The Bartenders Daughter & The Teacher

Polishing glassware, taking orders and coaxing (almost borderline begging) intoxicated men and women to absolutely —under no circumstances— throw up on the newly mopped wooden floors of the bar was how I spent most of my nights. But work was work, and all these painstaking tasks and tribulations brought in tips, kept the place intact and even gave me something to laugh about sometimes.

Snapping fingers broke me from my inner thoughts, “You’re gonna stand there lookin pretty Eva or are you gonna take my order?”

A disheveled older man asked. It was Carl Frieger, the city of Everton’s local loon. The only good thing about serving him was the stacks of $20′s he gave away. The wads of bills he spends every time he comes in always makes me question his shaggy appearance, but like they say, don’t judge a book by its cover. Especially when it gives you $40 in tip for just bringing a club sandwich.

“What can I get for you Carl? The usual?” which consisted of a turkey and ham sandwich, a side of bacon and a room temperature corona with not one, but two limes on the side.

“Of course girl, you know exactly what I like!” He replied with enthusiasm.

I smiled, amazed at his ability to not get tired of eating the same thing almost 5 days out of the week —Saturday’s and Sunday’s were for spending time with his tiny, equally disheveled wife Shelly.

But unlike Carl, routines bugged me. It was the same old schedule for me this past year, Monday-Friday: wake up at 7am, school at 7:20. Homeroom, history, english, A.P spanish, lunch, psych and to end the day (cherry on top) remedial math. Schools out by 2:20pm and I’m at my fathers bar, “Saunders Pub” by 3:15pm, serving drinks and food to what seems like half of the unemployed population of the city of Everton. I’m thankfully able to cram in some school work during slow hours on the weekdays, but weekends were a completely different story.

It just seemed like I had no time for myself these days with work, school, and thinking about my impending future. Worst of all, it strangely felt like I was trapped in a boring, uneventful trance. But I was grateful that I was clearly capable of passing my classes and practically being my own boss, with my father occasionally breathing on my shoulder.

“Carl’s club is ready Evelyn, would you bring it out?” My father James Saunders said, once again interrupting my very boring thoughts.

I sauntered over to him, gripping the heavy ceramic plates and bringing it to booth no. 7, Carl’s preferred location. I dropped off the sandwich with a quick “enjoy” and walked back behind the bar, pulling out my A.P Spanish textbook and notebook. It was a pretty slow Thursday afternoon at the pub and I was eternally grateful for that as I had to study for my upcoming Spanish exam.

I was deep into an essay response when I heard a loud, familiar creak from across the wooden bar table top. I put my textbook aside and sat up, smoothing out my black apron and pushing wispy pieces of my mousy brown hair behind my ear, ready to listen to a customers request.

My eyes finally settled on the man sitting directly in front of me. He was fairly tall, even when slumped on the (what seemed like) centuries old bar stools we had. His brown hair was sticking up in all kinds of directions, north, south, east and west. But it was cute and kind of charming. But it was also easy to pull off messy, bedhead-like hair when you had a face as gorgeous as his. He had a dark olive tan, beautiful light brown eyes and the cutest, slightly pointed nose. His full lips perked up as he noticed me checking him out.

I cleared my throat, a slight heat reaching my cheeks. “Welcome to Saunders Pub, what can I get for you?” I asked, putting on my customer service facade and beating my palms on the table.

His eyes seemed to gleam and glow in the dim lighting of the bar and he smiled a daring, practically perfect smile.

“I’ve never been here before. What do you recommend?” He asked, his silky smooth voice caressing my eardrums.

‘I recommend us hooking up behind the bar right this instant’ I thought quickly before stuttering out a “Everything is good.”

“Just good? Not great?” He questioned, tilting his beautiful head to the side in a clearly teasing matter.

I smiled, fully prepared to answer back in his same lighthearted tone.

“Well, I practically own the place, so yes. Everything is great. Just look at our menu and pick whatever looks the most appealing.” I said, sliding the laminated menu across the bar.

“What I’m finding most appealing, isn’t on the menu.” He smirked, expression extremely mischievous as he didn’t even bother to give the menu a glance, but rather stared straight at me.

The heat from my face quickly travelled to my chest and stomach, daring to go lower if he was insinuating what I thought he was.

A hookup. This would surely break me from my boring, good girl routine I had going on. I had missed being adventurous and staying up past the break of dawn with my friends and cute boys. It had been a while since I even kissed a guy, let alone slept with one. I was having a serious dry spell since focusing on school and work.

“And what would you like?” I questioned back with the same mischievous tone and famous Evelyn Saunders’ smile that had all the guys and girls flocking over to me.

‘God, how I missed this’ I thought to myself as I watched this beautiful man grin and take the bait.

“Let me get a whiskey on the rocks and your number.”

“ID?” I asked, knowing full well that this man was over 21. I was just feeling particularly nosy and wanted to know who this sexy ass guy even was. The city of Everton was pretty small, and almost every adult had passed by Saunders Pub at least once throughout their drinking careers. But I had never seen or even thought of a man that looked like him.

He raised his eyebrow playfully before standing up to dig through his back pocket in search of his wallet. That’s when I took note of his actual height. He clearly towered over my 5′6" self. And lord...was he toned..and wearing a simple white dress shirt and black slacks. He finally handed over his ID and I stared at it for way longer than needed.

He wasn’t even from Everton, let alone the state of Pennsylvania, but rather from Arizona. No wonder he was beautifully tanned and not ridiculously pale and sickly like the rest of the population. He was 29, birthday on August 27th, 1989. Eyes brown, hair brown. Organ donor. And his signature reading “Vincent Miller.”

“Pennsylvania is a fares way from Arizona, huh Vince?” I teased, wondering why he was even in this shithole of a town.

Well, shithole is a harsh term I suppose. I did grow up here and made many memories but everything was getting to me. The same faces, the same roads and dusty convenience stores. It was getting all too familiar and boring.

“My mother’s been living here since ’09, think I visited her once way back when. She’s had a bit of a health scare and I moved here to take care of her. Just accepted a job here today and I’m here for a celebratory drink.” Vince said in almost one breath, sitting back down on the bar stool as I handed him back his ID.

“That’s sweet of you to come down and take care of her.” I answered, instantly thinking about my own mom who lived across town with her boyfriend. I wonder if she’ll move even further away from Dad and I.

I shook the thoughts from my head and began making his drink of choice. I had known everything I needed to know about bartending from spending years at the pub with my dad. It was almost second nature as I poured him the drink and slid the glass in his direction. He caught it with ease and smirked.

“Number?” He asked bluntly, getting straight to the point.

“I’ll do you one better. I’ll meet you out back in 5 minutes.” I winked, turning around and finished polishing off the rest of the freshly washed glasses.

Vincent downed his drink within seconds and slipped out the back smoothly.It was nearing 6pm and the sun was already setting during this cold Pennsylvania season. The bar was dead and probably would be until closing time, after all, it was a Thursday evening. And my father was in his office, reviewing inventory which meant he’d be busy for the rest of the night.

The few cooks that were on shift were technically doing their jobs and Patricia, family friend and long time waitress at Saunders, could manage if I was gone for a couple of minutes. I tore my apron off with excitement and threw on my jacket, slipping out back. My heart soared with excitement of the unknown as I watched Vincent Miller lean against the wall of the narrow alleyway, his foot resting against the brick. And he was actually smoking a cigarette. How cliche but hot.

And into his car I went, and we drove off into the sunset.