Olivia (2 page)

“Looks like someone had a good time on her blind date last night,” Izzie said with a smug smile. Of course she was smug. She was the one who had set Olivia up. Knowing Izzie, she’d probably spent her entire evening planning Olivia’s wedding and naming her first-born child.

“Good drinks, shitty time.”

“What was wrong with Ryan? He’s a nice guy with blonde hair and blue eyes, and he’s a Northsider—everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Quit being so picky.”

“Have you ever actually talked to the guy?” Olivia asked. “He could put Ambien out of business.”

“Well, no, not exactly… He’s a friend of John’s. They golf together.”

“Since when does John golf?” Olivia laughed at the mental image.

Izzie’s husband, John, worked as a trash man for the city of Juliette. Tall and wide, with biceps the size of ham hocks, every inch of John’s body was covered in tattoos. He shaved his head bald, bought all his clothes at the Harley-Davidson store, and sported a goatee that hung down to the middle of his chest. Basically, he was a really scary-looking dude. But, somehow, he came across as cute and cuddly at the same time. It was weird.

“I don’t know…” Izzie thought about it, causing her perfectly-plucked brow to furrow and her pretty, little nose to wrinkle. “Three weeks ago maybe?”

Izzie was so pretty and perfect it made Olivia gag. Mainly on her own raging jealously. Izzie had it all—a beautiful face, a killer smile, a musical laugh. Her boobs were perfectly aligned and looked fake even though they weren’t. She was the kind of girl who could wear a mud mask, flannel nightgown and foam curlers to a wedding and still draw all the attention away from the bride. Compared to Izzie, Olivia felt like the turd floating in the punch bowl.

“Why were you late today?” Stephie butted in. Since Stephie was screwing the boss, she thought that made her the boss, which pissed Olivia off.

“None of your business,” Olivia said.

“Sleeping off your hangover?” Carla guessed.

“No, I backed into some guy at the Get ‘n Go.”

“Was he cute?” Izzie asked.

“I have no idea.” She hadn’t looked at him. For all she knew, he had three heads and a forked-tongue. “Knowing my luck, he was probably hot as hell, and I just smashed up his truck.”

“He was probably your Carl Jr.,” Melanie Neilson chimed in from across the room. She sighed with a dreamy, little smile as her hands fluttered up to her heart. And then her eyes teared up and she started to sniffle. Her chin began to quiver. Her hands fanned her face as she tried to fight it, but as usual, she lost the battle and ran for the restroom. No one followed her. That was just Mel. She cried all the time.

Mel was twenty-five, the same as Olivia, and already married and divorced with four kids. Her ex, the aforementioned Carl Jr., was supposedly a good man who just couldn’t kick a meth addiction. Mel was certain one day he would find the Lord and get clean.

Their love for each other bordered on obsession. She only divorced him to get better government assistance after their fourth child was born. What little income Carl Jr. did manage to bring home—whenever he wasn’t high—was just enough to disqualify her and their children for most assistance programs. And they desperately needed the assistance. With bills mounting, a stomach filling with ulcers, and an eviction notice on her door, Mel had given Carl Jr. an ultimatum: kick the habit and hold down a job, or she’d kick him to the curb. He chose meth—or, more accurately, meth chose for him—leaving a heartsick Mel with no other option but to end their marriage. If she had waited a few more months to file she would have received the assistance anyway. Carl Jr. was arrested a few miles outside of Omaha for driving the wrong way on I-80, nearly killing a family of four from Maryland on their way to a family reunion in Colorado. He was sentenced to five-to-ten in the state pen for possession with intent to sell, and Mel was lost without him.

Izzie drew in a deep breath. Before Izzie could exhale, Olivia rushed to pop her ear buds into her ears and hit shuffle on her crappy, ancient mp3 player. Whenever Izzie took a deep breath she was about to delve into a long and winding, painfully-tedious story about John and how fabulously wonderful he was. Usually it was one Izzie had already told Olivia the night before, either over the phone or between shots at Kitty’s, the bar they currently favored because George Gregory Valish was the bartender and he was hot and made their drinks strong. Olivia would give her first-born son to the devil for one night in heaven with George, and she told him as much late one night after way too many whiskey sours. He had yet to take her up on the offer, but she was holding out hope.

The night limped along and Olivia ran out of Dr. Pepper by the third hour. She took two extra smoke breaks to make up for it. Stephie made a point of marking an obvious note on her clipboard both times Olivia came back through the door, but she had clocked out so Stephie could kiss her ass.

What Olivia did off the clock was none of Stephie’s business. Besides, Olivia knew for a fact that Stephie didn’t bother to clock out when she and Sam disappeared into the back corner of Shipping and Receiving for upwards of an hour every night to inspect product. Everyone knew exactly what they were inspecting, and it most definitely was not included in Garretson’s vast product line.

Izzie and John were trying to make a baby, so Izzie rushed home at exactly midnight. Carla had a crush on Gregory House, MD and had a new episode on her DVR calling her name, so that left Olivia on her own as she walked into Kitty’s with plans to suck down as many beers as she could before last call. She threw a quarter into the jukebox, eliciting a collective groan from the room as the first bars of John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Jack and Diane” played.

George slid a bottle down the bar to her. “You need to pick a new favorite song, Liv.”

“Aw, you all love it and you know it,” Olivia said with a smile before chugging half of her beer. She always smiled whenever she looked at George. It was an involuntary, knee-jerk reaction to how incredibly hot he was. Dark hair, tan skin, the face and body of a Roman god—
mmm, doggy!
The man was sexual perfection.

She set the bottle down on the bar and danced around the room, clapping her hands in time to the music. As usual, Kenny Waters played the part of ‘Jack’ to Olivia’s ‘Diane,’ Lonnie Otts performed the drum solo, and the entire bar sang the choir. Most nights George came out from behind the bar to dance with her, but this time he simply watched her hips sway to the music.

When the song ended she perched on the stool at the end of the bar and pointed to her empty bottle. George handed her another one and leaned into her. The glorious scent of “sexy” filled Olivia’s senses, and she breathed deep, inhaling his essence.

He swatted her with the towel he always wore draped over his shoulder. “So, whaddya know?”

“Nuttin’, honey,” she said. “Same as yesterday.”

“Who’s the guy you were with last night?”

“Jealous?”

“Maybe.”

“Some guy, Ryan, that Izzie hooked me up with,” Olivia said with a roll of her eyes.

“What was wrong with him?” George asked.

“Dull, dull, boring, dull—the guy owns a cat, for goodness sake.”

“Ah.” George moved down the bar without another word.

“You really were jealous of him, weren’t you?”

George smiled and Olivia felt a rush of warmth. Damn, he was hot.

“So, when are you gonna grow a pair and ask me out?” she asked.

“Someday, Liv,” he promised with a wink. “Someday.”

She rested an elbow against the bar, and as she drank her beer, she surveyed the thin crowd. Kitty’s was packed on Fridays and Saturdays, but on a Tuesday night it was dead, save for a handful of alkies and other nightshift workers like her. The majority were holdovers from the previous owner of the bar, Helen Pochop.

When Helen had owned the place it had been called, appropriately, ‘Helen’s Place.’ Helen had been a bitch who had not-so-lovingly referred to her five, grown children and their spouses as “those greedy, bloodsucking leeches.” She had not only cut all of them out of her will, she had also specifically mentioned that they were not to inherit one red cent of her fortune. When Helen died, her fortune, after years of back taxes were paid, amounted to just under sixty-three dollars in cash, and the bar. She had left it all to her cat, Miss Kitty Cat.

Even though George couldn’t stand his Aunt Helen, he was the only relative whom Helen had tolerated, and she had named him executor of her estate. Out of some misguided sense of loyalty, he had volunteered to run the bar while the lawyers fought out the ownership rights in court, and he left a fairly good-paying job in Omaha in order to do so. As a joke, he had crossed out Helen’s name on the sign above the door and changed the name of the bar to Kitty’s Place. It caught on.

He changed a lot of things about the place, slowly turning a seniors’ hangout into a fairly-lively weekend nightspot for a little town like Juliette. Olivia knew George secretly wished he would be granted ownership of the bar, but she also knew he was not the type of person who would ever ask for it. Unless some sort of miracle happened, one day in the not-so-distant future, he’d be gone, and a bloodsucking leech would be manning the bar.

Olivia pulled her eyes away from George and smiled at Kenny Waters as he slid onto the stool next to hers. “Kenny G. My man.”

“Whuzzup?” Kenny asked in a slow drawl.

“Not a damn thing. What’s up with you?”

Kenny dressed and acted like a thug, but he was all heart under his wife-beater tee. He sent his wife flowers for no reason and bought her jewelry ‘just because.’ His kids were cute, always clean, and actually said “please” and “thank-you” without prompting. On weekends, he coached Little League and loved to throw a barbeque. He worked with Olivia at Garretson, but whereas Olivia’s quality job was a joke, Kenny’s maintenance job was very real. As the only maintenance man on second shift, the poor guy was solely responsible for ensuring the entire plant remained up and running between the hours of two p.m. and midnight, and he worked his ass off to make sure that happened. Of any of the Southers, Kenny and his family were the only ones who deserved to move to Northside, but he never would. He actually liked living in South Juliette. It was his only flaw.

“Saw your car out in the parking lot. Back into the movie drop-box again?” he asked with a teasing grin.

She rolled her eyes. “As if.”

Olivia’s car and the movie-return box at Movie Mania had an unnatural attraction to each other. She had backed into that stupid metal box not once, not twice, but three times. The poor box looked like crumpled, rusted soda can because of her. After she backed into it the second time, Charlie Wayne, the owner of Movie Mania, had Rogan and Sons Construction out of Allman Falls install thick concrete barriers around the box. But Charlie was an idiot and wouldn’t let the Rogans bolt the barriers through the concrete of the parking lot. The third time Olivia backed into the drop box she not only bent the frame of her car but also managed to shove one of the concrete barriers through the side of the box. Olivia had paid for the damage, but Charlie had pocketed the money and left the barrier impaled through the box. It wasn’t her fault the movies got wet when it rained, but Charlie sure did love to blame her for it.

“I backed into a pickup at the Get n’ Go,” she said.

“You know that little mirror on the windshield is for more than putting on lip gloss.”

“Seriously?” she asked with mock surprise. “Huh. Who knew?”

“How bad’s the truck?”

She shrugged. “I have no clue, but I’m sure I’ll find out when my rates go up again.”

“Your insurance guy must absolutely love you.”

“Oh, Reggie hates my guts. He’s dying to drop me, but I pay my premiums so he’s stuck.”

“He could drop you if he wanted to.”

“I know.” She poked his arm. “I heard you’re gonna be a daddy again. Congrats, man.”

“Thanks, Liv.”

“Maybe you’ll get your boy this time.”

Kenny crossed his fingers as he took the last drink of his beer. With three little girls already, the poor guy was drowning in pink ribbons and baby dolls. “I’m gonna head out, catch some z’s. See you tomorrow, Liver.”

“Same time, same place.” She watched him make his way to the door, pausing to talk at every table along the way.

George picked up Kenny’s empty. “Last call, Liv.”

She held up two fingers as she downed the last swallow in her bottle.

“You know you can’t do that.”

“The other one’s for Kenny,” Olivia lied.

“Fine,” George said with a sigh. “You’re lucky Kenny’s still in the bar.”

“And he will be for the next twenty minutes. He’s just starting to say his goodbyes.”

“Then he can drink his own beer.”

“Don’t mess with me.” Olivia cocked an eyebrow, giving George her best impersonation of Sam’s intimidation expression. “Hand ‘em over, bucko.”

George laughed and handed her both beers. “You know if you quit spending so much money here every night you’d have been able to move to Northside a long time ago.”

 “So you’re saying I should quit tipping you?”

“When have you ever tipped me?” George asked.

“Start bartending with your shirt off and I’ll start tipping you.” She wiggled her eyebrows as she threw some money at him to pay for the beers. What she really wanted to do was tuck the dollar bills into his underwear, after she ran her hands all up and down his oiled, muscular body. But, alas, he was fully dressed. It would seem weird.

“You’re too much sometimes, you know that?” His tone played irritation, but he winked at her. Oh, yeah. He liked it.

The patrons slowly trickled out, each of them calling out a goodbye to Olivia as they left. Bar regulars are a bit like family—you can’t pick ‘em, you can’t get rid of ‘em, and if you ever make the mistake of borrowing money from one of them, heaven knows they’ll lord it over you for the rest of your natural-born days. For the most part Olivia liked her bar family better than her real one. They actually talked to her, and seemed to care if she were still breathing.