“Okay, well, try it all for me. I’m living vicariously through you.”
We stayed on the video chat for another five minutes, although I could have stayed there all day. When the call ended and I tossed my cell back on the bedside table, I burrowed under the covers, closed my eyes, and prayed for sleep.
Maybe in my dreams I’d go on an exciting adventure and figure out what the hell I was supposed to do with my life.
2
Evelyn
If somebody would’ve looked at me as I made my way around to the tables of Bosco’s, the bar I waitressed at, they’d think I was some damn social butterfly. They’d see a confident girl with a carefree attitude, maybe even assuming I liked to party, always with a smile on my face. They’d think I was a hard-core extrovert for sure.
In truth, being around people drained me, not just mentally but also physically, emotionally. I hated it, much preferred to be isolated in my studio apartment and staring at the wall than tossing back shots with strangers. Darragh got that, because she was just like me in that regard.
So being a waitress at a busy bar in the city was like someone skinning me alive. I’d been working at Bosco's for a good chunk of time now, and before that, I waitressed at another bar. Same old path where my employment was concerned, especially when it came to the grabby male hands and sexual harassment.
Pasting on a faux smile for these drunken assholes who thought they had some kind of right to try to grope and slap at me with their big, meaty paws was like getting your teeth pulled without any anesthesia.
And then there was Ritchie, the owner of Bosco’s. I wanted to kick him in the balls more times than I could count because of his slimy gaze on me, his subtle manipulation, and his very clear sexual harassment he tried to cover up as “playful banter” between his coworkers.
Although I probably would have found another job easily enough, I wasn’t skilled enough to get something that I wasn’t already doing. And that was fending off the pricks at the bars. Besides, waitressing gave me good hours, the tips were incredible to help save toward schooling, and at the end of the day I had to think about my future and where I was going with it.
So here I was, five, sometimes six days a week, waitressing from six at night until two in the morning.
“Hey, darlin’.”
I pasted on my tight-lipped but still friendly smile as I set down the fourth beer in front of Jack, a regular at Bosco’s. He was an older man with a craggy face, a long, salt-and-pepper, unkempt beard, and sported a beer gut that hung over his pants because he’d clearly drunk way too much back in the day… and still did.
But I tolerated him because although he liked to throw out the sickly sweet endearments, he never tried to touch me, didn’t smack my ass or “adjust” my name tag, which sat right above my left breast. He just loitered, like one of those creepy old perverts who had nothing else to do with their time but sling back beers as he checked out the barely drinking-age girls who came in.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” I said but didn’t wait for him to respond, just turned and made my way around to my tables, never staying too long at them, especially if it was very clear the guys had too much to drink and had little to no self-control.
I was at the bar when I heard the loud conversation ring through from the new customers who’d just walked in. I didn’t have to turn around to know they were young men, probably already drunk from barhopping. But when I did glance over my shoulder, it was to confirm what I already knew and then groan, because of course they’d picked a high-top in my station.
“Thanks, Barb,” I murmured when my drink order was placed on my tray from the bartender. She had the rode-hard-and-put-up-wet look that surrounded her, as if she’d lived a rough city life, but she was still surviving. She saw too much with her dark-gray eyes, but she had a warm smile and a smart mouth when any one of us was disrespected.
“Good luck with that bunch, darlin’.”
I gave her a pained—thankful—smile and dropped off my latest order to the table of twentysomething-year-olds celebrating a bachelorette party. I made my way over to take the drink order from the obnoxiously loud group of guys. I’d have to be on the top of my game with this group, because I could already smell the liquor pouring off them before I even reached the table. Yup, for sure bar crawling.