The Bar and Grill

Deciding it was best not to get into a knock-down, drag-out fight with a nine-year old, I walked over and pulled the plug from the television.

"Now," I said.

Emily glared at me. Nadine looked from me to her sister, then back at me with a matching glare.

"Mom said we could watch TV," Emily said.

"No she didn't."

"Yes she did," Nadine piped in.

I smiled. "As soon as your homework's all done and checked, you can watch TV until bedtime. Until then, no TV. Got it?"

I walked from the room leaving two spoiled rotten munchkins to glare at my back.

"And don't even think about plugging it back in," I called back to them from the kitchen.

They didn't, thankfully. I needed to relax, and playing games to get them to finish their homework would only keep the stress level high.

Once in the kitchen, I rummaged through the refrigerator for something to eat. I wasn't that hungry, but I knew I would be before bed. Best to eat a little now instead of eat a lot just before bed.

Ten minutes later, the remains of a roasted chicken, red pepper, and pesto sandwich on the plate before me, I was flipping through cookbooks looking for ideas on carrots. Soup was not going to use up three boxes of them.

(Quick note on gourmet sandwiches: Think of a sandwich as a meal between two pieces of bread. Preferably good bread. So don't just have baloney and mayo on Wonder Bread. Instead, take last night's pot roast, slice it into chunks, chop up the left over root veggies, and slather it all with some good stone ground mustard, heat it briefly, and now you really have a meal. Try it sometime. It works particularly well with Thanksgiving leftovers.)

"Tim?"

I looked up. It was Nadine, standing in the hallway with her schoolwork in her arms. She was a mixture of embarrassed and shy.

"Yeah, honey."

"Can you help me with fractions?"

I smiled wide and patted the seat next to me. "Come on, let's get crackin' so we can watch some TV, okay?"

Her relief was evident, and we spent the next half hour going over fractions.

Times like this made all those aggravating times really worth it.

Spoiled or not, I loved them to death.

FOUR

Ernie was laying across my belly, and his snores finally cut through my sleep. I was on the couch, covered by both Ernie and a blanket, and it was just past midnight. I hadn't heard Nina come in, but the blanket told me she was home. She must've gotten home late, too, because I remember the weather from the end of the ten o'clock news.

I sat up, tumbling the pug off my belly, and folded the blanket. Ernie watched drowsily as I set the folded blanket back on the couch. Once done, I lifted Ernie onto the blanket. What the hell, he might as well be comfy, right? And comfy he was; I could hear his snoring resume before I reached the bedroom door fifteen feet away.

The room was dark, but I could sense Nina's presence. Not wanting to awaken her, I stripped to my undies at the foot of the bed, tripping in the darkness.

"You looked so peaceful," she said. Her voice was wide awake. And sad. "Just you and Ernie, sleeping so peacefully."

She tried to laugh, but it sounded forced.

"Have fun?" I asked, sliding under the sheets next to her.

"Yeah," she said. "Guess so. You know."

Truth be told, I didn't know. And judging by her tone, she didn't know, either.

My hand reached toward her in the darkness, finally finding and resting on her shoulder.

"Please, Nina, tell me what's wrong."

In response, she rested her cheek against the top of my hand.

After a few minutes--remember, I'd learned the hard way to not press for answers--she spoke.

"Just a lot going on, Babe. It's not you, so don't think that. Okay?"

I grunted in response.

"And no matter what happens, just remember I love you, Tim."

"But what's going to happen? What-- "

I felt warm tears against the top of my hand, and she pressed tighter.

"Just go to sleep, Babe. I'll be over this soon. Promise."

But sleep didn't come as easily as it should have. I was too scared. What was going on here? She'd been in down moods before, but none of them had lasted this long. And the way she was talking was . . . ominous. Like something bad was going to happen.

No way she was cheating on me. I took that for granted. Was she in trouble at work? Had she done something illegal? I just as quickly put both of those out of my mind, as well. No, I had no goddamned idea what was going on here.

To understand my confusion, you'd have to know Nina. We'd met three and a half years before. She was out with a bunch of the other nurses, and they came into the restaurant for some administrator's going away party. After the party, she and a few others helped me with some of the basic clean up. Once the dirty dishes were stacked in the sinks in the kitchen for the next morning, we all returned to the bar area for a few drinks and some light conversation.

I don't know when I really picked up on it, but I remember seeing her more and more around the Bar and Grill. She may have been coming in before and I'd never noticed her. Given her looks, though, I found that hard to believe. After a month or so, we started having drinks together and chatting nearly every time she dropped by.

Nina had been through a rough patch the year preceding our first meeting. She was a registered nurse in the trauma unit at Lincoln County Hospital, recently divorced, had two little girls she loved more than anything, and overwhelming guilt over her affair with a doctor that had caused the break up of her marriage.

Nina and Steve had been together since she was in nursing school. Twelve years, all told, and married for six of them before he discovered her brief, two-month affair. Though she'd gotten custody of the girls when the final judgment had been entered six months before I met her, she was still crushed by the burden of her shame and what she had lost. She and Steve had been perfect together, she repeatedly told me.

That was why the affair was such a mystery to her. Sure, she told me, Steve had been working long hours and she had been working long hours. Worse, she had yet to lose all of the weight from giving birth to Nadine. Steve never cared, though, said he liked her with a few extra pounds. Nevertheless, she felt ugly, lonely, overworked, and stressed out, and she needed to feel attractive. Steve thought she looked great because he loved her; she wanted someone else to confirm she was still beautiful, someone who didn't already have a vested interest in finding her beautiful.

"Unfortunately," she told me all those years ago, "my pride didn't goeth before my fall. No, only after Steve found out did I realize I was acting like some goddamned immature little high school tramp. But by then, it was too late. The fall came, Tim, and it ruined everything I had. And the girls had. And then my pride went, and here I am."

She cried telling me about the girls. Nina was constantly torn by Emily's sudden angry outbursts and, worse, Nadine's confusion at the disaster that had become their modern American single-parent household.

So when Nina told me she'd never, ever, under absolutely no circumstances cheat again, I believed her. She knew what it had cost her and would cost her again, and there was no way she was going to put her little girls through another trauma like that. That's why she spoiled them so much: She felt so guilty about taking their family away from them, and she was determined they not go without anything else ever again if she could help it. In addition to spoiling her girls, Nina's blue funks every couple of months told me she still lived with the pain of what she had done to her first marriage and her family.

So after a whirlwind courtship, we somehow found ourselves married within six months of first meeting. Simple ceremony: Judge at the courthouse, party for friends, relatives, and customers at the Bar and Grill afterwards.

And with the exception of the occasional two- or three-day depressions every few months, we'd all been pretty happy together.

Only later, looking back on it all, did I realize that there was a small flaw in my unbound faith in Nina's fidelity.

A real small flaw, but I should have spotted it at the time.

FIVE

As the waitresses appeared the next morning just before the lunch crowd, Clara approached me.

"You know Jenny's leaving Friday, right?"

I looked up from the prep table where I was running cucumbers through the mandoline for salad garnishes.

(Kitchen Safety Tip No. 15: If you're not a professional chef, always use the safety guard when slicing on a mandoline. That, or make sure your health insurance is paid up and you won't need your fingertips for anything else ever again.)

"Hadn't heard," I said.

"Means we're one waitress short."

I nodded.

"And I've been going through the applications folder, see if there's anyone who'd fit in here."

I smiled. "Don't keep me in suspense, Clara."

Her lips tightened. Poor old Clara. She didn't even smile much around the customers. It was a wonder she made any tips. Her brisk efficiency seemed to make up for her lack of joy, though. And God knows I couldn't run the food side of things without her.

"Well, my sister's girl, Gertrude--"

"The sister or the girl?"

"Huh?"

"Is the sister's name Gertrude? Or the girl?"

"My sister," she sputtered. "You know that."

I grinned because she was right: I did know that. Clara's parents had saddled all their kids with old-fashioned names. Besides Clara and Gertrude, there were Ethel, Myron, Veronica, and Cyril. Pretty strange bunch of names for a group of kids born in the first half of the Sixties.

"Anyway," Clara continued, glaring at me to quit interrupting, "Gertie's oldest, Nicole, has run onto some hard luck. She's back in town with a little one, and she needs a job real bad."

"She got any experience waitressing?" I said.

"No."

I shrugged. "Sounds about par for the course."

Clara said nothing, waiting for me to say more. I went back to the cucumbers instead.

After almost a minute, Clara couldn't wait any longer. "Well, can I hire her?"

I stopped again. (Kitchen Safety Tip No. 16: Best not to use a mandoline unless you're paying attention. Even if you're using the safety guard, it's still a great way to lose a fingertip.)

"Clara, have I ever told you who you could and couldn't hire?"

She shook her head.

"Then why're you making a big deal about it now? You want to hire her--think you can train her and she'll do okay--then go ahead and hire her."

I wasn't angry; I was exasperated. She knew the deal.

"Well, I might need to get her some extra hours, Tim."

"Doing what?"

"I don't know. Maybe tending bar some. Or cooking."

"She got any experience tending bar or cooking?"

Clara shook her head.

I laughed. "Well, once I see how quickly she picks up on waitressing, I'll give it some thought. Okay?"

Clara's shoulders sagged in relief. She reached out and almost touched me and, swear to God, a smiled damned near popped onto her face. Then, without another word, she turned and left to set up the dining room.

This seems a good time to tell you about how I run the Bar and Grill. To be honest, I don't. I run the kitchen, and barely get to call the shots there.

First, obviously, there's Clara. She's in charge of the dining room wait staff. She's in her early fifties, solid but not fat, and tall, nearly six feet. Clara is married to a truck driver named Leon Burton, and they have two teenaged boys. The boys are bruisers, just like their old man, and starting linemen, offensive and defensive, for the Grant City Generals. Clara has been at the Bar and Grill since about the time I started nineteen years before, and she knows how to train wait staff and wait tables. She isn't surly, but she's certainly no-nonsense. Her motto with customers, always unspoken but noted by most nevertheless, is "Sit down, shut up, eat up, pay up, and get out." We had a high volume dining crowd, and most people have the common sense to free up the table shortly after finishing. If they want an ice cream drink, there are tables in the bar area to sit and keep right on chatting.

Next comes Moe. Don't ask me what it's short for; I don't know, and he's not telling. Moe LeRouche is how his checks are made out, and that's how he endorses them. Moe runs the bar end of things. Thank God, too, because I'd be lost in my ordering if I couldn't turn to him. Moe is in his late thirties, divorced, graying crew cut hair, square jawline, and a touch of a pot belly. He teaches math at Grant City High during the days. At nights, Monday through Saturday, he's tending bar for us from seven to closing time. Child support for three kids will do that to you, particularly when you're always slipping the kids a few extra bucks in spending money. No one knows why he and Elaine divorced, particularly since they are beyond friendly with each other every time they meet. Anyway, every night, Moe checks inventory and leaves me neat lists of what we need to order and what's overstocked and should be avoided. I shake in fear--shit you not--when Moe takes his annual ten-day fishing trip and leaves me in charge of the bar supplies.

Finally, there's Uncle Jack. He'd always putzed around the Bar and Grill, filling in as bartender, waiter, and cook whenever we were shorthanded. Uncle Jack was a retired Marine, and thirty-three years in the Corps had left its imprint on his looks and demeanor. He was no nonsense, a touch vulgar, and liked all of his ducks kept in a row. He also kept his Marine Corps physique: Narrow waist and barrel chest, arms like cannons, clean shaven, and a gray crew cut that never seemed to grow even the smallest fraction of an inch. I honestly think he cuts his hair every day.

When Aunt Aileen died six years back, though, he quickly found out he was bored out of his mind sitting home alone. In the home they'd shared since his retirement fifteen years before. Staring at memories of his life. Worse, his life in the Corps made him a generally impatient and energetic fellow.

Three months after Aunt Aileen's passing, Uncle Jack was waiting for me outside the door of the Bar and Grill one morning.

"What's up," I'd said.

"Need a job," had come the gruff reply.

"Doing what?"

"Anything."

"Don't pay much."

"Don't care."

Over coffee and my morning prep work, we'd negotiated the terms.

"I'd rather work nights," he'd said.

"Really."

Nod. "Don't laugh, but I've taken a liking to golf. A few of us old fellas meet every morning. Membership's cheap, you know. 'Specially if you're a senior."

"What about winters? Can't golf then. Still gonna wanna work nights in the winter?"

"They told me I'd like ice fishing. And other things."

"Other things?"

He hesitated. "Fuckin' bingo and bridge." The look on his face told me he didn't really believe them when they'd told him he'd like these.

Miracle of miracles, though, he liked bridge--probably because it involved gambling--and ice fishing. As a result, nights it was, which finally allowed me to have a life.

One thing about Uncle Jack, though, is he's not much of a cook. I don't mean he's lousy or anything. It's just that he doesn't do any of the soups or the specials or the sides. What he does is cook burgers and steaks, fish and chops to the ordered temperature, plates everything precisely, and gets it out quickly. What that means is that his evening shifts are actually more grill and fryer work than my day shifts, but my shifts are a hell of a lot longer because I'm doing all of the grunt work. I don't care, though, because I like the grunt work--inventing specials, making soups, and chopping and slicing garnishes and accompaniments mostly--and I have really come to love having my evenings free. So I stick around with him for the first hour of the dinner shift every night, and a high school kid helps him keep up on Friday nights.

What I do with Clara, Moe, and Uncle Jack is I let them all run their own show. They know how it's supposed to be done; they know their people way better than I do; and they show me a degree of loyalty my instructors at cooking school told me was damned near unattainable.

I think it was General Patton who said, "Don't tell them how to do something. Just tell them to get it done and let them figure out how to do it."

Smart man, that General Patton.

SIX

Steve has visitation with the girls until about 8:30 every Thursday night. Thus, I try to get home as early as possible every Thursday night so Nina and I can spend a few uninterrupted hours screwing like rabbits. Don't get me wrong, Nina's got a great personality. She's funny, bright, hard working, incredibly empathetic and caring, and easy to talk with. I'd love her to death even with a more mundane sex life.

But we did not have a mundane sex life. Put simply, Nina loves to screw. I swear that woman can do more tricks on six inches of cock than a monkey can on twelve feet of rope. The only thing off limits is assplay. No touching, licking, or--"Don't you even think about it, Mister"--anal intercourse. Her enthusiasm for all other things sexual, though, made this a minor issue. Thus, Thursday nights and alternating weekends are the real highlights of my calendar.

Sure, we do it far more often than just those few times, but we can't really let it all go. Got to keep down the noise level, and the accompanying acrobatics, when the girls are in their bedrooms on the other side of our ranch house. There were no such restrictions on Thursday nights and alternating weekends, though.

Thus, you can imagine my disappointment when I got home and found only Ernie waiting for me. I checked the answering machine and, sure enough, there was a message.

"Tim," she started, sounding harried. "Sorry, but we just had a big one come into the unit. Five kids in a car accident or something. I'm not gonna get out of here until late." Then she paused, and I could hear the sounds of the emergency rooms around her with people yelling out drug directions and room directions and all of that crap. "Sorry, Babe. I love you."

She sounded stressed and pressed for time, but she didn't seem too disappointed about missing the Thursday night gala I had planned to get her out of her funk.

With a sigh, I looked down at Ernie. The chubby pug was sitting at my feet with his tail popping back and forth, his soft wheeze and big, brown eyes begging for attention.

"Okay, little man, let's eat."

Let's get this straight, pugs are bright dogs. Ernie is, anyway. You can tell because the minute he hears any word related to food, he goes to his bowl and waits for his food. Lonnie Mackie at the bar is a lot like that.

I looked around the empty house, listened to the silence--save Ernie's loud snorts as he inhaled his Kibbles and Bits--and decided to go back to the Bar and Grill for dinner.

Once back at the Bar and Grill, I grabbed a seat in the corner and waited for Clara to notice me. She was busy with another waitress--one I didn't recognize--at the soda station.

The girl next to Clara was tall, though not as tall as Clara. Probably about equal to my five ten. She was slim, too, with long legs and narrow hips, her shoulders only slightly wider. From behind, I could only see long, straight, dark brown hair. What I really noticed, though, was her exceptional posterior.

Might as well get this up front now: I'm an ass man. Tits, while nice, can be too big in my book. Legs are great, and long legs greater, but--aside from the face and eyes, which are the first thing I look at--the one thing about a woman that really gets my motor running is a great ass. Nina has a great ass, pert and cute and it could almost fit in a buck's track. This ass, though, was the very essence of a great ass. Perky and proud, a slight bubble that shouldn't otherwise be on a woman with such narrow hips. The kind of ass you just want to hold and squeeze, knead, lick, maybe even give a nibble or two.