by Maggie Twain
Chapter One
Haley
“Two beers and…” the rest of his order is lost to the heavy metal, the large face covering further muffling his voice.
The stale air in this place often makes my throat sore regardless of having to shout above the music, something about the body odor of large metal fans in leather jackets and as for the students, don’t get me started. Before the virus, the noise was never an issue because you learn to lip read but these days, thanks to all the masks, I have to constantly raise my voice for people to repeat themselves. Not even halfway through the night and my throat already feels like it’s on fire. “Could you repeat that please?”
“Two beers and two Jacks!” He shouts again and this time I catch it but only because the song hits a lull. There’s a long line of thirsty punters behind the man, about a third of whom are wearing masks. I remember the old days, life was simple back then.
I’m so weary from working five consecutive night shifts that I don’t realize it when the glass overflows with Molson and drenches my arm. “Damn it,” I growl and shake the suds off myself. I decide against making eye contact when I hand the glasses over, besides, my eyelids are red and puffy and I’ve been looking like crap these last few nights. He walks away and the next in line moves to the front. All I can think about is sleep. “How can I help you?”
“What?”
It’s three hours later when the band, Grizzly, some local up and comer, at least that’s what people are saying, finishes their final encore and people beginning filing out through the emergency exits. I check the time on my cell. It’s two in the morning. Unfortunately, there’s still the clean-up, which usually takes Gavin, Clint, Rhodes, Mac and myself another hour to complete. I don’t mind it, normally, because after the noise it’s chill time and I’m getting closer to bed, and after a long shift the camaraderie between the five of us is good as we collect used glasses, sweep crap from the floor as well as the occasional spot of blood.
“No blood tonight, thankfully, but tomorrow’s another day,” I mutter to myself.
Gavin pays the bassist and I hear over the sound of clinking glasses, “probably more lucrative to get a job here.”
“Well, maybe if you guys were any good, you’d sell more downloads.”
“Bullshit, man, we usually get a couple extra hundred on top of this.”
“Yeah, well, that was before the virus. New rules, man. We’re at half the usual capacity and we’re paying you more than half your usual fee, so be happy with that.” At least the bar staff aren’t the only ones losing out. Tips have been lousy recently.
I hear grumbling and then feel a finger tapping my back so I spin around, sloshing Molson over the side of a glass and soaking my sneakers. “Hey?”
It’s the bassist and he’s regarding me with something between casual intrigue and at least a minor degree of desire. It’s hard to look good at the culmination of five night shifts, especially when you’ve long since stopped caring, though something tells me he’s hardly the picky sort. “Yo,” he articulates, “you’re that bar girl, ain’t ya, the one who’s been in my line of sight all night long.”
I nod, the bassist had indeed been in my line of sight as well, along with the rest of the band and at least three hundred rocked out metal fans. “I guess,” my eyes are itching but my hands are too laden with glass to dare give them a rub. I know I’m supposed to say something else but I’m so overwhelmed with fatigue that there’s no hope of my brain being able to figure out a deeper, more profound or interesting response within a polite timeframe.
The bassist’s holding a wad of bills and carefully stashes them inside his wallet, the ID window reveals a small photo of what looks like him with a cute woman and three kids. “I was wondering,” he snaps the wallet closed and thrusts it back into the pocket of his jeans, “if maybe you was free to grab a beer?”
I have just barely enough energy and wits remaining to suppress the swift burst of air that wants to escape me in disgust. “I’m sorry but I have to finish up here and after that I’m heading straight for bed.”
“I hear ya. No foul.” He shrugs and barely changes facial expression to show his apparent disappointment. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.” He has long hair that flows over his shoulders, five o’clock shadow in abundance and his faded jeans hang off him like empty trash bags. I tend to prefer a little more thigh on a man and preferably there’d be no family at home awaiting his return. At least he takes the rejection well, too well, in fact, that I’m almost not sure whether or not I should be offended, as he removes a small yellow bag from his back pocket and begins making a roll-up. Ugh, I hate smoke.
My eyes close suddenly and I feel a stack of glasses begin to slide out from my grasp, which jerks me awake. When my eyes regain clarity, the bassist is walking away across the planks to approach Mac. Maybe he’ll have better luck with her. Either way, I’m staying out of it.
I’m alerted to a terrible hacking sound and when I spin around, Clint’s hunching over his mop and tearing at his mask.
“I’m fucking telling you all, I’m this close to quitting.”
I’m innocently standing closest to the guy so it looks like it’s down to me to ask the inevitable question. “What’s wrong?”
His face reddens as he clutches at his throat. “The fucking men’s bathroom…”
“What…”
“It looks like a herd of bulls has sprayed their seed all over everything … right before taking a shit and bleeding all over the place.” He throws down his little mop, which seems kind of paltry to the task. “I refuse to go back in there, I simply refuse.”
Looks like I’d spoken too soon about there being no blood. By now I really ought to know better. Why do I still work here? Oh, yeah … necessity. Unfortunately, this is just a regular weekday at Jives and I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been in Clint’s position. No, tonight’s his turn and he’s on his own, besides, it builds character, not to mention a stronger stomach.
I plod behind the bar and begin loading the dishwasher with several hundred empty glasses. After I set it to wash, I grab my jacket and bag from my locker and head for the door.
Clint and Rhodes are waiting for me and the air that breezes in through the opening is chilling. Clint pulls his jacket zipper all the way to the top. “Hailstorm, we were thinking of finding a late night bar if you’re up for it? Looks like Mac’s gone off with that bassist guy and Gav’s trying to turn over a new leaf, so it’s just the three of us.”
I sigh sadly and again feel the fatigue assail my body. I miss the old times when we’d go for friendly drinks after a long shift and laugh into the early hours but unfortunately, those days are long gone. The first year of college was relatively easy and didn’t really count for much anyway but this year things are getting serious, people are dropping out for all sorts of reasons, though more to the point, I have an important seminar at the crack of dawn. I flap my hands hopelessly, “I really would, guys, but you know how it is. I’ll see you tomorrow night though, same time as always.”
They nod sadly but being my friends, they’re aware of my situation. It’s easier for the others to socialize after a hard shift, working here is their main gig, so to speak, whereas for me, Jives was only ever meant as a way of supplementing my totally maxed out student loans in order to ensure I could eat, even though it’s still oatmeal and pasta every day for me. That’s when I have time to prepare, sit and eat at all, that is, which is becoming ever rarer these days. Pulling pints until late at night was only ever meant as a temporary thing, even though I’m now into my second year working here. I guess this is what happens when your scholarship gets yanked only a few days after your parent’s waffle house goes under and you’re having to send money back home to stave off that inevitable visit from the loan sharks. I can’t have that. My parents were fantastic when I was growing up and have always been there for me. Now it’s my time to do what I can for them in their hour of need, though qualifying as
an architect can’t come soon enough, by which point all my prayers will be answered. I just wished the workload wasn’t killing me in the meantime. Only three years left to go.
Surely though, by this point I must have used up all my bad luck and perhaps now I can be allowed to get by on what remains of my own steam. It’s not like I’m even asking for any good luck or favors from the universe, just that whatever’s out there forgets about conspiring against me for a little while. I’m an impoverished girl surrounded by wealthy peers from elite families who don’t appear to know how lucky they are. Yup, I’m a total fraud pretending to be a student - at HARVARD, no less, and it’s only a matter of time before I’m found out.
Clint rubs my shoulder and my eyes regain focus. “We’ve got RazorStar booked, so tomorrow night will be packed to the rafters.”
“Up to a maximum of three hundred,” Rhodes cuts in dryly.
Another loud and busy night, I groan inwardly and a fresh wave of tiredness assaults my muscles. “I really have to get to bed, but have fun. I’ll see you tomorrow.” When he removes his hand from my shoulder I feel chafing, which is a totally new sensation, and I wait until I’m alone in the alley to thrust my hand beneath my jacket to give it a rub. “Bone?” Holy fuck! That’s a new one.
It usually takes twenty minutes to walk back to my apartment but for some reason, tonight I feel super sluggish. I’m one of only two percent of Harvard students who lives off-campus, though when you have to work you have no social life anyway so I’m not really missing out. I save at least some money by renting privately and a little more by not having to participate in the compulsory meal plan that comes from living in one of the houses. However, there’s only so much any student can save when there’s a long list of ‘essential’ books to purchase.
I have a room in a house I share with another three Harvard undergrads on the edge of Cambridge, but owing to my schedule, I only ever see them if they’re coming in as late as me. It’s half past four in the morning when finally I’m creeping up the stairs, trying not to wake any of them and I see the crumpled sheet of paper pinned to my door. It’s from Mister Burlington, my landlord, and reads cryptically, ‘Your check bounced. Second time in as many months. Losing patience. Will come by Friday for cash and charges.’
What was that about luck? I screw up the paper and groan. The rent being in my account on time was dependent on my wages coming through by Tuesday, which evidently for the second month running they hadn’t. That’s another sixty dollars I’ll have to recoup somehow, although I can’t think where in the heck I’m supposed to find it unless I happen upon a roll of bills lying in the undergrowth.
Finally, I crash out in bed. I close my eyes and am vexed to open them to find it’s ten minutes to nine already and I’ve spent the last fifty minutes sleeping through my alarm.
“Oh, crap.” I fall out of bed, pulling a tonne of architecture books from my bedside table to the floor as I go. I fumble with my clothes, deign to forego breakfast because who needs to eat anyway, whilst pondering if my cohorts would complain if I also forewent brushing my teeth, just this once. Things aren’t quite that bad, at least not yet, though I only spend about thirty seconds on the task before I’m grabbing my jacket, rushing out the door and running for campus.
Even that’s short lived. After only a few steps, I’m so winded that my attempt at running becomes a fast walk and by the time I’m shoving my way through the seminar door, I’m barely even crawling.
It’s like a scene from one of those Wild West movies when everyone stops what they’re doing to stare. Adrian, the Assistant Professor of Architecture, is pissed enough to shine his laser pointer at me and I can’t help but feel violated. “Good of you to join us, Haley, now, with your permission, perhaps we might continue?”
I silently mouth the word sorry and take a seat beside Jess. “Sorry,” I hiss to her also, as well as to everyone else at the table. I move to take out my laptop, which should I fail to pay off at some point during the next two months I’ll have interest stacked monthly charges that will cripple me going forward, but instead I find I don’t have it with me. In fact, I don’t have my bag with me at all. “Oh, no,” I groan and sink back into my seat. How have things become so bad that I left the apartment without my bag?
But worse is to come because at several points I zone out completely and I can’t say for certain that I didn’t fall asleep once or several times during class, despite the topic of medieval support structures, you know, flying buttresses and the like being beyond enthralling.
When the seminar concludes and everybody jumps up to dash out for coffee, I find myself unable to move. Or maybe I’m making a silent cry for help. Adrian has always seemed sort of ok, definitely approachable, and is senior enough that he probably has some sort of clout, somewhere, however that might be useful. Yet, somehow, a friendly face is all I want right now.
He notices, smiles from the mouth only and pads over. “Haley…” he folds his arms across his chest.
“You pointed your laser thingy at me,” my voice comes out in a slur, which is alarming because I’m not drunk.
His expression changes to one of worry. “I’m not so sure that’s your most pressing issue right now.” He pulls out a seat and parks himself, pulling it closer. “But I’m glad we’re finally having this chat.” His tone doesn’t sound good at all.
In fact, it’s enough to give me a jolt of adrenaline, energy. “What, what’s the…”
“You’ve been on my list of students I’ve been needing to drag in for a word. We really should have been having this conversation weeks ago but…” better late than never, right? “Haley, you don’t look well, which is the most important matter. Are you eating? Sleeping?”
My silence confirms to him that I’m not. “I…” all I can do is trail off. The clock on the wall over his shoulder confirms it’s half past ten in the morning, which means I have to be at work in eight hours. So much for sleep. So much for food. And as for ever getting time to study? Hah! “There’s something else, isn’t there.”
He places his clasped hands down in front of him. “Your grades have been on the slide, Haley. One more bad assignment and even acing the exam won’t save you from failing the year.”
I swallow. Acing the exam might not be completely out of the question, I mean, it could be possible just so long as I had some time to knuckle down with the books, though from what Adrian just said, even that probably wouldn’t be enough. There’s no doubt about it, I’m falling behind. I breathe out and am hardly surprised to find a small pool of tears beginning to collect on the table surface.
“Haley…”
“I’m finding things really hard,” I palpitate and wipe my face with a sleeve, “I’m…”
“Shhhh, take a breath.”
I do as he says whilst he goes to fetch me a cup of water from the cooler in the corner. “Thanks,” I say and press the chill plastic to my forehead.
After a short silence, he says, “I know all about your night shifts at Jives.”
I feel my heart thumping and suddenly I’m all defensive. Study is supposed to be our priority. “So what? Aren’t students allowed to have a job?”
He holds up his hands. “Whoa, calm down, I’m not having a go at you. Working’s commendable but…” here it comes, “do you really need to work so late?”
“I have to. Those are the hours of the club. It’s not exactly my choice.” I decide against telling him about the Uber Eats job I also have at the weekends. Sometimes I feel like Peter Parker faking it with two jobs as well as a degree and failing at all three. At least he had the help of his superpowers. College is expensive and Harvard is an expensive college. Indeed, Boston is an expensive city.
“No, what I mean is, do you really need to work at all? Don’t you think your education is more important? And if you think this semester’s tough, you should wait until the next.” His tone changes and suddenly he sounds less warm and more irritated. “You do realize you’re at Har
vard University. Harvard! There are people who would die to study at such a prestigious institution and yet here you are, placing it second to serving beers to a rabble of rock fans.” His face softens. “Yes, I called them a rabble, and I should know because I’m one of them.”
I sip some water as I decide whether or not I should just come out with it. Finally, I figure I stuck around for a reason so why not? and there’s no time like the present, besides, I’m partway there already. “I’m not like most students, Adrian. John’s parents are both judges, Beth’s father owns Grellard’s Architecture, and Miriam’s is the Secretary of State.” It’s so absurd that all I can do is laugh. I could give more examples but I’m pretty sure he gets the point. “My parent’s waffle house recently went under.” There’s no need to tell him that I’m sending money back to help pay off their debts because he’ll get that their being bankrupt will mean no money coming the other way. I shrug, “of course, that wouldn’t have been as much of a problem had the scholarship rug not been pulled out from under me as well.”
“Ah,” Adrian nods, obviously he knows exactly how expensive Harvard is. “What happened?”
A terrible stroke of appalling luck is what happened. My benefactor went to prison on fraud charges because, as it turned out, the scholarship program was all part of some money laundering scheme and at least one building in Milwaukee had to be renamed when he got sent down for sixty. There were twelve girls from my city who found themselves in the same sinking boat as me. Rather than telling him all that, I simply say, “Larry Haddad.”
“Ah,” he says, because the entire country knows everything about the scandal, it was in the news for months. “Now, that is a pity.” He spends a few seconds chewing on his bottom lip. “Have you considered the emergency fund?”
I squint at him. “The what?”
He makes a funny expression. “You’re not aware of it? The School of Arts and Sciences has its very own fund for cases like yours. Most other schools have them too.”