Overpoured 70% of the time.
Underpoured 25%.
Who knows what happened to that other 5%.
I’ve spilled three drinks.
Two on people.
One on myself.
I’ve fallen down once.
Not sure how.
I’ve been hit on countless times.
I’ve made $800 in tips.
I come home to the apartment absolutely exhausted and pay Lisa – who is more than happy to be back and watching over Ava when she can – or let my mom stay the night because I don’t want her driving back home at that hour. The nights are late now and my feet have blisters but I’m finally making money to start balancing things out. I’m finally feeling a little bit in control. My only complaint is I work three shifts a week but James says he’s working on getting me more. I’m just grateful he gave me a chance at all.
And I have Bram to thank for that. Bram the man. Bram the man next door, who still has loud sex with random chicks and still manages to piss me off from time to time with teasing or overtly sexual comments. But when he doesn’t do it – on those days I don’t run into him in the halls or he doesn’t go and knock on my door – I really hate to admit this, but I kind of miss him. I mean it. The banter and interaction. And yeah, maybe I miss the eye candy too.
But I’m not too happy about that because I have no intention of letting that man get close. As a neighbor he’s great, as anything more than that…he’s bad, bad news and bad for me.
Tonight I have my mother over to watch over Ava. Sandra, the girl that normally works Friday nights at the bar, called in to work saying she had a thing and wouldn’t be able to make it into work until eleven. Even though the shift was just from 8pm to 11pm, James asked if I’d like to come in and he’d pay me for four hours. Naturally I jumped at the chance – I was taking anything he was slinging my way.
“You’ve really made this home,” my mom comments, sitting down on the couch. Just as she does so, I hear a rip. Yet another hole appears in the threadbare cushions. We both look at the tear and at each other and share a small laugh. It’s taken a long time for either of us to laugh at our circumstances.
My mother really had the perfect life when I was young. She had my dad, who, yes, did seem flighty at times, who didn’t always apply himself, who wasn’t a go-getter after the finer things in life. But he had a good heart and a good soul.
I would have thought a forgiving soul too, but I’m not sure how much of that is true. My mother always wanted more and one day she fell in love with the world’s most boring lawyer to the rich and famous. They had an affair, one that lasted years. You’d think I would have known what was going on, but I was a teenager at the time, hated everyone and was completely oblivious to anything around me that didn’t involve me.
Eventually my mother confessed. She and my dad divorced and he took that opportunity to up and leave to find his path in life. It led him straight to India to do charity work. I used to feel slighted that he left so easily – and sometimes I still do. That little sting of rejection, why daddy left, why he didn’t think I was worth sticking around for.
But at the same time I get it. He assumed I didn’t need him; that I would better off with my mother and Richard, in a big fancy house in one of San Francisco’s richest neighborhoods. He probably assumed I didn’t need him because I never told him, never acted like it.
It couldn’t have been further from the truth. Some days I think one phone call to my dad to tell him I need him would have brought him back. But I never tried. I didn’t have the guts.
I wonder if the same thing could have happened with Phil. Maybe I had done something wrong, maybe I just spent too much time focused – obsessed – with Ava, that I hadn’t noticed I pushed him away. Maybe Phil needed to hear I needed him too.
I swallow back the bitter memories and they move down into my chest where I hope they stay, that blank, dark space behind my heart. I think I see my mom doing the same. When she married Richard, perhaps because of how they got together, he made her sign an indemnity clause. When she eventually cheated on him – let’s face it, what they had wasn’t love – she lost it all. Now she has nothing. No education, no love. She lives in a tiny house in the middle of nowhere, cleaning other people’s homes to make a living. We both used to have so much, and now we have so little. I know people must think this is her karma, that it’s deserved after all she did.
But what did I do to deserve the struggle?
“You better not be late,” my mother warns. It makes me realize I must have been standing there blanked out like a glum zombie.
“I’m going,” I tell her, walking into the bedroom to grab my purse. Ava’s already asleep so I quickly get out the door so I can make my bus on time.
I have the worst and best timing when it comes to bumping into people in the halls.
Bram and his new girlfriend are just stepping out of his place.
“Hi,” I say to him, immediately feeling awkward as I stand in the doorway.
“Hi,” Bram says, smiling brightly, not seeming awkward at all. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him look awkward.
Silence and a polite smile from the tall brunette on his arm. She’s dressed to the nines, very classy in a long black dress and gold jewelry and Bram’s wearing a sharp black suit and tie. His hair is pushed off his face and he’s looking exceedingly dapper, like he did at his brother’s wedding. He could be the next James Bond. Even his accent is the same as Connery’s, maybe with a bit more emphasis on the rolling “Rs.”
“Is this Bram?” my mother suddenly asks and I nearly jump. I look behind me and see her poking her head through the door. And I was so close to closing it.
“She’s heard of me?” Bram asks gleefully.
“Who hasn’t?” I say dryly as he leans over to get a better look at my mother.
“You must be Nicola’s mother,” he says, grinning those dimples at her and offering my mother his hand. “I can see where she gets her beauty from. A rose from a rose.”
Oh, brother. While my mom seems to melt in front of him, telling him her name is Doreen and that he’s far too kind, I exchange a glance with the silent brunette. She looks like she wants to roll her eyes too. Makes me wonder how their date is going to go.
“Well, I’m going to get going,” I say, knowing if I miss my bus I’m screwed.
“Off to work?” Bram asks. “I can give you a ride.”
“Isn’t he darling?” my mother says.
“That’s okay,” I tell him quickly. “The bus is easy.”
“You’d rather take the bus than come with me?”
I eye the girl again, rather apologetically this time. “You seem to be on a date.”
“We’re just going to the opera.” Oh, just the opera. “Justine doesn’t mind, do you Justine?”
Justine gives a half-hearted shrug with one shoulder, wearing a world of indifference on her elegant features.
“See, she doesn’t mind,” Bram says. “Come on.”
I really should have protested further but to be honest, I was glad to not take the bus for a change. My stupid car was now at the back of the building – Bram had it towed there from the Tenderloin – waiting for money so I could get it the part it needs. Battling crazies on the bus had become a part of my nightly routine, but it would be nice to just relax for once.
Yet, I do anything but relax in the back of Bram’s Mercedes. Bram keeps talking to me about this and that, completely ignoring his date who seems to be bored by the whole thing anyway. After a while I stop feeling bad that I have so much of his attention and start to enjoy it. He can be damned charming and funny when he wants to be.
After he dropped me off, I was immediately swept into the chaos that is working at The Burgundy Lion. James is a pretty good boss, although he’s a moody little bitch sometimes. I remember what an obstacle he was with Steph and Linden when they got together and I’m glad Linden finally pushed James’s opinion to the side because he strikes me as the type to get upset about everything. Thankfully he hasn’t thrown a hissy fit with me yet but that’s because I do my job and even when I make an epic mistake (um, like forgetting to charge a group for their massive bill), he’s had the grace to look the other way. I think he knows I’m much harder on myself than he will ever be. I also think he’s a bit scared of me. I don’t know why. Perhaps he thinks single moms are crazy. In some ways, we kind of are.