Keep Calm and Carry a Big Drink

by Kim Gruenenfelder

  Another inhaled breath from Seema, then a loud exhaled sigh. She calmly asks me, “Do you want me to book your ticket? I can do that while we’re talking. When are you thinking of coming back? Next week?”

  “I don’t know.… Speaking of rum”—I hold up my drink, which looks like a white Slurpee mixed with a red Slurpee—“you have got to try one of these. It’s called a Lava Flow. It’s a blender drink with rum, strawberries, and coconut.”

  “Because you know you’re going to need to find an apartment before school starts, and that will take awhile. You can’t afford to just plop yourself down in the Oakwood apartments or Park La Brea because you don’t feel like looking.”

  “I know that.”

  “And school starts early this year, and with your prep days, you need to be back by—”

  “Seema. Stop,” I command. “I know I have to be back soon, I’m not an idiot. But I have to figure this out on my terms, not yours. And even if—”

  As I’m talking, through my screen I see Scott walk in behind her, carrying a small, white paper bag. “I’m back,” he tells her, interrupting me. “Turns out we didn’t need to get these through the pharmacy though. As long as the over-the-counter ones have enough fol—”

  Seema’s eyes widen before she whips her head around to quickly alert him, “I’m skyping with Mel.”

  Scott smiles and walks up to the camera. “Hey, Mel. Congratulations on moving out. I apologize for my wife pouncing on you, as I’m sure she has.”

  “No problem. I can handle anyone from three thousand miles away,” I say, getting a better look at the white bag to see it came from our local pharmacy. “What’s in the bag? Did you get sick in Africa?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” Seema snaps, slowly moving her hand toward the bag, then pushing it out of camera range.

  Okay, she’s being weird. I try to remember what Scott said: “Over-the-counter ones with enough fol…” Fol: fall, fall guy, follies …

  “I was poisoned by a snake, if that’s what you mean,” Scott answers me. “But I’m fine.”

  My mind races: Follicular … is that a word? Follicle … what is that … hair follicles. “Are you losing your hair?” I ask Scott.

  “Yes,” Seema says with complete authority, while Scott carelessly runs a hand through his hair and says, “No. Nothing like that.”

  She shoots him a look.

  Think, Mel: follicles. Let’s see … follicles can also mean ovarian …

  “Folic acid!” I yell triumphantly. “You needed over-the-counter pills with folic acid. Which means…” I stop. Wait … “Holy shit!” I blurt out. “You’re pregnant?”

  “What? No!”

  “You’re glowing!” I say accusingly.

  “I am not.”

  I point at my screen. “And your face is a little puffy.”

  “I just got off a plane. I’m retaining water.”

  “So, what are you? Like, three months along?”

  “Six weeks! Jeez. I’m barely late, and I’m already puffy?”

  I cannot suppress a smirk. “Gotcha.”

  Silence. I watch Seema and Scott engage in one of those married-people conversations that’s all done with silent looks.

  “I’m going to leave you two to hash this out,” Scott says, smiling and walking out of sight. Then I hear him say, “You better be back in time for the next baby shower.”

  “I will be,” I promise.

  “Good. I hope to get the Maserati charm.”

  I allow a minute for him to get out of the room. Then I ask in all seriousness, “How do you feel? Any nausea?”

  Seema is calmer now. “Not yet. It’s still really early on.”

  “Do you want a boy or a girl?”

  “I just don’t want a nine-pound foot.”

  Typical Seema answer. “Is Scott happy?”

  “Over the moon. He wants to look at three-bedroom houses in the suburbs.”

  “Scott?!” I exclaim, shocked. “In the suburbs?”

  “I know my husband well enough to know we’ll drive half an hour out of the city, and he’ll start breaking out into a rash. But it’s fun to dream and look at places.”

  “So, see, it’s good I moved out. Now you’re free to move on to act two: the James years.”

  Seema sighs. “The baby isn’t coming for months. You need to get home and get back to your real life.”

  I take a deep breath and prepare to stand up for myself. “Not now I don’t.”

  “Seriously, I can help you. I can start perusing Craigslist for rentals—”

  “Seema, just stop,” I say warningly.

  “Just give me a return date. You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Well, I’d rather be ridiculous than boring!” I yell at her angrily.

  Seema looks startled. I lower my voice, but I’m still angry. “Jesus Christ! I have mapped out everything in my life based on what I thought I wanted at eighteen. And to what end? Do you want to know how being ridiculous feels? It’s extraordinary! It gives you the courage to grab a cab and chase down a groom on a runaway horse. It makes you fly to Paris on a whim. It allows you to spend your birthday in Italy with a former Esquire model. And it gets you excited to learn about a plant you’ve never heard of.”

  I can tell Seema wants to counter what I’m saying, but as she opens her mouth to respond, I beat her to it. “I need to figure out what’s going to make me happy in my life. Long term. And I need to do it on my own. And it may wind up being totally ridiculous, and not how I thought it was going to look at all. It may blow up in my face. But I need to do it. I need to be ridiculous right now.”

  Seema nods her head. “Okay,” she says quietly.

  “Thank you.”

  “You know I—”

  “I know,” I answer, before she gets all emotional. “And I appreciate that. Now get some sleep. You’re resting for two now.”

  “All right. I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “Call me soon?”

  “Yup. Or you call me,” I say.

  And we hang up.

  I take another sip of the Lava Flow. I do like it, even though it’s starting to taste a little too much like a Popsicle. I wonder if anyone makes Hawaiian wine?

  There’s a loud knock on the door, and Ashley pops her head into the office. “Jeff wants to know if you still remember how to bartend.”

  Eep. “Remembering implies there was a time when I knew how to do it.”

  “He said you used to do it in college.”

  “Oh, God, at his fraternity parties. Not for real.”

  My phone beeps a text. I look down to see Jeff has written:

  You’ll wing it. Get your butt in here.

  “Saturdays are normally bad,” Ashley tells me. “But there are only three of us, and we just had a wedding party of sixteen come in. We passed ‘slammed’ about ten minutes ago. Can you help?”

  “I can try.”

  “Awesome.” As Ashley walks back out, I can hear her yell to Jeff, “She’ll do it!”

  I grab my umbrella drink and head on out.

  FORTY

  The moment I walk out of Jeff’s office to survey the overflowing crowd, I know I’m in over my head. But I’m just the extra help, I assure myself, so anything I do will be seen as a bonus.

  As I jump behind the bar, Jeff quickly leans in to me and says in a low voice, “Just keep track of the drinks you pour, and I’ll handle the register. Remember, these are mostly honeymooners, so ask them about their wedding.”

  “Done,” I say confidently, even though I have absolutely no confidence in this situation.

  I walk to the left side of the bar, where a tanned Adonis in a yellow silk Hawaiian shirt has just sat down with his cute new wife. I throw two cocktail napkins in front of them, one for each drink, then bust out with a cheerful “Aloha! Welcome to the Male ‘Ana! What can I get you guys?”

  While the girl peruses the cocktail menu, her husband asks, “What be
ers do you have on tap?”

  “We have several,” I say, motioning to a row of beer taps behind me and quickly scanning what we have as I say with (completely made up) authority, “Most of them are produced locally. What are you into? An IPA, a porter…”

  “Actually, I like lagers,” he says, squinting to look at the signs on the taps, “but I’m not seeing one.”

  I turn quickly to reread the taps, then turn back to him as if this were old hat. “We have a great lager from the Maui Brewing Company. It’s called Bikini Blonde. Very clean, very fresh.” How do I know we have a great lager? Because if Jeff picked it, it is by definition “great.” How do I know it’s clean and fresh? It’s a freaking lager.

  “Awesome. I’ll take that.”

  Men are easy. “Perfect,” I say to him sunnily as I grab a pint glass, pull the tap, and pour. As I hand the groom his beer, I look over at his perfectly toned and tanned new wife.

  “I want to get one of the drinks you’re famous for,” she says as she studies our drinks menu as if there were going to be a quiz later. “What do you have that’s potent, but not too tropical?”

  Not too tropical in the middle of a tiki bar? Sigh. Okay, she’s probably had her fill of mai tais and is tired of rum. So we go vodka. And nothing with pineapple, guava or passion fruit. I read her menu upside down and quickly choose one.

  “I think you’d like our Kipona Aloha, which in Hawaiian means ‘deep love.’ It has strawberries, basil, a little bit of lime, and vodka, shaken, not stirred, and served in our souvenir heart glass.”

  “Let me give you a taste,” Jeff says to her, magically appearing next to me, and effortlessly handing her a squinch glass of the concoction (I noticed earlier he always pours what’s left in the blender into small glasses for tasting). Then he walks away to help another couple.

  I smile as I watch her take a taste. Her face lights up, “Oh my God, that’s so good! I’ll have one of those.”

  “You got it,” I say with deceptive cheeriness as I carefully layer strawberries and basil into a pint glass, then cover the solids with plenty of lime and vodka. I throw a shaker over the glass and give my arms a workout. “So how long are you guys in town for?”

  Time flew. I spend the next eight hours listening to honeymooners tell me about their weddings, their proposals, their crazy aunt Ednas, and their wildly romantic honeymoons.

  Weird. But despite being single, I loved being surrounded by that feeling of optimism that everything was going to turn out perfectly.

  I have to say—I did occasionally roll my eyes.

  Like when one newlywed asked me, “What do you have that’s purple?” I thought to myself, Are you painting with it or drinking it?

  But I didn’t miss a beat. I cheerfully told her, “Hau ‘Oli,” probably botching the Hawaiian pronunciation within an inch of its life. “It means ‘happiness.’”

  When she and her husband ordered that, I grabbed the cocktail shaker and yelled to Jeff, “How do I make a Perfect Happiness?”

  “Much like life, Perfect Happiness always includes a healthy shot of Malibu rum.” Then he taught me how to make the drink right in front of the customers: coconut rum, triple sec, blue curaçao, and cranberry juice, shaken with ice and poured into a glass that looks like a laughing Buddha.

  Four other signature drinks were on the menu, and by the end of the night I rocked those bitches! There was the Hapai, which was supposed to be good luck for pregnancy and fertility.

  “Aren’t all drinks for pregnancy and fertility?” I asked Jeff aloud, and got a good laugh.

  Then we had the Honi, the Hawaiian word for “kiss.” That one was red and promised romance. The Pomaika’i brought good luck. Ola was for your health (although if you’re having a drink with five shots of hard liquor in it, I’m not sure how healthy you’ll be feeling the next morning).

  And I learned how to make all of them.

  I spent that night in an exhausting, adrenaline-filled learning frenzy! I learned everything from the proper way to shake a cocktail (I had the pint glass over the stainless-steel canister part down, but I was shaking wrong), to how to tap a beer keg, to which red wineglass goes with cabernet, versus pinot noir, versus merlot. I even learned how to make the perfect lemon twist.

  Ah … learning. It had been so long since I had been out of my element and clueless that I had forgotten how exciting it was to do something I didn’t think I could do. Something I had power over, that I could immediately see I was doing badly, or doing well.

  For the first time in I don’t know how long, I was excited to be working.

  By the time I lie down in Jeff’s guest room at 4:00 A.M. and stare out the window at pitch-blackness, I realize just how worn-out I am. I can feel my biceps starting to stiffen up. I am definitely going to need a long shower in the morning, and my mind is still reeling, trying to figure out the Micros computer system the bar uses, with all its different-colored buttons and screens representing different drinks and liquors.

  I close my eyes, feeling the sting that comes when you’ve been up too long, and take a deep breath, trying to get my shoulders to relax.

  What a night.

  I really hope I can talk him into letting me bartend again.

  * * *

  The following morning, I awaken to sunshine streaming right into my eyes. I squint from the glare, then look over at the alarm clock on the nightstand: 10:15.

  We didn’t get out of the bar until around three, and I didn’t get into bed until four. And I’d barely slept in the days leading up to landing here.

  So by my calculations, I should be dead right now.

  I glance out my window, at what was pitch-black the night before, and have to adjust my eyes to the brightness of both the sun and the colors. Jeff’s house rests on a hill, so from my room, I can see nothing but bright green palm trees, white and yellow flowers, and a few roofs of neighboring houses. Wow—and this is only the guest room.

  I climb out of bed and put my feet down on his polished hardwood floors. Then I go to my suitcase and rummage around for a T-shirt, my UCLA workout shorts, and my running shoes.

  Jeff won’t miss me—he’ll be asleep until at least noon. I take the spare key he gave me and write him a note, which I tack on his refrigerator.

  Gorgeous morning.

  Gone running.

  Might never stop.

  And for the first time in over a year, I run for miles.

  FORTY-ONE

  You see things differently when you’re in a new place—you notice details that haven’t registered in a while at home. My run (or should I say, my run, followed by walk, followed by run—it has been awhile) was glorious in that I happily soaked up what to the locals is mundane.

  I delighted in everything I looked at, just in Jeff’s neighborhood. People coming out of their houses to get the Sunday paper (who knew people walked out to get an actual paper in this day and age), families dressed for church or a beach day piling into the car, the kids laughing and happy and not even realizing they’re growing up in the prettiest place on earth.

  I jog down to the beach, completely empty even though it is a magnificently beautiful day. I watch a woman sip her coffee in a paper cup while walking her golden retriever. Another woman, with a stroller, jogs up to her and gives her a big hug. A woman walks out of the grocery store, carrying her canvas bags filled with food. Older men play chess at a table near the beach.

  I keep running.

  When I walk back into the house (or should I say stumble back into the house; I may have overdone it), I am greeted with the wonderful scents of coffee and bacon.

  “Good morning, sunshine!” Jeff cheerfully greets me from his kitchen while scrambling eggs with a rubber whisk. “How do you like your eggs?”

  “In a brownie.”

  “Scrambled it is!” he says cheerfully as he scrapes the eggs out of a Calphalon frying pan and into a large serving bowl. “Wait until you try these eggs. They come from chickens down the st
reet who, I’m sure, Leilani wants to run over. Unfortunately, the bacon is not from a local producer. Pork is huge here, and we cannot seem to raise enough pigs on this island for everyone to snack on. But it does come from a smokehouse in the Midwest that is quite good.”

  “Sounds amazing,” I say, walking toward the kitchen. Jeff’s house has an open floor plan combining a large living room, dining room, and gourmet kitchen. And from every one of those areas you can see the ocean through gleamingly clean, floor-to-ceiling windows that showcase palm trees waving in the breeze in front of a wall of blue water. This is the first time I’ve been able to see Jeff’s house in the daytime, with all of the curtains open, and his view on full display. “Holy crap. You have an amazing view of the ocean.”

  “It’s Hawaii. There are Denny’s here with amazing views of the ocean. I have freshly brewed Kona coffee in the thermos, there’s Danish on the table, and your bacon and eggs will be ready momentarily.”

  Jeff brings the bowl of eggs and a plate piled high with bacon to the table, already set for two people, complete with cloth napkins. “Breakfast is served.”

  “Your house is perfect,” I say as I sit down and pour myself coffee. “I’m almost afraid to touch anything.”

  “Please. You should see this place after I’ve thrown a party,” Jeff says as he takes a seat. “Last June, I woke up to a duck waddling around my living room.”

  “And by ‘duck’ you mean…?”

  “I mean an actual duck. Get your mind out of the gutter.” He hands me an envelope. “Your winnings, sir.”

  I take the envelope, confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, from Casablanca? Louie says, ‘I’m shocked to find gambling’? ‘Your winnings, sir.’”

  “I know what movie you mean. I meant what winnings?”

  “Your tips from last night.”

  I try to hand him back the envelope. “I can’t accept this. I was just helping out.”

  “No, no. We have a rule: everything goes into the tip jar, everyone gets an equal cut. No exceptions.”