“I saw it. Can you imagine bulldozing all this history? Vero, do you realize the fucking rock stars who’ve stood on that stage?”
Vero popped her gum, shaking her head. “Shit’s not cool.”
“They’d probably give us uniforms. You might have to wear a miniskirt.”
Vero looked down at her Harley T-shirt and faded jeans. “The day I wear a miniskirt’s the day I cut off my balls and serve them to my boss on a silver platter.”
“You don’t have balls, Vero.”
“It’s a saying,” she said, rolling her eyes. She leaned a hand on the counter and nodded over at the pool game. “I don’t know, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if this place shut down. Not like Johnny can’t find something else.”
“But he’s perfect here.”
She smiled. “I know. That doesn’t mean he can’t do good work somewhere else, though. And maybe you could try something with computers.”
“You think so?” Lola asked.
“Why not? I remember when you first started you talked about going back to school.”
“Yeah, I did,” Lola said. “Kept putting it off, and here I am years later.”
“Happens all the time, but people do it. You’ve been making flyers for this place for a while. Even Mitch says they’re good. Couldn’t you take a, you know, flyer-making class or something?”
“I guess I could,” Lola said. Mitch had even promised to let her redesign the menus he’d been hanging on to the last decade. Before he’d decided to close, of course. “I actually like the little bit of graphic design I’ve taught myself.”
“Yep,” Vero said. “But take it from me, you have to do it now. If you get another waitressing gig, you’ll get stuck again. Me and Johnny? We’re in this scene for good. Nothing can hide a lifetime of smoking and the pretty little scar on my lip Freddy left me with. Johnny’s got his rough edges too. You can still get out, though.”
Lola chewed on her bottom lip. Once in a while, she thought about going back to school. Johnny didn’t like change, though. Leaving the bar would mean no more waking up late in the morning together and lounging before work—coffee, talk shows, reading the Times while he strummed his guitar on their tiny patio. It would mean not driving home from work in the middle of the night, sometimes with her head in his lap when she was especially tired. It would mean leaving him behind in a way, telling him this life he loved wasn’t quite enough for her.
“Everyone’s living in the clouds tonight,” Lola
said softly, thinking of the similar conversation she’d just had with Beau. “There must be something in the air.”
“Nah. It’s just the liquor giving me loose lips,” Vero said.
“Veronica,” Lola scolded. “Johnny warned you about drinking on the job.”
“You know how it is. I just need a taste every now and then. Anyway, you had a drink earlier.”
“That was a special circumstance.”
“Playing darts is a special circumstance?”
Lola pinned her with a look. “My aim gets sharper the more I loosen up.”
“Oh, okay, sure.” Veronica nodded her head high. “Keep your secret if you keep mine?”
Lola snickered. She rarely got to pull one over on Johnny. “Fine,” she said. “Deal.”
Vero stopped her gum smacking. “Girl, why don’t you ever tell that slut to back off?”
Lola followed her nod to Amanda, one of the waitresses, as she smiled up at Johnny.
“You know why,” Lola said. “She can flutter those lids until they fall off, Johnny’s not dumb enough to touch that.”
“Don’t matter. Since she doesn’t seem to have eyeballs, there’re other ways to let her know he’s your man.”
“We have to work together,” Lola said. “I don’t want trouble. And Johnny puts her in her place when he needs to. Not that it does much good.” Lola’s gaze shifted to Beau, who stood with his pool cue planted on the ground. He was the only one not wearing something faded or leather.
“Handsome guy, isn’t he?” Vero asked. “Out of the suit, that is.”
Lola kept her eyes on him and shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t mind the suit.”
“Don’t tell Johnny that. Probably never wore a suit in his life, not even to a funeral.”
“I know,” Lola said absentmindedly. “Maybe that’s why I like it.”
“Replace the suit with a cut and throw him on a bike, though? Fuck me. A face like that would put a serious dent in the pussy around here.”
Beau caught them looking and raised his glass, his smile sweetly crooked.
“You didn’t answer my question earlier,” he said after she’d gotten herself a drink. They’d stopped playing darts and were standing close to each other at a high-top table.
“Which one?”
“I asked what you did before working here.”
“Oh. Nothing really. There was high school, of course…”