But the East Village wasn’t turning out to be like the mythic version of itself that existed in her mind. Rents were higher, people died far less often, and there were stores that specialized only in Japanese toys and hookah bars that catered to NYU undergraduates. There were also the internet cafés. There was something about an internet café that could never be glamorous, only grubby and desperate. On Avenue A, across from the park, there was a real café, where everyone languidly sipped their coffees, eyed each other, watched the street outside, chain-smoked at the sidewalk tables, and wrote in little notebooks or pretended to. In the internet café next door everyone just stared at the screens. They had bought their little bit of time, and now they had to use it wisely.
There were still fascinating and glamorous people around, though. The beautiful waitress at the BYOB cheap Italian restaurant on Ninth Street, the one with the giant eyes and acne-scarred cheeks. Yulia, whom Bar Lafitte had hired at the same time as they’d hired Laura, who only ever spoke to say, “Please, your table.” The guitarist Dylan. She wanted to write a song about Dylan. She wanted to do all kind of clichéd things, and she was just self-aware enough to know they were clichés but still young enough to think that things would be different for her.
She didn’t really like smoking, but there wasn’t anything else to do, so she took a cigarette break in the alley behind the bar, where a waitress was also smoking. It was almost sunset and there was a golden light on the stones of the building across the street, and they stood smoking in the fading light, silently finding some kind of comradeship in just standing next to each other. The waitress broke the silence by introducing herself, strategically waiting till both their cigarettes were almost to the filter. “Hey, I’m Alexis, I’m section five tonight.”
Laura turned to look at her more closely. The waitresses primarily distinguished themselves from the hostesses by their little black aprons, but there was also something else different about them. The hostesses were softer, newer—they all clearly had ended up there by accident—while the waitresses were professionals. Their eye makeup was dark and deliberate, calibrated to be visible in low light. Their cleavage pushed out of their tight black tank tops, not as if they were shoving their tits in your face but as if they couldn’t be bothered to conceal them. Alexis had a short brown ponytail and a dark even tan and perfectly globular breasts. She was intimidating, but there was also something about her that Laura trusted implicitly.
“Do you want to get promoted to server?” she asked as if it were an offhand question, but Laura could tell that she was being evaluated.
“Should I want to?”
Alexis laughed, and her globular boobs jiggled slightly, perfectly. “I’ll ask you again after you’ve had your first shift drink with Stefan.”
Stefan was the manager who’d hired Laura. “Oh, because he’s a perv?” She could hear herself trying to sound tough, as tough as hard-edged Alexis. “I can shut that down.”
“Well, then he’ll fire you. Just flirt, string him along a bit. You definitely don’t have to do anything, but keep his hopes alive.” Alexis pulled out a hot-pink Bic and lit another cigarette, and Laura felt a glow of approval; if she’d been a dud, Alexis would have gone right back to her section, she felt sure.
“To answer your question, though, yes you should want to get promoted! You’re making shit money considering what you’ll have to put up with here, and the bartenders will never tip you out, because you don’t do anything for them. The only exception is Max, and he’ll just be trying to get you to talk to him, which you shouldn’t do if you can avoid it. And you make good money here as a server. Really good.”
Laura wished she was a real smoker; her cigarette was out, but she was still feeling slightly too hungover for another one and she wanted an excuse to continue talking to Alexis. “How good?”
Alexis paused, maybe assessing whether she wanted to be honest with Laura, whether Laura merited advice or help. “On a good night you can make three hundred dollars. There’s a lot more bullshit, but it’s worth it.”
* * *
Even though the party where she might have been able to talk to Dylan was likely already petering out by the time her shift ended at four, a completely deranged part of her wanted to go to the party just in case he was still there. Instead of sprinting out the door and through the streets, though, she made herself sit down at the bar. She needed to ingratiate herself there if she hoped to be promoted to server. She ordered something disgusting from the bartender, rum and Coke, in the hopes that she wouldn’t be tempted to drink it too quickly. Alexis sat down beside her and put the contents of her money apron on the counter and began counting the bills. Laura noticed that there was another stack of bills nestled into the lace that cradled her boobs, and she didn’t count that one. When Stefan walked over to them she pushed it down out of sight with a subtle movement that might have been involuntary, like smoothing your hair or adjusting the waistband of your jeans.
“Shots!” he said to the bartender as he sat down at the barstool they’d left between them. Wordlessly and expressionlessly the bartender lined up four shot glasses and filled them with top-shelf tequila. Alexis helped herself to a lime from the tray on the bar and sucked it as Stefan asked them how their night had gone.
“Seven hundred and eighty dollars,” said Alexis, pushing the stacks of bills she’d made into one pile and shoving it toward the bartender, who took his tequila shot like a sip of water and then started recounting the money.
“Not bad! You reclaim your position as number one. Here’s your bonus.” Stefan nodded at the bartender, who dealt out a handful of twenties back onto the bar in front of Alexis. Stefan turned to Laura. “Interested in playing? Every night the servers compete for a sales bonus.” His eyes were unfocused, and when he touched her arm it seemed less a move than an attempt to keep from swaying. He smelled sickly sweet and powdery. She forced herself not to flinch at his touch.
“I’m not a server,” she reminded him.
“Oh, right. What’s your name again?”
“Laura.” She hadn’t told him her name before.
“Well, I should get going,” Alexis interrupted, and motioned behind Stefan’s head to Laura, who also slid down off her barstool.
“But the night’s just getting started! Come on, celebrate your first day,” Stefan said, but lightly. “Drink your drink.”
Laura watched Alexis’s face closely for clues as to what she should do, and when she detected a hint of a headshake she grabbed the rum and Coke and downed the remainder of it in a single gulp, then managed a smile. “Okay! See you tomorrow,” she said, aiming for the same light tone that Stefan had used. The trick with men like this, Laura thought, was to behave with complete neutrality so that they could project whatever thoughts or feelings they wanted to imagine you having onto you. She felt good about this realization, like it gave her some power.
“Let me walk you out at least,” he said.
Alexis shrugged, and her eyes conveyed “You’re on your own” to Laura.
When they reached the door of the bar, he insisted on hugging her goodbye, then delivered a lingering double-cheek kiss. She stood there mutely, disgusted by the sticky redolence of her boss’s dead-flowers aura so close to her own skin. He went back into the bar, and she wiped her cheeks.