head straight home to bed, but I am scheduled to work the eight-to-two shift at Gander. I try not to think about how tired my arms already are from hauling big trays around or how much more tired they will be after hours of making drinks. I focus instead on the new vocabulary I learned today and hurry off in the opposite direction, straight to the women’s employee locker room.
My gym bag is close to bursting at the seams, but it holds everything I need for both my shifts. I have just enough time to wash my face and reapply some makeup, though the cheap florescent lighting means that the results are less than stellar. A shower isn’t an option, but I guess that’s why God invented Victoria’s Secret body spray. Once I have mostly replaced the smell of the kitchen with a hearty dousing of Love Spell, I slip into the skinny jeans, black boots, tight white button-down, and suspenders that make up my uniform. Another glance in the mirror reveals that my hair is unattractively flattened to my head in random places because of wearing a bandana all day. The bandana is totally Karate Kid , but way better than a hairnet. I run my hands through my hair a few times to try to fix it, but it is the kind of mess that no amount of product is going to remedy. I normally don’t care all that much about my hair when I’m at work, but it’s pretty terrible-looking. When I say flattened I don’t mean Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby ; I mean Donnie Wahlberg in The Sixth Sense .
Not cute.
I finally give up, pull an old vintage scarf out of the bottom of my bag, and tie it around my head where the bandana had been. It looks a little more rockabilly than I would have liked, but it is the best I can do.
I use what remaining energy I have to run down the back hallway while scarfing down some almonds and chugging a bottle of water, and I make it behind the bar with no time to spare. I have a small heart attack when I realize Landon is sitting at the counter waiting for me. I have no idea how long she’s been there.
“Good grief, girl, where have you been?” she calls to me as soon as I am close enough to hear it. “I’ve been looking forward to this drink all day, and I’ve been sitting here for half an hour already waiting for you.”
Maybe if I focus on the second part of the sentence, she’ll ignore the first.
“You could have asked someone else for a drink,” I say, grabbing a lowball glass for her. “Jack rocks isn’t hard to accomplish; any one of the other geniuses here could have figured it out for you.”
“Yes, but it’s so much more fun to be served by you,” she says, slipping her phone into her black Cole Haan.
I can’t help but smile, remembering the intervention Miko and I staged to get her to move on from the pink-and-gold monstrosity of a purse she came to LA with. Our argument that no high-end client would take her seriously was finally enough to persuade her to buy a classier handbag.
I place her drink on the cocktail napkin in front of her, then casually lean my elbows on the bar. It is a Monday night and relatively slow, so it is easy enough to stop to chat. And truthfully, I am exhausted and not really interested in running from one end of the bar to the other. Landon takes a little sip, then reaches back to fluff up her hair. God forbid it should lose any volume in the eight minutes since the last time she fluffed it.
“So why weren’t you around today?” She raises her eyebrows dramatically. “Don’t tell me you have a secret boyfriend who took you on a day-long date.”
I snort in response.
“No secret boyfriend to speak of. How about you?”
As soon as I ask it, I regret my question. I want to change the subject, but I don’t really want to initiate a heart-to-heart about her and Brody’s relationship. I love both of them, and I worry about how close they are getting. If—or really when—they break up, it is going to seriously screw us all, so it is probably better if I don’t get
My gym bag is close to bursting at the seams, but it holds everything I need for both my shifts. I have just enough time to wash my face and reapply some makeup, though the cheap florescent lighting means that the results are less than stellar. A shower isn’t an option, but I guess that’s why God invented Victoria’s Secret body spray. Once I have mostly replaced the smell of the kitchen with a hearty dousing of Love Spell, I slip into the skinny jeans, black boots, tight white button-down, and suspenders that make up my uniform. Another glance in the mirror reveals that my hair is unattractively flattened to my head in random places because of wearing a bandana all day. The bandana is totally Karate Kid , but way better than a hairnet. I run my hands through my hair a few times to try to fix it, but it is the kind of mess that no amount of product is going to remedy. I normally don’t care all that much about my hair when I’m at work, but it’s pretty terrible-looking. When I say flattened I don’t mean Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby ; I mean Donnie Wahlberg in The Sixth Sense .
Not cute.
I finally give up, pull an old vintage scarf out of the bottom of my bag, and tie it around my head where the bandana had been. It looks a little more rockabilly than I would have liked, but it is the best I can do.
I use what remaining energy I have to run down the back hallway while scarfing down some almonds and chugging a bottle of water, and I make it behind the bar with no time to spare. I have a small heart attack when I realize Landon is sitting at the counter waiting for me. I have no idea how long she’s been there.
“Good grief, girl, where have you been?” she calls to me as soon as I am close enough to hear it. “I’ve been looking forward to this drink all day, and I’ve been sitting here for half an hour already waiting for you.”
Maybe if I focus on the second part of the sentence, she’ll ignore the first.
“You could have asked someone else for a drink,” I say, grabbing a lowball glass for her. “Jack rocks isn’t hard to accomplish; any one of the other geniuses here could have figured it out for you.”
“Yes, but it’s so much more fun to be served by you,” she says, slipping her phone into her black Cole Haan.
I can’t help but smile, remembering the intervention Miko and I staged to get her to move on from the pink-and-gold monstrosity of a purse she came to LA with. Our argument that no high-end client would take her seriously was finally enough to persuade her to buy a classier handbag.
I place her drink on the cocktail napkin in front of her, then casually lean my elbows on the bar. It is a Monday night and relatively slow, so it is easy enough to stop to chat. And truthfully, I am exhausted and not really interested in running from one end of the bar to the other. Landon takes a little sip, then reaches back to fluff up her hair. God forbid it should lose any volume in the eight minutes since the last time she fluffed it.
“So why weren’t you around today?” She raises her eyebrows dramatically. “Don’t tell me you have a secret boyfriend who took you on a day-long date.”
I snort in response.
“No secret boyfriend to speak of. How about you?”
As soon as I ask it, I regret my question. I want to change the subject, but I don’t really want to initiate a heart-to-heart about her and Brody’s relationship. I love both of them, and I worry about how close they are getting. If—or really when—they break up, it is going to seriously screw us all, so it is probably better if I don’t get
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