The Bar and Grill

When the waitresses turned, I saw a beautiful face, too. Not beautiful in the classical sense, but beautiful in the sharpened model sense. Remember those French chicks dancing with Robert Palmer in those cheesy mid-Eighties music videos? That's what she looked like, except the longer hair and a way better ass. Her face even had that impassive look, the look that takes in its surroundings without changing emotion. Or showing any emotion at all, for that matter.

Clara spotted me, saw me staring, and turned and said something to this vision of beauty. The woman turned her head and looked at me, then started walking toward me, pulling out her order pad at the same time.

"Mr. Franklin?" she said. Her voice was medium, not girlish or high pitched or husky. Neutral. She looked mid-twenties, four or five years younger than me.

"Call me Tim," I said, reaching up to shake her hand.

She hesitated, a skittish look flashing in her hazel eyes, then clasped her hand in mine and shook. Her hand was cool and dry, the handshake just shy of manly firm. A nice handshake. And a really nice hand.

"And you must be Nicole."

"Yes," she said, poising the pen over the order pad and raising her eyebrows. A tiny smile curled her lips. "Would you like to hear our specials?"

I grinned. "Thought you weren't starting until tomorrow."

"Aunt Clara's been sneaking me in for a few days now."

I shot a look at Clara, who suddenly turned away and found something else to do.

"Few days, huh? Like, since before yesterday?"

"Since Monday, actually."

"And you start when?"

"Six-thirty."

So they were all in on it. The whole place knew about the new waitress starting her shift every night just after I left.

"Well," I said, shrugging, "I'm just the boss. Don't really see a need for me to know things like this, huh?"

I saw the smile leave and her face go impassive. She started to say something, but I cut her off.

"Relax, Nicole. I'm not angry. And I need to get you back to your duties. So I'll just have a bowl of soup and a side salad with bleu cheese, okay?"

She nodded, wrote down my order, and strode to the kitchen.

Five minutes later, I watched her push through the kitchen door with soup and salad balanced across one forearm, a small basket of bread in her other hand. What was strange was the look on her face when she nudged the door open with her hip--it looked a lot like a wince of pain--and the concentration on her face that evaporated when she set the bread down then took the soup and salad off of her forearm. It was a look of relief.

"You okay?" I asked.

There was a small rivulet of sweat beading down her temple. "Fell," she said. Her eyes avoided mine, and her voice was little more than a mumble.

"Must've been a helluva fall," I said.

My voice went lower. "You sure you're okay?"

She only looked up at me, held my gaze for a second, and nodded.

"I'll be okay."

I nodded. "You need to take some time off, it won't-- "

She shook her head. "No, really, I'm okay."

She tried to smile, but it didn't work like she planned. Then, without another word, she went back to her other tables.

I ate my soup while it was still hot, nibbled on the bread, and ate about half of the salad.

I was laying my napkin across the table in front of me when I heard Clara at my side.

"So," she said, "what do you think? She working out okay?"

I turned and saw Clara giving me a hard stare. I waved my hand to the seat across from me, and Clara turned to make sure no one else was busy before sliding into the chair.

"What's wrong with her?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"She's hurt."

Clara bit her lip at this. Her eyes darted to Nicole, then back to mine. I decided to wait her out, eating my soup and looking at her.

"It's her boyfriend," she said. "Ex-boyfriend now."

"Beating her?"

Clara nodded.

"That's why she's here. She left him after the last beating. Packed up her boy and her things and came back home."

"Where's he at?"

"Frontier City," she said, naming a town about thirty miles down Highway 92.

"How long's she been back?"

"Last Saturday."

I smiled. "Didn't take you long to get her set up here."

Clara fidgeted.

"Settle down," I said. "I'm not angry. It's just . . . you coulda told me, you know?"

Clara nodded. "I will next time. Promise."

I sat back and sipped my iced tea, thinking things through in my mind. Once it was all sorted out, I spoke.

"Tell her to be here Monday morning at nine."

Clara looked at me in confusion.

"I'll train her for kitchen work," I explained. "She can start covering some weekend shifts."

Clara's relief was evident. "Thanks, Tim."

"You think she'll be okay by then? A little less sore?"

Clara actually smiled, teeth and everything. "She'll be ready."

"Okay," I said. "And her kid? She'll have someone to watch after him?"

Clara nodded. "Between me and Gertie, we should about have it covered."

I shrugged. "I guess it's all set then."

With that, Clara rose and bustled about the dining room with renewed vigor.

See, that's how easy it is to inspire loyalty. Your employees and your customers have their own problems in their own lives. Try to give a shit about them and try to help them out where you can.

Who knows, some day I'll need that help. Maybe then they'll try to help me out, right?

Thing is, I didn't realize I'd need that help so friggin' soon.

SEVEN

I got home from the Bar and Grill just before eight. Steve was already home with the girls, and he was sitting on the front porch when I pulled into the driveway.

"Hey, Tim," he said.

"Steve," I responded, nodding at him. "Where are the girls?"

"In the house. I didn't want to leave them here alone."

"You could've waited in the house," I offered.

He just shrugged. I looked at my watch.

"You're early," I said. "Sorry, but I didn't . . . ."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "My fault. Should've called."

"Beer?"

He shook his head. "Where's Nina?"

"Stuck working late. Big accident just as her shift was ending."

He nodded. He knew the deal after being with her for so long.

"You want me to have her call you?" I offered.

"Nah," he said, standing up. "It's nothing major. I'll catch up with her sooner or later."

I just nodded, and he left.

Strange, I know, but I've always liked Steve. He seemed so lost when I first met him, like he'd survived some horrible catastrophe like a tornado or something. Always had that faraway look in his eyes. And every time he'd drop the kids off at the end of his visitations, he'd damned near cry watching them run into Nina's arms.

The divorce had definitely not been good for him. You could see it in his whole posture whenever he saw Nina; you could tell he regretted divorcing her. Like maybe he should've given their marriage a chance, tried counseling or something.

Either way, he was always pleasant to me. He didn't talk down to me or get in my face or pull any of that other shit I'd heard about from various friends and customers in the same new husband boat as me.

Also, the past year and a half or so, Steve had really begun to come out of his shell. Mostly because of Brenda, of course. She'd moved in with him about then, and he seemed happy again.

Tonight was different, though. First, and most obvious, Brenda wasn't with him. They'd been inseparable since being together, and she was always with him when he picked up and dropped off the girls. Second, and more troubling, he hadn't smiled. Or talked much. He seemed sullen and pensive, like something was eating at him.

I hoped for his sake and mine that everything was still going well with Brenda. For his sake because he'd already been through enough shit, and a happy Steve made for happy Emily and Nadine. A sad and depressed Steve made for angry and churlish little girls. For my sake, too, because a happy Steve kept Nina from feeling guilty again. And a guilty Nina made for a depressed Nina.

Depressed Nina like she was now. In a two-week depression that she wouldn't talk about. My lips tightened at the realization.

Entering the house, I saw the girls sitting on the sofa watching television. They were obviously upset, and even Ernie was keeping his distance from them.

I sat on the love seat perpendicular to the sofa and looked at the girls, trying to make eye contact. They ignored me, their glazed eyes watching the television.

"Everything okay?" I asked.

They didn't respond.

I reached over and picked up the remote, turning down the volume.

"Girls, is there something you want to talk about?"

Emily ignored me, her lower lip pushing out into full blown, I'm-pissed-at-you pout.

Nadine couldn't contain herself, though. Tears welled in her eyes as she turned to me with a look of agony.

"Brenda left, Tim," she whispered. "She moved out."

I nodded. This explained a lot of things. Worse, it had apparently been coming for some time. For more than the past week at least. I now had the reason for Nina's behavior.

Or at least I thought I did.

And it only took a few more hours of pondering the whole mess to figure out the whole story.

EIGHT

I finally got the girls to bed at nine. A beer in my hand, Ernie and I sprawled out on the couch watching Law and Order re-runs, waiting for Nina.

She didn't get home until nearly midnight. She tiptoed around the couch and picked up the remote to turn down the volume on the television, scratched behind Ernie's ear, and whispered to me.

"Get up, honey."

"I'm awake," I said. My voice was monotone. Amazing how watching crappy legal melodrama while petting a lazy, attention-seeking dog for three hours will focus your mind on things.

"Sorry I'm so late," she said. "It was really bad, though. We lost two of them."

I was sorry to hear that.

"Anyone we know?"

She shook her head. "Some kids on their way to the strip clubs up north. From the 'burbs."

I nodded.

I pulled up into a sitting position, pulling a groaning Ernie onto my lap as I did so. Nina sat at the other end of the couch, curling her legs up and looking at me.

"When were you going to tell me?"

She tilted her head.

"Tell you what?"

"That you're going back to Steve."

She said nothing, her head turning to the flickering television screen.

"Well?" I pressed.

She turned back to me, and I could see the tears streaking her cheeks.

"I'm confused," she said. Her voice was breaking.

"About what?"

"About us. About the girls. What's best for everyone."

"What's to be confused about? You either love me or your don't. You either want to be married to me or you don't."

She brushed the tears away. "It's not that simple, Tim."

I pulled Ernie closer to me. I needed closeness--to feel needed and appreciated, even if only by a chubby little ball of snorting fur. Ernie was more than happy to oblige.

"Okay," I reasoned, "then tell me what's so complicated about it. Steve lost a girlfriend. The first serious girlfriend he's had since the divorce. And now you see an opening to get back together with him, and you're thinking about taking that opening. You're thinking about it so much that you went out with him last night. And you volunteered to stay late tonight so you could avoid being with me. Having . . . sleeping with me."

Her eyes told me I was right.

"How did you know? About last night?"

I snorted. "Because you don't get all dolled up to go to a house party with a bunch of women. And when you go to a Pampered Chef party to help a girlfriend buy a car, you actually buy something. The fuckin' beer bread mix or some crappy bakeware or something. But you didn't."

She nodded. The tears kept coming, and so did my deductions.

"Then tonight I find out Brenda's gone. And Steve's here with the girls early. Not talking to me." I scratched behind Ernie's ears and listened to him groan his approval.

"Jesus H. Christ, Nina, he could barely look me in the eye. He at least feels like shit about this."

Nina sobbed at that. "You don't think I feel-- "

"No," I hissed. "I don't think you feel the least goddamned bit guilty about any of this. You're just trying to figure out how to get out of here--how to get away from me and back to him--with the least amount of drama. Which would be a goddamned first for you, by the way."

"How can you say that? How can you even-- "

"Because," I interrupted, my voice dropping to keep from waking the girls, "when I started putting two and two together, I called the hospital to find out whether there'd been any accidents."

"But there was," she sniffled.

I nodded. "Yep. Fortunate for you, huh? Unfortunately, the accident didn't happen until fifteen minutes after your shift had ended. But you were hanging around, trying to keep from coming home to have sex with your husband. So when the call came in, you jumped right in, didn't you?"

"It wasn't like that," she pleaded. But the look in her eyes told me it was exactly like that.

I said nothing, preferring to glare at her as I stroked Ernie's sides. Thank God he was my dog and not her's or he'd be abandoning me to try cheering her up. God knows I felt the pull to hug her and comfort her, try to relieve her agony.

"I just don't know what to do," she finally said, her voice quiet as she wiped the tears from her cheeks for the millionth time.

"Yes you do. You know exactly what to do, and you've already done it."

She looked at me, her face a mask of horror at the implications of what I'd said.

"You think I could . . . you think that last night we . . . ."

"What I think," I said, "is that last night you had me--your husband--babysit your girls so you could have dinner with your ex-husband to decide whether you wanted to take those very same girls of yours and leave your current husband to go back to the ex-husband. That's what I think."

The look of horror became a look of shame and embarrassment. I decided to drive the point home more clearly.

"That's right. It was a good thing I was available to babysit YOUR children while you went out and betrayed me."

She was shaking her head.

"And then," I continued, going for the kill shot, "once you decided that's what you wanted to do, you made sure that you wouldn't again betray your now ex-husband by having sex with me. Your current husband. The one you supposedly love and are so torn up over."

The look on her face told me I'd hit the nail right on the head and she couldn't believe I'd seen through it.

"What's more," I continued, on a roll now, "I'm pretty sure last night wasn't the first time you've seen him about this or talked with him about this. Is it?"

She shook her head, sniffling through her tears.

"That's actually why you've been down for the past two weeks. Because you've actually been thinking about it--and planning it with his help--for that long, right? It just took you 'til last night to finally make the decision, right?"

She couldn't look me in the eye, instead gazing sightlessly into the flickering courtroom melodrama playing out on the television screen.

"So what we're going to do," I continued, "is call Steve. Right now. And then you're going to call the hospital and arrange to take tomorrow off. And then you and Steve can pack up everything you want here and move back in together and be one big happy family. And you'll get all of this accomplished before I get home from work tomorrow night. Got it?"

My voice was cracking, and I could feel tears burning down my cheeks as I continued.

"There's no sense in continuing with this farce. You've made your decision, and there's no sense in prolonging the fuckin' drama, okay?"

She stared at me, hiccupping through her tears. "You're not even going to try to talk me out of this?"

I laughed. "I've been trying to talk to you for the last two weeks. But you didn't want to share any of it then, did you? Now that you've completed your mission, you want me to beg you not to do what you've already decided to do?"

I leaned toward her. "Is this going to be that much easier for you if I beg you to stay and you can crush me that much more when you go anyway? Is that it?"

She was thunderstruck by what I'd said. It was like she hadn't even seen it that way. She expected--hell, seemed to want--the begging and heartfelt pleas and tears. Well fuck her.

"Like I said, gone by tomorrow at six. Okay?"

She nodded slowly, then fled to the bedroom.

I sat in the darkness, relaxing to the rhythmic snores of the tuckered out pug on my lap.

"Guess it's just you and me now, Ernie," I whispered.

I didn't bother wiping the tears from my cheeks.

Better to wake up with a reminder that my marriage was over.