But Inside I'm Screaming

“Yeah, ’cause my spirit is flying so high here behind the bar…”

“…and if I said Chappaquiddick I’d have to spend the rest of the night hearing a laundry list of things that make you a swell guy…”

“It’d be a short list since my only competition would be an adulterer who let his date drown…”

“…so I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”

“And to think this all started because my dad’s a dentist….”

“Aha! So you do have an unfair advantage over the rest of us, dentally speaking, I mean.”

“You saw right through me.”

There was a brief pause in the banter.

“What do you do normally? I mean,” she laughed and corrected herself, “what do you normally do?”

Isabel knew she was flirting, but she was sinking into her comfortable buzz and didn’t care.

“I wait tables. How come I’ve never seen you here before? You I would have noticed.”

“I don’t eat here. I just come for liquid nourishment.”

“Always this late?”

“I just got off work. So, yeah. Always this late.”

“We’re both night owls, then.”

“Guess so.”

“Excuse me.” Alex left to serve a couple who should not have been served. Isabel watched him put napkins in front of them.

The drink was settling her stomach, filling it with warmth.

“Sorry about that,” he said as he leaned back against the space of mahogany in front of Isabel. “Duty calls.”

“Let me ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Seriously.”

Alex forced his smile into a frown. “Go ahead.”

“How do you like your job?”

“You mean tonight? Bartending? Or serving?”

“Serving.”

“It’s fine, I suppose,” he answered, and gave the question more thought. “I like the fact that I have complete control over my life. I don’t have to answer to anyone, really. I can make my own hours, more or less. Like I have the days to myself, I can do what I want, and then I can come in, serve and make a killing with tips. I think it helps that I’m not always going to be doing this.”

“Why? What are you going to be doing? Could I get a refill while you answer?”

“Sure.” He cleared away her empty glass. “Another double?”

She paused as she decided whether the look he gave her was judgmental or just inquisitive. She decided it was inquisitive and she nodded.

“I’m going to open my own place.”

“Wow. That’s cool.”

“I know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking anything.”

“Yes, you are. You’re thinking ‘Just what San Francisco needs, another restaurant.’ Don’t worry—I’m used to it. And I agree with you.”

“I wasn’t thinking that.”

“Yes, you were. But that’s okay. Because my place is going to be different.”

“Seriously, I wasn’t even thinking that.”

He leaned into her as he replaced her drink. “So…what were you thinking, then? That you wanted to go out to dinner with me? Saturday night?”

Isabel smiled as she gulped.

“That’s what you were thinking, wasn’t it?”

Isabel felt emboldened by the booze. “You hit the nail on the head.”

“Meet here? Eight?”

“Right again.”

Alex smiled as he went to check on the couple a few seats away from Isabel.

* * *

“Case, he’s so amazing,” Isabel said as she spread out the blanket for their picnic.