by S. L. Giger
“And you lived in here with Melissa?” I looked at her doubtfully.
“It’s NYC, what else do you expect? Rents are horrendous. Despite that, it’s still the coolest city in the world, and every penny or noise in the night is worth it. Besides, if I get cabin fever, I can get to other places pretty quickly,” she winked.
“How is school going?”
“Good, except that people think that we are hiding something.”
“As long as they don’t start hunting you down to throw you on a barn fire, let them talk.” She said.
We left the apartment, and Roisin gave me her ‘New York by Roisin’s free walking tour to see the best places in one day,’ as she called it. She showed me all the important buildings, Central Park and in the end, we slowed down to stroll along the High Line.
“So, what do you think?” She asked me.
“It’s very impressive; the lights, the noises, the architecture and how everything functions so well with so many people around. But I bet normal people need months to see the places we have visited today.” I’d have to come back, too and have a closer, more relaxed look at everything.
“Yeah, I assume that’s the reason why there are never any other people on my tour. They can’t keep up with me.” She let go of a fake sigh. “And even for you, that was just a tasting platter. I so to speak wanted you to smell everything, that you can go back to get more of what you liked best.”
“The New York tasting platter. It’s hard to pick one thing over the other. Everything was delicious,” I smiled.
“You have to come back more often but what you really should see is the nightlife.” She exclaimed.
“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about as well,” I said. “How did you get a job in a nightclub when you first arrived? You were underage too, weren’t you?”
“Have you ever heard of a fake ID, love?” She looked at me bemused. “I already had a fake identity anyway. It was easy to get a second one and after a few years, you kind of let them melt together.”
“And Melissa let you do that?” I asked in disbelieve, which provoked a laugh from Roisin.
“Of course, what was she going to say? She is my sister and was happy that she was able to get free entrance.” Roisin winked. “But why are you asking anyway? Do you want to work in a club, too?”
“No, in a pub actually,” I said. “It’s an Irish pub in Boston.”
“That’s good because it’s a big enough distance away from the Cape to show up with another age.”
“So, you’re saying that I could get another fake identity and turn myself to twenty-one?”
“Yes, it’s not like you’re going to use the ID to drink a lot of alcohol. Melissa may behave as if she is your mom and disapproves of certain things you do, but she knows that you’re entitled to choose your own path of life. She certainly wouldn’t stand between you and something you want to do if it makes you happy.”
“Great, where can I get one?” My eyes lit up.
From having worked in NYC’s nightlife for such a long time, Roisin knew the serious people from the amateur ones. Two hours later, I had my second fake ID along with a social security number.
“Good, when do you have school tomorrow?” She asked when we walked back into a more populated street.
“7.30 am, why?”
“Because we’re going to see whether your ID works and you might have to go there directly tomorrow morning.” She laughed. “I will ask Melissa whether she wants to come too. So, that she doesn’t feel left out.”
I pulled a face.
She can’t prohibit it to you. I did exactly the same.
We went to Roisin’s apartment to freshen up a little.
Melissa joined us after her work.
“You know that I don’t like the idea of you juggling so many different identities. Yet, in the end, I prefer being informed about what you do instead of being lied to and you doing it behind my back.” She said to me.
“Let her gain some more experiences.” Roisin waved her off. “So far, she has only proven how capable she is with everything.”
“True.” Melissa looked at me. “But if she were my child, I’d not encourage her to go to pubs before she had the right age for it.”
Obviously, I am not your child. I didn’t say this out loud. I had long realized that for Melissa, I was the child she was never allowed to have. Thus, such a comment would have hurt her. “At least you can chaperone me,” I said instead.
Our first stop was a cute bar with a huge selection of beers.
“I like to come here to guy watch,” Roisin said. “Observe the master, how it’s done.”
She left Melissa and me sitting at a table and went to the bar to order. The way she walked toward the bar and moved while she was leaning against the counter soon attracted every single guy’s glance. Even from the ones who were here with a girlfriend. She came back with three beers in her hands and a huge smile on her face.
“Don’t look now but one guy will gather the nerve to talk to me before we leave. Either it's the cute guy with the Yankees cap behind me to the right or the one with the red shirt at the table next to him. It could also be the tall guy who was standing next to me while I ordered. His mouth probably still is hanging wide open will gather the nerve to talk to me before we leave.”
I looked over to the bar and then quickly turned away again. Surely, that man was staring in our direction with a face like a three-headed unicorn had walked past him.
I couldn’t stifle a laugh.
We talked about school and their jobs for a while and how I was getting accustomed to my life up here. Our beers were wandering into the napkins, when suddenly; the guy in the red shirt was standing next to us. The shirt clung pretty tight to his body so that you could tell that he had a lot of muscles. His brown hair was slightly in a mess as if somebody absentmindedly had ruffled through it. This, on the other hand, gave him a boyish youth.
“Hello ladies, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I noticed that your drinks were half empty. Since there are so many more beers to try, I wanted to ask whether I could buy you another round.” He put his hands in his jeans pockets and then took them out again, not quite knowing what to do with them.
“By the way, my name is Mat.” Even though he addressed all of us, I could see that he was only really talking to Roisin.
“Mat, that’s sweet of you,” Roisin said. “Perhaps, you and your friends could help us with our next choice once we are done with our drinks. Why don’t you come and sit here with us?”
For an instant, nothing happened. He probably thought that he heard wrong. “Great, yes, I’ll go tell them.” He turned around and inwardly skipped to his friends. Now it was my turn to stare at Roisin with an open mouth.
“Years of practice, kid,” she laughed.
And before I knew it, four guys were sitting at a table with us. At some point, Roisin and Mat exchanged numbers, and we moved on to the club she worked.
“Will you see him again?” I asked.
“Hello, did you see his muscles? Um, wait a second, yes, I will.”
“That’s nothing unusual for her,” Melissa said.
“I’m entitled to fun too, like everyone else. I just don’t think that we are made for long term relationships. What you and Luke have is pretty much impossible. Apart from that, who wants to be with someone who at some point turns seventy while you’re still thirty? That’s kind of gross.” She exclaimed.
Again, I rolled my eyes at what a lively spirit Roisin was. She could turn any situation in a direction that it looked positive in the end. For the rest of the night, we hopped from club to club and danced as if we had fallen into Obelix’s potion.
The next day, I headed to Boston after school with my newly forged ID in my pocket. I ran there taking the land route. I was tempted to search the grounds of UMass but then forced myself to go to The Wild Rover fairly early. I assumed that it would still be
quiet then and that I might have a better chance to talk to the owner.
The wooden facade of The Wild Rover was painted a shiny black. The pub’s name was written across the whole length in gold and in an ancient font. Below the name, there was a big ‘Slainte’. Flower pots were hanging on each side. They marked the end of the wood and the beginning of the normal brick house facade of the shops next to it. There were no flowers in the white pots now because it was too cold, but it must look nice in summer. Through the big window with thick bottle glass, I could make out that there was already quite a big crowd inside.
When I stepped through the door, sounds of bagpipes and a fiddle floated to my ears. The tables were filled with men who were having their after-work drink. I noticed all the different signs on the walls. There was hardly a spot that wasn’t covered with some kind of saying. For example, this one was behind the bar: Here's to a long life and a merry one. A quick death and an easy one. A pretty girl and an honest one. A cold pint and another one!
I made my way to the bar and sat on one of the stools. For a while, I watched the guy at the bar drying beer glasses with a towel. He was tall and slim, the black t-shirt with the pub's name loosely falling over his black jeans. I guessed his age around forty, the top of his head bald with short red hair around the side of the head. He had a black ring through the top end of his right ear, a small metal ring through his left eyebrow and a short, round nose. He actually reminded me a little of a leprechaun.
Hurrying from table to table, wiping one here and there, was a bleach-blond girl with her hair in a loose ponytail. The eyes of the guy behind the bar followed the girl and then fell back on me. I had already been sitting at the bar for a few minutes and the girl hadn't come back so far. So, the leprechaun moved toward me, throwing the towel over his shoulder.
"Hey, what can I get you?"
"Do you have any ciders?"
"Yes, Magners."
“Okay, I’ll have a small glass please.”
He already turned to get to work, so I jumped in with my next question. “There’s something else I want to ask you.”
I had his attention again.
“I’m studying psychology at Boston College.” If I told him I lived in Cape Cod, it would have been too far to come to work here for odd shifts. “And now I’m looking for a job I can do next to my courses, and working in an Irish pub seems a lot more fun than bagging groceries.” I finished.
“Does it?” He said.
“Plus, I am a night owl. It would be great to find something where I can work in the evening also.”
He studied me for a moment, which made me a little insecure. To overplay that, I flashed a big smile at him and tried to ask shyly: “So, do you have any positions available?”
“What’s your name?”
I hesitated for a moment. Serena was still so present in my mind, although I had gotten somewhat used to my new name, due to school. “Nathalie. Nathalie Belkin.” I held out my hand, and he shook it.
“Well, nice meeting you, Nathalie. I’m Jimmy and it might be your lucky day today; as Shannon, one of my amazing all-rounders is pregnant. Like really, pregnant.” I almost missed the huge belly he formed with his arms to show how far along she already was. “She needs to cut back, and once the baby is here, she won’t come in for a while. Plus, it would be a mistake to say no to a pretty girl like you.” He smiled and leaned over the bar. “So, now to the most important question.” He gave me a meaningful look and paused to make it more dramatic. “Can you pour a Guinness?”
Oh boy. Why, was it different from a normal beer?
As Jimmy saw my grimace, he asked whether I had at least drunk a Guinness before.
At least I could answer this one with yes. “And I have a fair idea how to make one too. Could I give it a try?”
“Not so fast, I don’t want you to waste a drop of my precious Guinness. Making Guinness is an art!”
At this moment, the blonde girl walked up next to him, shaking an index finger. “Jimmy, Jimmy, I’m working my ass off in there, while you are flirting with the customers. Shouldn’t you set a better example?”
“That’s one privilege about being the boss, Paula. Besides, this was business talk. This girl was asking for a job. At any rate, she first needs to pass the test.”
Paula gave me the once over. She had a small hoop pierced through her upper lip on each side five millimeters from the corners of her mouth and shiny brown eyes. I hoped that the piercings weren’t compulsory for working here.
She decided that she liked me because a beaming smile spread across her face.
“Oh fun, a newbie. Tonight would be a good one to start too. It will be busy. I want to see this.” She walked over to my side of the bar, and sat down with a good view of the beer tap, placing her head on her propped-up arms.
“Watch and learn,” Jimmy said. He explained to me, what the different shaped glasses are called and which we use for what drink. Then it came to the task of pouring a Guinness. It was not as easy as opening the tap and letting the liquid run into the glass but still learnable. After he had shown me, I was allowed behind the counter to copy what he did.
“So far, so good,” Jimmy said, once I placed the beer in front of him and Paula. “Now, we will see how you wait for the tables and keep the bar tidy. Once you haven’t proven yourself as completely useless, you will learn how to draw pictures on the foam of the Guinness,” Jimmy winked. “So, do you have time to do the test run tonight?”
“Cool, of course!” I said, not believing how quickly I got into this.
“I’ll get you a t-shirt then.” Jimmy disappeared through a door behind the bar.
“I’ll go back to do work now. Talk to you later,” Paula said.
I nodded.
Jimmy appeared again and handed me a black bundle. “Here, shirt and apron. I’ll explain where everything is. But first, let’s drink to this.”
He lifted his Guinness and so, I also picked up mine. “Slainte!” He said and clinked with my glass.
“Slainte.”
As he was watching me closely, I didn’t dare to spit it out or keep it in my mouth, and so I ended up swallowing a pretty big gulp. And Guinness is so heavy, too. There goes my half donut I had wanted to eat this month. I really have to improve the ways on how not to eat and drink in public!
Then, Jimmy showed me where the crates with ciders and other drinks were stored. He explained the prices and how to change the keg. Further, it was important not to wash the glasses with soap because that would affect the foam of the beer. Boiling water in the washing machine would do the job. And a lot more info rained down on me. There was no way I could remember all this.
The kitchen was a tiny corner. I learned that Josh, the chef was defending his territory against all intruders.
Half an hour later, Shannon arrived. She really was pregnant! Surprising how she could move so quickly with that huge belly. Or move at all.
I was quite nervous when the first people wanted to order something through me. But soon I had no other choice because everyone was busy. The pub was packed! I was opening bottles, filling glasses, running from table to table, taking empty glasses and bringing new ones. Wiping a surface here and there, I thought that this was more exercise than a boot camp. All the while, I was hoping that I wasn’t disappointing Jimmy. I didn’t really expect them to give me a chance and now I wanted to do my best to prove that he had made the right decision.
At 1:10 am, we threw the last customers out. However, everybody was still busy wiping tables and putting the chairs on top of them. Shannon counted the money, and Paula wiped the floors. Such a well-tuned team that I didn’t really know what to do for a moment.
Shannon looked up. “Here, you can count the inventory. There is a paper with the numbers from yesterday.” She nodded to the right.
I grabbed the sheet and walked in the big and cold storage room. It felt great after the heat inside the pub. I counted the bottles and
hoped I had figured out the name shortages on the paper correctly.
After a while, Jimmy came inside.
“Tonight, I’ll do it also, to see whether we receive the same numbers.”
He counted the things, with the difference that he was a lot quicker than me. Luckily, he received the same figures.
“Good, I like you,” was his comment.
Then, we walked back to the bar and sat down next to the others. The stool looked so inviting. I felt exhausted, how could that be? I had across an ocean, but working in a pub for six hours makes me long for a soft bed to lie on. I must have looked the way I felt.
“Don’t worry; you will get used to it. It always seems like hard work in the beginning, but it gets a lot easier once you get practiced,” Paula said.
“You did pretty well for your first time. It was quite a big crowd tonight.” Shannon said.
“And perhaps you can learn at home, how to carry more than two plates at a time,” Josh added.
“That’s Josh’s way of saying that he will let you carry out his food in the future,” Paula commented.
“We’ll have to talk about your shifts later,” Jimmy then said. “But I’m quite impressed at how fast you move through the crowds. It’s like you are a flying Speedy Gonzalez.”
Well, if there’s one thing I can do now, it’s running.
“Cool; that calls for a celebration!” Paula yelled and pulled out some glasses.
We all stayed for a drink, and this time, it was easier not to drink since the others were distracted by more people. Bit by bit I spat the beer into a cloth that I had hidden up my sleeve. It would start leaking through the fabric of my shirt soon, but since it was black, the wet stain luckily wouldn’t show that quickly. I excused myself to go to the bathroom and wring out the cloth. Yet, before I left, I took another big gulp to spit into the sink. Yes, it’s not pretty if you want to stay undercover as a Siren.
We finally left the pub shortly past 2 am. To get home, I took the water route. I just hoped I calculated the direction correctly and wouldn’t run past Cape Cod.