CHAPTERFOUR
Kate
For the next week, I was on edge. Every time the door to the Sea Siren opened, I expected Sam to walk through. But he didn't. Good, I told myself. I didn't want to see him ever again. Too bad that deep down, I was disappointed that he hadn't made an effort to make good on his promise that he’d change my mind about him. That feeling made me angrier at him and at myself. At him for stirring up all the old feelings, and at myself for letting him.
By the time Halloween arrived, I realized he'd gotten my I’m-not-interested message and wouldn't be back. Now I was free to focus on my business and forget about him again.
We closed the Sea Siren right after the lunch service so that we could prepare for the Halloween party. I had bought several of Carlo’s mother's decorations, as well as a few others from a local craft store. I also had a stash of decorations stored away from last year.
By the time the evening shift arrived, we had the place pretty well done up. Spiderwebs, pumpkins, purple lights, cackling witches, gravestones, we had it all. We even set up the hallway to the restroom like a haunted house. I hoped that didn't result in people having accidents on the way to use the bathroom.
We were finishing up the last details when Dana, who was in charge of all the servers tonight, approached me. "Samantha isn't here."
I looked over at the bar. Jared, the new hire, was there looking a little lost as he worked to prep the bar. He wasn’t just new here, he was new to bartending as well.
I probably shouldn’t have scheduled him for tonight because he was so new. But he needed the money, and I figured with Samantha with him, he’d get a crash course in bartending. But if Samantha wasn’t here, that could be a problem. I didn't think he was ready to take on the extra chaos tonight was going to be.
"I have to go change anyway, so I'll call and see if any of the others are available," I told her.
"I hope you can find someone because having extra waitresses doesn't do you much good if the drinks aren’t being made fast enough."
I nodded. She didn't need to tell me something I already knew to be true.
Back in my office, I opened the contact list on my phone and began calling the other bartenders on my payroll. There weren’t very many. Just three.
Anna was already mostly drunk when I reached her at whatever Halloween party she was at.
Dominic didn't answer his phone, and knowing him, he probably wouldn't. He was a good worker when he was here, but I never had any success finding him when I needed him in an emergency. I suspected he turned his phone off or ignored my call.
My last resort was Carl who was seventy-five years old. Normally, he worked day shifts when the bar wasn’t in too much demand. Plus, he didn’t drive at night. I’d have to go pick him up. Then there was my concern about whether he could manage the crowd we were going to have tonight. So that left me.
I wasn't a trained bartender, but I had worked in clubs long enough that I could do the easy drinks like serving beer and wine and straightforward cocktails such as rum and Coke or scotch and water.
I considered not putting on my Halloween costume because it was a little tight and might inhibit me behind the bar. Ultimately, I decided it wouldn't look right for the owner of the establishment to be the only person not dressed up.
Dana had shown up dressed like a wench, one of the other girls looked like a manga cartoon, another dressed like Daisy Duke, and the last one was dressed like a witch or maybe a succubus. One thing was for sure, they all came dressed in a way that was sure to earn them a lot of tips, at least from the men.
I slipped on the skintight dress, aptly called a mermaid style since that's what I was dressing up as. I would be a sea siren.
The dress was a green shiny fabric that flared out near the bottom, which made walking slightly easier. The bodice was the same fabric as the rest of the dress but cut in a way that it looked like waves except where it dipped low between my breasts.
Normally, when I worked, I wore my hair up, but mermaids normally wore theirs down. It was part of their allure. It was like the DNA in the man was coded to be attracted to women with long hair.
I pulled the tie out of my hair, combing through the long strands and then clipping one side up with a flower barrette. I touched up my makeup and then slipped on silvery heels. My feet would probably hate me by the end of the night, but there wasn't anything I wouldn't do for success in my business.
I left my office, heading back to the main part of the club. Looking over to the corner, I saw that the DJ was setting up. We normally had music on the weekends and karaoke on Wednesdays, but this was Halloween so I’d arranged for the DJ to come tonight.
I walked over to Dana. "No go with a backup bartender, so I’ll—"
Dana nodded toward the bar. "We have a fill-in."
I turned to the bar. "Uh... no."
Sam stood behind the bar dressed as a pirate, showing Jared how to mix a drink. By the look of it, it was a martini.
"I'm sorry, Boss. It's my fault. I told him that unless he knew how to bartend and was willing to work for free, he had to get out. I really thought that would get rid of him."
I knew Sam could make a martini, but did he know how to bartend? "How do you know he can do the job?”