I amped myself up as I approached the door of the bar, and as I swung it open, I had a bright smile all ready for Jasmine, who I knew I’d see planted behind the hostess stand as usual.
But when I got in, I saw her standing there with my manager, Morgan, the two of them talking quietly as Jasmine wore a confused frown on her normally chipper face.
I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined the awkward shift when they turned to look at me.
“Oh. Speak of the devil,” Morgan said with a tinge of surprise in her usual monotone. But after blinking once, then twice, she returned swiftly to the clipped robot voice she normally spoke in. “Holland, I was just telling Jasmine to send you down to the office once you got in,” she said.
“Oh.” My eyes shifted between the two of them as I slowly let my purse down from my shoulders. “Is everything okay?”
Morgan ignored my question, delegating a few more pre-shift tasks to Jasmine and then patting her shoulder before finally turning back to me. “Holland. Come downstairs. Let’s chat,” she said.
I exchanged a look with Jasmine before following Morgan downstairs to the office, chewing my thumbnail as I tried to figure out what this could be about. But I was entirely too new to the job to be able to guess. For all I knew, HR needed me to complete another safety training. Or maybe someone had finally ratted on Lana for shorting the bussers on their tips, and Morgan needed to ask me what I knew. I’d convinced myself it was the latter by the time we got to the office, which eased my nerves.
But my relief was short-lived because I’d bar
ely touched my butt to the chair before Morgan dropped the bomb on me.
“Holland, I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to let you go.”
I was still half-seated as I froze in place and blinked at her.
“You… what?” I breathed. My instinct was to let out an awkward laugh, because I was certain I’d somehow heard her wrong. Or perhaps misunderstood.
But I hadn’t.
“Unfortunately, we are terminating your employment here,” Morgan said with the signature bluntness that had earned her the nickname Robo-Mo among the staff. She was famously direct and to-the-point, which I found refreshing and had always appreciated.
Until now.
“Wait. I don’t understand.” My eyes fluttered and my mouth opened and closed as I weeded through what felt like thousands of questions before I landed on, “Why?” I blinked hard. “Did I… do something wrong?”
“No, Holland. Not at all,” Morgan said with as much warmth as she could muster. “You’ve been a valuable addition to our team. I know I speak for both the bar and the kitchen when I say that we appreciate the hustle and work ethic you’ve brought to every shift. The night certainly goes by smoothest when you’re on the floor.”
“Then why am I being fired?” I questioned.
Morgan paused, blinking a couple times at me then looking briefly at the wall behind the computer, like maybe the answer was scrawled over there. But then she frowned, as if she hadn’t at all found what she was looking for, and turned back to me looking suddenly tired.
“It’s just… it’s just that unfortunately, now is not the right time for you to be on our staff,” she finally said, in what sounded like such a blatantly half-assed lie that a switch instantly flipped inside me.
And suddenly, I wasn’t so much confused as I was pissed.
“But you said the opposite three weeks ago,” I argued, trying to keep my focus through my instant heart-pounding fury, as well as the grating sound of my phone suddenly ringing off the hook in my purse. Locking myself in, I waded through the noise and the jumble of a million thoughts in my head as I tried to remember exactly what Morgan had told me at my interview just a few weeks ago. “You specifically said you hired me because you needed staff,” I pointed out, my pulse picking up. “Because two girls quit last month and because Lana’s going on vacation in August, so how is now a bad time for me to be on your staff?”
I was suddenly fired up now, unblinking as I watched Morgan wiggle her pursed lips and struggle to come up with an answer. Considering how logical and informed she normally was, it only fanned the fire in my veins, further convincing me that this had to be bullshit.
“Morgan—” I started in protest, but she held up her hand.
“Holland,” she countered firmly, with a bit of a wince. “Truly, I regret this. However our backs are against the wall. The decision had to be made, and we’re letting you go. So please clear out your locker. Lana will be here shortly to take over your shift.”
Lana—?
What the fuck?
I stared at Morgan, eyes wild and mind racing. The decision had to be made? Backs against the wall? The odd phrases played in my head on repeat till I felt the heat in my veins suddenly turn into ice.
“Did someone tell you to fire me?” I blurted.
The question left my lips before it had even fully formed as a thought in my brain, and I would’ve figured I was being crazy if Morgan didn’t suddenly freeze and stare at me like a deer in highlights.