by Natalie Ward
When I’m finally done, I stand back and survey how I look.
Like shit.
There are dark circles under my eyes from too little sleep. My skin is pale, almost translucent, from too many hours spent indoors and I’m sure this dress wasn’t this loose when I bought it. Either way, it will have to do because it’s too late to change now. I’m already far too late as it is.
“Taxi is waiting for you downstairs,” Owen says handing me my coat as I walk into the living room. “You look great, Em,” he says, kissing me on the cheek.
“You’re such a liar,” I say, playfully punching him in the stomach. “But thanks.”
He squeezes my shoulder. “Go, have fun,” he tells me. “For once don’t think about work or how much you don’t want to be out tonight, okay?”
I shrug. “I’ll try.”
Owen shakes his head. “There is no try, only do.”
I roll my eyes at him, not even bothering with a response as I walk out the door and head downstairs, wondering if it’s even possible for me to have fun anymore.
~ Nick
The girls finally leave around nine, a stretch limo pulling up outside the bar that has them all screaming again at what I can only assume are levels dogs routinely hear. There’s a final last minute flurry of trips to the bathroom and checking their lipstick before they all call out goodbye to Tony and me and walk out the door.
“Fuck me,” I mutter, gathering up the mess of half drunk glasses they’ve left behind.
Tony laughs. “Don’t pretend you don’t enjoy it,” he says, pulling a beer for an older customer who looks equally relieved the girls have gone.
“Yeah, right, I love it,” I say sarcastically, emptying their glasses as I stack them in the dishwasher.
“You know, you could try,” he says, no longer joking. “You are actually allowed to have fun in this job.”
I busy myself unpacking the clean glasses, refusing to meet Tony’s stare because I know exactly what he’s thinking and exactly what else he wants to say. It’s not that I don’t appreciate his efforts; it’s just that while he seems to feel this is the best course of action for him, it’s not something that’s ever going to happen for me.
Not anymore anyway.
“Nick?” he says, waiting for me to answer.
I shoot him a quick glance, shrugging my shoulders as I say, “I do have fun.”
“Right,” he scoffs, moving on to serve a group of guys who’ve just walked in.
I ignore his comment as I turn back to wipe down the bar. There’s a napkin with a name and number scrawled on it, which I scrunch up and throw in the bin. The older guy drinking his beer chuckles a little as I do and I look up and ask, “You want it?”
He laughs even harder now, swallowing half his beer in one long gulp. “Too young for me,” he says. “But what’s your story with it all?”
I serve some customers as this guy continues to watch me, waiting for an answer. I’m not sure what he’s expecting me to say or why he thinks he can ask me about it, but in the end, I just shrug and say, “Not my style.”
“Doesn’t have to be your style,” the guy says, finishing off his beer. “But your friend’s right, you are allowed to have fun.”
I watch as he stands and grabs his coat from the back of the bar stool. He grins at me, before turning and walking out of the bar. “Random,” I mutter, watching as he holds the door open for a woman who looks unsure about whether she even wants to come inside. I watch her, wondering what makes her so uncertain, but then she shakes her head at my last customer, stepping backwards as she turns and glances down the street as though she’s looking for something.
I keep watching her as she stands outside on the cold street, alternatively glancing at the door and the curb where taxis are waiting. She’s hesitant, as though she can’t decide if she should stay or go.
Eventually though, she does neither, instead pulling a phone from her bag, thumbing through some keys and lifting it to her ear. She turns away from me and leans back against the front window of the bar.
She’s wearing a long black coat, her long blonde hair still half wet as it blows in the cold night air. I can’t see her face as she talks, but after a few minutes her head falls, the hand not holding the phone running through her hair in frustration or despair maybe.
Even from behind, she looks lonely and for some reason, a part of me wants to walk outside and see that she’s okay. Maybe tell her to come inside where it’s warm, so I can pour her a drink and she doesn’t have to feel so alone. I shove the towel in my back pocket, unsure about what’s driving me to want to go out to her.
“Excuse me?”
I turn, see a group of four standing at the bar, one of them looking expectantly at me. I shake my head, knowing I’ve got no business going outside to ask if this woman is alright. I’ve got a bar to run, customers to serve. Shaking my head, I plaster on a smile. “Sorry, what can I get for you?”
By the time I’ve got them their drinks, the mystery woman is no longer outside my bar, the window empty with nothing but the faintest wet marks where she leant her wet hair against the glass. I’m surprised by a sudden feeling of loss, as though I’ve somehow missed out on something by her not walking in here.
It’s weird and I turn away from the window, busy myself making sure all of my customers are served, that everyone’s drinks are full.
When I turn down to the end of the bar though, to the stool the guy offering me relationship advice sat in, I’m shocked to see her sitting there. She’s still wearing her coat; the collar turned up to her chin even though the heating in here ensures the bar is nice and warm. Now she’s up close, I can see I was right about the frustration and despair. It’s written all over her face, along with a healthy dose of exhaustion too. She looks nervously around the room as though she’s going to bolt any second and for some unknown reason, I find myself moving towards her.
Wanting her to stay.
~ Emma
I’m sitting in the bar.
I have no idea what I’m doing here.
Because I’m sitting in a bar where I know the girls no longer are and I know absolutely no one. I knew it before I even walked in the door, it was clear they’d gone, the room is small enough that I could see all the way to the back, where I’m now sitting. It’s almost a relief to know that I don’t have to put on a fake smile and pretend to be happy to be here, but just as soon as I think this, I realise I also can’t go home. If I go home Owen will only find a way to make me go back out, to find out where Sarah is and go meet them.
I’m not sure which option is less appealing right now.
The place is all exposed brick and dark wood. The left side is dominated by a long bar, the wall behind it lined with a waist high bench and the space above filled with glass shelves and bottles. There are glasses hanging from racks and bowls of lime slices, sprigs of herbs and all sorts of other fancy garnishes. There’s no tacky neon signs, no beer advertising and no TV screens showing sports either, just a row of high-backed bar stools, most of which are filled with customers.
The right side of the room has a row of cozy booths and the odd bar table and stool. At the back is a dark corridor, which I’m assuming lead to the bathrooms, next to which sits an old-fashioned jukebox. The music is old school, hip enough to still be trendy but low enough that the customers can still talk. Long bulbs hang from the ceiling, their elements dimmed so the whole place takes on that mysterious darkened room vibe. I can see why Sarah would’ve liked this place.
Tightening my coat, I turn my phone in my hands, trying to work out what the hell I should do now. I can’t go home and I clearly can’t stay here either. But I’m distracted by the call I made before coming in here. The call I couldn’t stop myself from making. The call I make after every shift is over, despite how many times I’m told not to. Or how many times I try and convince myself I don’t need to.
Work.
Of course I’d called back, asking to spea
k to Jason, to see if the family was okay, that the social worker had taken care of them. What I hadn’t expected was him telling me about the father of the boy we hadn’t been able to save earlier tonight. How he’d had a heart attack and was now in the ICU being monitored. It was lucky he’d been in the hospital when it happened, but I guess you could say it was unlucky he’d been in the hospital in the first place.
Blunt force trauma.
The words ring through my head, even now.
“Emma, you don’t need to worry about this,” Jason had said, even though he knows I will.
“I do,” I’d said, shaking my head. “I should’ve stayed. Will he be alright?”
Jason had let out an exhausted sigh down the line. “Unclear, but he’s stable for now.”
I’d nodded, knowing that the next twenty-four hours would be crucial; that the full extent of the damage to his heart wouldn’t be known right away. Although given everything that had happened to this man’s family tonight, I’m not sure if his heart wasn’t already completely broken anyway.
“Okay, well keep me posted.”
Jason had exhaled again. “Go and have a night off, Emma,” he’d said. You deserve a break.”
“You do too,” I’d said.
Jason had laughed and we both knew what that meant. We did deserve a break, but we were never really going to get one. Our kind of job doesn’t come with an off switch, no matter how many times we walk out the door and try to forget about it.
As clichéd and egotistical as it all sounds, people’s lives were and are, literally in our hands and it’s really hard to just ‘clock off’ and hand that kind of responsibility over to someone else to take care of.
Now though, my phone lights up with a text indicating the missed call and voicemail from Sarah. I’m not sure I have the stomach to listen to it. I know it’s only going to be filled with questions. Questions like ‘where are you?’ and ‘how could you do this to me?’ And they are all questions that I don’t know how to answer.
So instead, I slide my phone back into my bag, wondering what the hell I should do next.
“Drink?” a voice says.
I look up; see the bartender standing in front of me a bottle of beer in one hand and a bottle of scotch in the other. I look at his face, see the questioning look as he stares at me. I open my mouth to say something, but no words come out. Instead, I shake my head, knowing this is a mistake. I can’t sit here alone in some bar drinking. I need to go home. I’ll call Sarah and hope it goes to voicemail, leave her a message that tries to explain I’ve had a shit day at work and celebrating her wedding, which is still eight months away, is not what I feel like doing right now.
“You sure,” he says, setting the bottles on the bar. “You look like you need it?”
I feel a sudden ache of sadness in my chest, my throat tightening as long-forgotten tears threaten to fall. I blink rapidly, trying to make them disappear so I don’t make a complete fool of myself in public. The bartender says nothing, just reaches for a napkin, which he sets wordlessly on the bar in front of me. He then turns and opens the beer, putting it in front of me next to a glass which he fills with a generous pour of the scotch.
“Either or both,” he says, gently pushing them towards me. “On me.”
I say nothing and he walks away. Grateful, I quickly pick up the napkin; blot tears I haven’t shed in as long as I can remember. I don’t even know where they are coming from. I don’t usually cry over things that happen at work.
As cold as it seems, it’s something you quickly learn to block out. Pushing your emotions down until they’re buried somewhere so deep they can’t ever escape. It’s what lets us do our job without falling apart, lets us focus on saving a life when everything appears to be lost.
Sometimes it’s hard not to wonder about the impact it has on our own life though. Sometimes I wonder if I haven’t buried all of these feelings so deep, I’ll never find them again.
I pick up the beer and swallow a long gulp, grateful for the coolness of the liquid as it washes down my throat. I immediately feel better and by the time he wanders back, I’m halfway through the bottle.
“Not a scotch drinker, huh?” he says, gesturing at the glass.
I swallow, glancing up at him. He watches me, a look on his face that I can’t decipher.
He’s good looking in that rugged, manly kind of way. Dark hair, that’s pulled back into one of those fashionable man buns that every guy seems to be sporting these days. It suits him though. His eyes are even darker, but I can’t quite see what colour they are in the low lighting. There’s faintest dusting of stubble on the kind of face that undoubtedly serves him very well in this job. The dark eyes are kind too; eyes that no doubt invite customers to both talk and flirt.
He raises an eyebrow in question and I realise I’ve been staring at him and I have no idea what he just asked me.
“What?” I blurt out.
“Not a scotch drinker?” he asks, gesturing towards my untouched glass.
I shake my head, trying to clear whatever that was just now. “Um…I ah, I like it with ice.”
“Ice, huh?” he says, eyebrows scrunched in question. “Not sure how the Scots would feel about that, but if that’s what you like, what would they know.”
He sets a glass of ice on the bar next to my scotch. I scoop up two cubes and drop them into my drink, hearing them clink against the glass. He watches me the whole time, smiling when I look up at him again.
“Can I get you anything else?” he asks.
My stomach rumbles reminding me that I haven’t eaten for nearly fifteen hours. Between the litres of coffee I’ve had and now the beer and scotch on an empty stomach, I’m going to be on the floor very soon. Given I almost burst into tears when this guy offered me a drink, passing out on the floor of the bar he works in is not something I’m keen on following that up with.
“Do you have any food?” I ask, glancing around the room. There is what looks like a kitchen at the back behind me, but it’s dark, no signs of life.
“We don’t,” he says, apologetically. “But I’m about to order some dinner, want me to get you something too?”
I look up at him; see the concerned look on his face now. I’m about to shake my head no, that I don’t need any special treatment when he pulls a take-away menu from under the bar and slides it in front of me. “They deliver,” he says, as though that solves everything. “We order from them all the time, it’s fine.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, looking down at the options as he stands there watching me. I pick the first thing I see, pointing to it as I slide it over. I reach for my purse, but the guy shakes his head, as if to say it doesn’t matter, before he wanders over to the phone, waving the menu at the other bartender to ask if he wants anything. As I watch him, I can’t help but wonder why he’s being so nice to me. Surely it’s not the standard routine, giving a girl free drinks and a meal just to get them into bed. He’d be out of a job if that were his MO.
No, I’m sure he’s just playing the role, taking pity on someone who’s clearly had a shit day. Maybe he figures if he gives me some free drinks now, I’ll stay and order more.
But as I glance around the room, looking at all of the people in here tonight, the couples, groups of friends, I can’t help but wonder what the hell I’m even doing here. I don’t belong in this place because I am nothing like these people. I’m not sure if I ever was or if somehow, I just lost it along the way. The room is full but not so much that it’s packed, it’s just full of life and laughter and happiness. Things that are definitely missing in me these days.
I should leave. I have no place being here and the easiest thing to do would be to go home and try to forget about everything that happened. Wipe the slate clean with sleep so I can get up and do it all again tomorrow.
I stand up, ready to go.
And then for unknown reasons, I slide off my coat and hang it on the back of my chair.
The warmth of the room
envelops me, almost like an embrace. As awkward as this all feels, I know the loneliness of anonymity is far better then the loneliness of being at home.
So I sit back down. But when I glance up, I catch the bartender staring at me and I wonder if this was such a good idea after all.
~ Nick
“Hot,” comes Tony’s voice at the same time his elbow jabs me in the ribs.
Distracted, I turn to face him, see the grin as he eyes the girl sitting at the end of my bar and then me. A sudden protective instinct surges through me, an urgent impulse to stop him from going over and trying anything on with her. I’m not sure she’d be up for it, but I’m not sure I would be either.
“Mmmm,” I say feigning disinterest.
Tony laughs because he knows I’m full of shit. Of course she’s hot, she’s fucking beautiful, but I’m not about to admit that to him. “Well, if you’re not going to,” he says, eyebrows raised in question.
That protective instinct fires up a gear and I step sideways, blocking his view of her. “Leave it, Tony,” I say, my voice firm.
He looks at me, confused. I’ve never stopped him before, mostly because I’ve never cared before. Hell, a year ago I’d have been the one doing all the flirting while Tony hung back and did nothing.
But that’s all changed.
And while it’s now Tony who’s the one flirting with the customers, I also know he’s a good guy about it. He’s not going to fuck them over or treat them like shit because he’s just not that kind of guy.
But this girl feels different, or maybe too familiar in a way I don’t want to think about right now. Whatever it is, she seems far too vulnerable and while I don’t doubt she can take care of herself, tonight I don’t want her to have to.
