but the sound of some dogs barking in the distance and our feet on the sidewalk.

He said, “Why doesn't your husband pick you up from work?”

“That's a good point. Maybe you should ask him. Or maybe you should mind your own fucking business.”

He took an audible breath and stuck his hands in his pockets. “I sure hope you don't live far from here, because I don't know how much more abuse I can take.”

“Then go. I don't need you.”

He stopped still in his tracks, and I kept walking. I knew he wanted me to look back, or apologize, and maybe I should have, but I didn't.

My life was barely holding together as it was, and some guy coming along and getting into my business was the last thing I wanted.

Even if he was cute.

I wore the suede boots to work on Saturday, and Bruce stared down at them as he pushed a bulky envelope toward me on his desk.

“Am I in trouble?”

We were in the tiny office at the back of the pub, and he was eating minestrone soup straight from the can. He paused, one gelatinous spoonful near his lips.

“Guilty conscience?” he said.

“No,” I snapped.

“Are you okay, though? You don't have to be here today. Sawyer came back last night and said you got home and seemed okay, but what happened was my fault.”

“No, it wasn't your fault. I should have been more aware, but I was thinking about that hundred bucks. So stupid.”

“You're not stupid. And I'm serious about you taking some time off. And I've been thinking about safety for you servers, in general. I've got someone coming by first thing Monday to put a big mirror across from that corner, so there won't be a blind spot there anymore.”

“Those guys said they weren't from around here, so I don't think they'll be back.”

Bruce grinned. “No, I think Sawyer taught them a lesson.”

With his smile, the mood lifted, and I felt confident I could put the previous night behind me.

“Is Sawyer a friend of yours?” I asked.

“No, he's too cool to be
friends
with an old guy like me.” He nudged the envelope at me again, making me take it. “Here, this is for you.”

“Coupons?”

He laughed. “You have such a weird, dark sense of humor. Seriously, we should do an open mike night here and you can do your act.”

“How do you do that? How do you always take everything like it's a joke?”

“I'm always drunk.”