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“We still need to talk,” I told him.
“Come home with us tonight,” I said, hoping that even if they’d had sex, CindyLou would know that neither of us had an ego in this game. For that matter, I didn’t think Mickey had one either, but I wasn’t sure. Reading him sometimes gave me a headache, and this was absolutely one of those times.
“Will do,” Scotty said, then went about pouring a couple beers for two cowboys who saddled up to the bar in his station.
I had my own customers, but I watched CindyLou handle the foursome just to make sure she could handle it, and not only could she handle them, but when three more cowboys walked up and ordered, she handled all of them like a pro. The woman knew how to pour and knew what she was doing behind a bar. Before long, she was mixing drinks and sliding them down the bar like she was born to the profession. I’d had a feeling she could handle herself back here, but I had no idea she would give both Scotty and me a run for our money.
Tammy found herself a true mixologist when she hired CindyLou.
After watching her for a few hours, I couldn’t help but tell her my thoughts once there was a little bit of a break in demands.
“You’re an incredible bartender. Where’d you learn all this? It’s like you’ve been doing this since you were a kid.”
“That’s because I have been. When other little girls were playing with dolls and learning how to bake a pie, my mother was teaching me how to mix a top-shelf margarita.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“Nope. I could pour the perfect cosmopolitan when I was twelve years old. She wanted me to have a career I could always fall back on.”
A woman nodded her way, and without missing a beat, CindyLou put another long-neck beer down in front of her and took the old one away.
We continued the conversation once her customer had been served, and she’d rung up the beer. “I would think that would be personal assistant work or something in the cooking category, not something behind a bar.”
“You never met my mother, have you?”
“I don’t remember her much. I think I saw her a couple of times. Pretty woman, with long, red hair… just like yours.”
She removed the clip that held her hair up while she’d been working, and her long, red locks tumbled down over her shoulders. The vision took my breath away. And just as quickly, she rolled her hair around her fingers and pulled it back into the clip. Then she washed her hands and dried them on a towel.
“That’s about the only thing we have in common,” she said, while she dried her hands. “That, and the ability to make just about any drink there is, and to do a damn good job of it. My mother is an excellent bartender. Probably even better than Tammy, and Tammy’s incredible!”
“You must’ve been a hit at teen parties. Who teaches their little girl to be a bartender at twelve?” I had a difficult time believing any parent would teach a young child about alcohol.
She chuckled, and her face lit up with a warm memory. “A woman who should’ve never had a kid. I never told anyone my mom had taught me bartending, so no one knew. I knew deep down, even at twelve that it wasn’t right from the first drink I ever poured, but I kept it to myself. I liked all the attention my mom gave me during those teaching days. Plus, we actually had fun, which was rare between my mom and me. Probably because she drank most of the offerings. Still, there was also a lot of memorizing bartender books. That part I hated. She’d always be testing me whenever we were in the car together. Most kids would get asked about their day at school… my mom quizzed me on how to make a classic Gin Fiz or a Sidecar.”
“Hell, I don’t even know what’s in a Sidecar.”
“It’s been updated a bit… first rim a martini glass with lemon, then dip half the glass in fine sugar. Pour two ounces of cognac, one ounce of top-shelf orange liquor, and one ounce of fresh lemon into a shaker with some ice. Shake it until it’s icy cold and strain it into the martini glass. Garnish with a slice of lemon. You can use an orange slice as well, but I prefer a lemon. Suggest it sometime to your customers. They’ll love it.”
“And your mom taught you this?”
“Mostly. I’ve picked up a lot of other mixed drinks along the way, but yeah. That was her gift to me… bartending. Ironically, she was right.”
I could tell she had some bittersweet memories, and I didn’t want to push her to tell me more. Interesting though, I never would’ve thought she had such a rough time with her mom, but then I never paid attention to that kind of stuff when I was a kid. I just assumed everyone had parents like mine… attentive and supportive… who never quizzed me.
“Well, I’m glad she gave you those lessons, or you wouldn’t be standing here today.”
“Thanks, and believe me, so am I. Bartending saved my ass so many times I can’t even count all the ways. It’s always been my fallback plan when times are tough.”
Three people walked up to my station, and I had no choice but to serve them, which put an end to our conversation for the rest of the night. We were never able to pick it up again until the doors finally closed around two thirty a.m. Between the crowd that hung around the bar, and when the Jess Davis Band played two extra-long sets, we never stopped for five hours straight.
Then, once everything settled down, and the bar was finally cleaned up, I knew I couldn’t take CindyLou home… at least not tonight. Not before I talked to the guys about how we wanted to handle this thing.
And by this thing, I meant our feelings for CindyLou.
And no way should we have that conversation in front of her. This was one of those times when we needed to figure out our feeling first, then we could present that to CindyLou. No matter what, she still had the final say in this thing… if we even had a “thing.”
Scotty had just stepped away from the bar area, so now was my chance to talk to her.
