“Ophelia,” Andrew said, his voice hushed as though she were about to burst through the big swinging doors. He reached into Caleb’s bucket and took the large ice scooper, holding the lid open with his shoulder. He began filling Caleb’s bucket for him. “I’d call her the Queen of Hearts, since she has that vibe, but she’d need a heart for that. She’s freaky as hell. I’m pretty sure I had a nightmare once where all she did was yell at me for having poor penmanship.”
Caleb stifled a laugh. “I don’t think she’s that bad, just… different?” He crinkled his nose as the words came out. Ophelia was off-putting and blunt in a way that made him and, from what he had seen, others, uncomfortable, but he tried his best not to judge others. He had no idea what her home life was like. Given all the times he had been less than pleasant in the past few years due to his own personal circumstances, he tried to afford others the benefit of the doubt that he seldom received.
“You say that now, but give it a week, tops, and she’ll be chewing you out for something stupid, like having your shoelace untied.” Andrew began filling his own bucket, again glancing at the door. “You know, when I first started here, I thought she was like some weird loli girlfriend of the boss, and that’s why she was allowed to be such a wicked cunt to everyone.”
The suddenness of the vulgarity startled Caleb and he nearly dropped the bucket. He wasn’t a prude or uptight, but he hadn’t expected someone he barely knew to drop the C-word so quickly and casually.
Andrew grinned, seeming pleased with the reaction. Caleb had an overwhelming urge to turn away and hide as he felt the blood rush to his face in embarrassment.
“Ah, sorry man, I know I got a potty mouth. It gets me into trouble all the time.” He grabbed the bucket of ice from Caleb. “You go take a few in the break room. I’ll give this to her majesty and drop off the other one for Brittany at the other bar. I’ll join you in a minute,” he said. Caleb moved to take it back from him, suddenly feeling like he wasn’t pulling his own weight. “No, let me help. It makes me feel useful. I used to do all the heavy lifting for my ex. He was scrawny like you.”
Andrew shot Caleb a wink before he disappeared through the doors back to Ophelia’s side of the club, leaving Caleb standing there for a moment, stunned. Was Andrew just flirting with me? He ran his hand through his brown curls, his still chilled fingers cooling his scalp.
This was nothing like working at the gas station.
* * *
He was relieved when he found the door that read Staff Only after having walked to the wrong side of the building looking for the break room. Andrew had only pointed at it vaguely when they were doing a quick tour of the back hallways that the staff moved through, and he’d already forgotten where it was located. He had accidentally walked into the kitchen then quickly ducked back out, hoping that the three people working on bar food hadn’t noticed his intrusion.
Caleb pushed the door open and sighed when he saw the room was empty and the other entrance on the opposite wall was closed. He went over to the mini fridge on the chipped countertop and pulled out an unlabeled bottle of water, plopping down on a hard plastic chair that lurched to the side on an uneven leg. The water was so cold it hurt, but he couldn’t stop himself from chugging it down until the thin plastic crinkled in his hand.
It felt good to sit. He’d been moving non-stop for hours, awkwardly collecting abandoned drinks and fetching packs of beer for Ophelia all night, and when he wasn’t moving, Andrew was pulling him away to clean something or showing him how to appear busy. “The boss always wants us moving,” Andrew had told him. “Busy bodies keep people on the floor and in the doors.” At first it felt silly, but there was something that felt good about it, even if it made him sweat more than he had when their electricity got knocked out in the heat of high summer by a drunk driver hitting the utility pole near their apartment.
Caleb jumped as his left thigh began to buzz, his phone vibrating. He pulled it out and frowned as he looked down at the silent alarm: Turn Mom.
A lump rose to the top of his throat, almost aching up into the back of his head as he bit down hard on the inside of his lip, his vision beginning to blur. Why did he still have that alarm set? It had been nearly six weeks since she’d passed.
“‘Turn Mom?’” The voice behind him was soft, accompanied by a hand resting on his shoulder. Caleb stifled a sniffle and wiped the corners of his eyes with his thumb before turning his head and looking up. His breath hitched, caught somewhere between a gasp and a sob.
Marcus’s amber eyes looked down into his, his eyebrows slightly raised. They didn’t seem judgmental… maybe concerned? He moved around the small table and sat across from Caleb, leaning back in the chair with his legs spread wide. His gray-flecked black hair looked more kempt than it had before, as though he’d put some product in it to keep it out of his eyes. He reached up to his ear and produced a cigarette that had been tucked away and hidden by his thick locks, clenching it in his front teeth as he pulled open his suit jacket to reach for the inside pocket.
Caleb realized he was holding his breath again and tried to let it out slowly without drawing attention to himself. Had he just been about to cry on his first night on the job? In front of his objectively handsome boss? Jesus Christ, man, pull it together. You have rent to make. He took another drink from the crinkled water bottle, desperate to find an inconspicuous way to hide his face while he forced away his grief.
Marcus lit the cigarette, taking a deep pull before leaning his head back and closing his eyes as he exhaled, as if he had been waiting all night to do that. He had such a casual yet commanding presence about him, and despite being dressed in what were probably well-tailored, name-brand clothes, he seemed down to earth.
Caleb found himself following the length of Marcus’s body with his eyes, trying to imagine whether Marcus was slender like himself or if his clothes hid a more toned appearance. When his eyes drifted below the shining silver buckle of Marcus’s belt, the crinkle of the bottle in his hand as he squeezed it snapped his gaze away.
Marcus’s eyes met his, a small smile given away by the upturned corners of his mouth. “‘Turn Mom?’” he asked again, taking another long drag from his cigarette.
The lump in Caleb’s throat returned and he looked down, feeling the pressure building in his face. Normally, he would have brushed off a question like that or changed the subject, but the words were leaving his lips before he could think of something inoffensive to deflect. “It was a reminder to turn my mom to her other side. She was bedridden,” he said, his voice shaky as the words came out. “I haven’t had the heart to delete it yet.”
What are you saying? This guy doesn’t want to hear about your pathetic life. He should just end his break early and go back for the rest of his shift. “Based on how you said that I’ll venture a guess that she is no longer with us?” Marcus asked, leaning forward and resting an elbow on the edge of the table.
Caleb didn’t look at him. If he did, Marcus would see that he was barely containing the tears welling in his eyes. He took a deep breath in, an involuntary sob catching in his chest and ready to burst out of his mouth. Calm down, man. You can cry when you clock out. He could do what he’d done every night since the coroner wheeled his mom’s body out of the apartment with a blanket draped over her: allow himself to shed a few tears over everything he’d lost in the loud emptiness of the one-bedroom apartment. Alone.