by Meg Benjamin
She trotted to the hand-through window at the kitchen. The shoulder-high counter had a circular rack where two of Bobby Sue’s green order sheets hung from clips. She tore off the order for the club sandwich, then the one for the burger and fries, attaching them to clips of her own. She was tearing off the enchilada order when a small, fierce female face peered up at her from the other side of the counter.
“Who the hell are you?”
Deirdre blinked. “I’m new,” she stammered.
“No shit.” The woman was maybe five feet tall. Deirdre was amazed she could see over the counter. Her dark hair was tucked haphazardly under a chef’s beanie and she studied Deirdre with narrowed eyes that snapped like firecrackers. “Lemme see what you’ve got there.” She pulled the two orders off the rack, quickly. “My god. You’ve got the neatest handwriting I’ve ever seen.”
“Is that a problem?” She didn’t think it would be, but with restaurants, who knew?
“No, ma’am. It took me a week to get to the point where I could decipher Bobby Sue, and I still have problems with her spelling. I’m Clem. Clemencia Rodriguez.” She extended a hand across the counter for Deirdre to shake.
“Deirdre Brandenburg. Pleased to meet you.”
Clem grinned at her. “Likewise. Now go back to your station. Chico will bring your food over when it’s ready. Drinks are at the bar—just tell Tom what you want. Stick around for lunch after your shift is over and I’ll fill you in on all you need to know.”
Deirdre doubted that would be possible in under a week, but at least somebody had volunteered to try.
She stopped back at the bar. “The guy at the table near the kitchen wants another beer.” She realized suddenly she hadn’t checked to see what kind he was drinking. On well, maybe Tom knew already.
He glanced at the customer, eyes narrowing. “How soused is he?”
She looked back. “Slurring. Looks drowsy. How soused is that?”
“Too soused.” He sighed, turning back toward the taps. He drew a glass of soda. “Tell him the bar’s closed. Give him this. On the house.”
Fortunately, the customer was also too soused to complain. He sipped the soda she handed him. When the enchiladas arrived, he dug into them happily enough.
By then, the lunch rush was pretty much over. Rhonda Ruckelshaus and friend left her a $1.50 tip, which was slightly over ten percent. Deirdre wondered if she’d done a bad job or if that was typical. She went to help clear away the plate and silverware from the table where the single man had been sitting and found a quarter next to the plate.
She sighed, dropping the quarter into her pocket as Chico piled dirty dishes on a tray. He gave her a dry grin. “Don’t worry. Sometimes being drunk makes them tip bigger.”
The kitchen door swung open, and the cook, Clemencia, walked into the room, untying her apron. “Did Tom give you any lunch?”
Deirdre shook her head. “I only waited on two tables.”
“Doesn’t matter. Food comes with the job. Besides, I’ve got leftovers to finish up. Come on.”
Deirdre followed her back into the kitchen to a table toward the back. Chico carried the last tray of dirty dishes over to a sink where another man was rinsing them and stacking the dishwasher.
Clem pulled a pot from a burner. “Tortilla soup. Soup of the day, actually. Bobby Sue forgets to mention it half the time, which means we always have some left over.” She ladled a bowlful for Deirdre and then sprinkled a handful of fried tortilla bits and avocado on the top. “Take a bite and tell me what you think.”
Deirdre inhaled the scent of chicken broth and cilantro. Her stomach growled as she took the first bite. “This is really, really good,” she muttered around her mouthful.
“Yes, it is,” Clem agreed, ladling up her own bowl. “Now remember to mention the soup of the day tomorrow.”
“I will.” She slurped up another bite, tasting chicken and tomato, with bits of chili. Behind her, Chico dipped a bowl for himself and headed back out to the bar.
She took a longer look at the chef. Clem Rodriguez seemed to be around her age, maybe a little younger. She wore jeans and a faded Texas Tornadoes T-shirt under her apron, her dark hair clipped short under her chef’s beanie. Her large dark eyes might have made her look demure if they hadn’t glittered with intelligence. Deirdre watched her rapidly consume her soup, sipping from a large glass of iced tea as she did. “Do you do dinner, too?” she asked.
Clem shook her head. “Not yet. I’ve only been here six weeks or so. Tom says another few weeks and then we can try it, once we’ve built up the lunch traffic. Nighttime is mostly bar food right now—they can microwave most of it, so I don’t need to stick around after I put it together.” She pushed her empty bowl to the middle of the table. “Now tell me why you’re waiting tables in a roadhouse. Not that Main qualifies as a road, but the Faro’s as close to a roadhouse as Konigsburg comes. And frankly, you don’t strike me as the roadhouse type.”
Deirdre shrugged. “I needed a job. I’m trying to earn enough money to rent the place next door. Mr. Ames is going to lease it to me, but I’ve got some cash flow problems right now.”
“The T-shirt shop?” Clem raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t strike me as a paying proposition.”
“I want to turn it into a coffee roaster. With a few tables thrown in.”
She leaned back in her chair. “Well, now, that’s an interesting idea. You have any experience?”
Deirdre nodded, her mouth full of soup.
“Of course, waiting tables here isn’t likely to make you a pile of money, even though you’ll probably rake in more tips than poor old Bobby Sue.”
“I have some other money, but I can’t get at it for a couple of months.” She pushed herself up from the table and walked to the stove. “I figure I can make enough here to keep Mr. Ames from renting to somebody else while I wait.”
“Honey, ‘Mr. Ames’ hasn’t been able to rent the place for weeks. My guess is he’ll wait no matter how little you can give him. And you’d better call him Tom, or everybody in the bar will start snickering at him and then he’ll have to punch somebody. You have a place to stay yet?”
Deirdre nodded. “My cousin’s letting me stay in her apartment.” Of course, she currently had no furniture and only the basics in the kitchen. But she figured furniture could wait until she had enough to pay cash for her shop space.
“Well, then, I’d say you’re on your way.” Clem stood, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Now, come on with me and I’ll show you everything Tom and Bobby Sue forgot to mention about how this place runs.”
Docia had just put Rolf down for his nap when the phone rang. Not that the phone would have awakened him—like his father, once Rolf was out, he was out. Docia shook her head as she headed toward the kitchen. Rolf. Geez. We might as well enroll him in therapy now.
She checked the number and grimaced. “Hi, Mama. Rolf is fine, and I don’t have time to bring him down to San Antonio this weekend. Anything else?”
Docia could almost hear her mother’s pout. “Well, shoot. I’ve got the cutest outfit for him that I picked up at La Cantera yesterday.”
“Bring it up the next time you come. He’s not growing that fast.” Although he did seem to be growing out of his clothes at a terrific rate, now that she thought about it.
“I’ll do that, but to tell you the truth, that’s not exactly why I called.”
Docia sank into one of the kitchen chairs. A day when her mother didn’t call just to talk about Rolf was pretty rare right now. “What’s up?”
“I had an interesting visitor today. A Mr. Craig Dempsey. He said he works for your uncle.”
“Uncle John?” She managed to keep her voice light, while her mind worked furiously. She hadn’t told her mother anything about Deirdre yet because she wasn’t entirely sure whose side she’d be on.
“He’s looking for Dee-Dee. Apparently, she’s disappeared. Have you heard anything from her?”
Docia paused j
ust long enough to let her mother know she was considering a lie.
“Oh please. Don’t bother making something up. She’s there, isn’t she?”
She sighed. “Yes, ma’am. She came here a couple of days ago. I let her have the apartment since she wouldn’t stay out here with us. You know Deirdre. She didn’t want to be a bother.”
“Is she all right? Dempsey said she and John had had a fight, hard as that is for me to believe. I can’t picture Dee-Dee fighting with anyone, can you?”
“Maybe not Dee-Dee, but she’s Deirdre now. And yes, I think she’s finally found enough backbone to fight back with Uncle John. She’s always been pretty good about taking care of herself with everybody else.”
Her mother chuckled. “Well, good for her. John needs someone to stand up to him—it’ll be good for both of them. But what’s this Dee-Dee-Deirdre business?”
Docia poured herself a glass of iced tea. “She’s changed, Mama. She wants people to call her Deirdre now. And she’s here because she wants to go into business for herself—she wants to open some kind of coffee shop.”
“Coffee shop?” Her mother sounded confused. “You mean like a Starbucks?”
“No, she wants to actually roast the coffee beans and sell custom blended coffee. She’s got her business plan all worked out. It looked good to me, but I told her to show it to Lars.”
Her mother snorted. “Deirdre doesn’t need to get any accountant to look at her business plan, even an accountant as good as Lars. That child was always smart as a whip, and she graduated from McCombs with honors as I recall.”
Docia nodded, then remembered her mother couldn’t see her. “She did. And she is. But she’s also never had to do much with her smarts. Uncle John always had her life planned out for her. And he never seemed to realize how smart she was, anyway.”
“John didn’t want to realize it.” Her mother sighed. “He wanted a son. He never knew what to do with a daughter exactly.”
“Well, he’s found something to do with her now. He’s pretty much disowned her. He cut off her credit cards and her accounts, even her savings accounts. And he threw her out of her apartment in Houston. All because she didn’t want to work for him anymore.”
“Oh my lord,” her mother gasped. “No wonder John’s feeling guilty. You tell that child to come down here right now. She can stay with me and I’ll find her a job at the foundation. She doesn’t know the first thing about being on her own.”
“She doesn’t want that, Mama. She really wants to make it on her own this time, with her own business.”
“Dee-Dee—I mean Deirdre—wants to be on her own? Since when? She’s always been the most cautious child I ever knew. And John wanted her that way. I was amazed when he let her go off to school by herself.”
“I don’t know what happened to her exactly, but she’s trying to be independent. And I think we should back her up if we can. Which means not telling Uncle John she’s up here, Mama. Please?”
Her mother sighed again. “You’re right about that. He’d make things worse. Or he’d come down there and try to bully her back to Houston. I’m just worried about her, that’s all.”
“Me too.” Docia sipped her tea. “But I’ll keep an eye on her. Me and everybody else in the family. We won’t let anything happen to her, I promise.”
“All right.” Her mother’s voice warmed slightly. “Is she still as gorgeous as ever?”
“More. She’s let her hair grow and it’s down to her shoulders with a little natural wave. Even without makeup, which of course she doesn’t wear because it never occurs to her to wear it, she’s enough to stop traffic. And she’s still got the worst fashion sense I ever saw. Nobody ever notices how gorgeous she is when she shows up in those baggy slacks.”
“And she doesn’t notice it either. Or understand what she could do with it. Thanks to my boneheaded brother who sent her to girls’ schools all her life and never told her how beautiful she was.” Her mother gave a disgusted snort. “This Dempsey character doesn’t strike me as somebody who’d be much better about that. He seems too impressed with himself to be impressed with anybody else.”
“Well, she’s going to have to make it on her own now. No more Armani suits and lunches at the Galleria.”
“Oh my, she’s a lamb among the wolves, Docia Mae.”
Docia’s lips curved up in a faint smile. “She may have been, once upon a time, Mama. Now I think the wolves had better get ready for a shock.”
Chapter Five
Deirdre regarded the Faro’s evening crowd a bit apprehensively. There were a lot more men than women, and the noise level had risen so high she could barely hear the music on the jukebox. The other barmaid, Sylvia, moved deftly between the tables, smiling at the customers. Chico loomed in a corner nearest the pool table. He didn’t smile at the customers, but Deirdre figured that wasn’t part of his job.
Tom Ames had been joined by another bartender, a small gray-haired man named Harry who seemed to spend most of his time drawing drafts and pouring the occasional glass of wine. Tom did the mixed drinks.
Deirdre fought back the tight sensation in her chest. You can do this, Deirdre. You were an executive vice president.
After she’d finished work that afternoon, Tom had suggested she wear something “a little more appropriate” to work the evening shift. Deirdre had no idea what clothes were appropriate for a barmaid, but she’d gone home to check through her wardrobe. The Escada pantsuit didn’t strike her as an option, but the jeans she’d worn at noon apparently weren’t good enough. She’d ended up in her sole pair of khakis and a knit shirt she’d bought for a corporate retreat. It looked more like something she should wear for a round of golf than something she’d wear to wait tables in a bar, but it was the only thing she had that might work.
Tom gave her a long look when she came in, then shrugged, leaning over the end of the bar where she stood out of everybody’s way. “Ready to go?”
“I guess so. What do I do?”
He shrugged. “It’s pretty straight. Take the orders. Bring them to me or Harry. Pick up the drinks. Take them back to the table. Get the money.”
Deirdre blinked at him. “What do I do with the money?”
He gave her a look that made her feel like a moron. Correction, more like a moron. “Bring it to me. Here. When you get a break.” He turned back to open the cash register, reaching inside. “Here’s a stack of ten singles to start with. For change—put it in your pocket. Keep your tips in your other pocket so they don’t get confused.”
She nodded, folding the money into the pocket of her khakis, then turned back to the room. Just men. Nothing to be nervous about here. Just men. She stiffened her spine and walked to the first table. “What can I get for you gentlemen?”
One of the men glanced at her, cupping a hand over his ear. “What?”
“What do you want to drink?” Deirdre felt like she was bellowing, but the rest of the table hadn’t even turned her way yet.
“Hey,” the first man called to his friends. “Doofus. What are you drinking?”
Two other heads swiveled back.
“What can I get for you?” Deirdre shouted.
“Shiner. Three drafts,” the first man bawled out.
Deirdre turned on her heel and headed back to the bar. “Shiner. Three drafts,” she yelled at Harry.
He poured them in record time, sliding them across the bar. Deirdre stared at them dumbly. She had no idea how she was supposed to pick them up.
“On the tray,” Tom explained. He pushed the three steins together so that the handles formed a circle, then lifted them onto a metal tray. “If you get more than three or four, call Chico to help you.”
Deirdre grabbed the tray and hoisted it to her shoulder—it was a lot heavier than it looked. She staggered back across the room, then plunked the steins into the middle of the table.
The three men looked up at her. One of them gave his buddy a quick grin. “I can’t reach it, honey,” he b
awled. “Push it a little closer.”
Deirdre frowned. He wouldn’t have much trouble if he just leaned forward. Still, she was supposed to do her best even if this was a transparent attempt to look down the front of her shirt. Not that the front of her golf shirt was all that enticing. She leaned down slightly and shoved the beer in his direction.
The man’s grin widened and then stopped abruptly. Deirdre had a sudden sense of someone at her side and looked up to find Chico glaring at the table.
The men looked away from her as the song ended on the jukebox. “That’ll be six dollars,” Deirdre said quickly in the relative silence.
The first man handed her a ten. Deirdre started to reach into her pocket, but he shook his head after glancing at Chico. “Keep it.”
“Thanks.” Deirdre moved on to the next table, vaguely aware of Chico in the background. She was glad he’d come over, but she needed to look out for herself if she was going to do this.
She went back to the bar to give Tom the ten, then pocketed the tip. Another table gestured at her, trying to get her attention. She had a feeling others were beginning to turn her way. Oh well. The more tips you get, the closer you are to getting your shop.
She pasted a smile on her face and headed for the next group of drinkers.
Tom watched his newest barmaid square her shoulders as if she were heading into battle. In a way, of course, she was. A battle against the assholes of the world. Unfortunately, it was a battle she wouldn’t win, but then neither would anybody else.
Deirdre Brandenburg could eventually work out well, assuming that she got the hang of the job. Right now she looked at little like a refugee from prep school who’d stumbled into the bar by accident. He sighed. While she was dressed like that, most of the customers wouldn’t give her a second glance. Hell, he even forgot what a knockout she was unless he was looking directly at her face.
On the other side of the room, Sylvia cast a few exasperated looks Deirdre’s way, but given the amount of complaining she’d done about being the only full-time barmaid in the place, she didn’t have any room to gripe. She wanted help, and now she’d gotten it, tentative and fumbling though it was at the moment. Be careful what you wish for, Sylvia.