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“Hey, Jerome. Having fun this evening?” Tia picked up one of the two empty pitchers he’d set on the bar and began to fill it with Heineken draft.
“And you know it,” Jerome replied with a huge grin. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small roll of dollar bills. “Two-for-one drinks plus free soul food, too? It’s off the chain up in here!”
Tia chuckled and said, “Now, that’s what I like to hear.” She topped off the second pitcher of beer and rang up the sale on her cash register. “It’s almost time for B.J. to shut down the buffet,” she said. “So, if you want anything else to eat, make sure you get it soon.”
“I’m on my way over there now,” Jerome said. He flashed another grin and pocketed his change, then he grabbed a pitcher of beer in each hand and turned to go.
With an affectionate smile, Tia watched him swagger across the room toward the table where his “squad” was seated. Over the past few months, Sam and Jerome's close relationship had gradually expanded to include her, and Jerome had proven himself a loyal friend. He had shown up for every one of her four Thursday evening happy hours. And tonight he’d also brought his girlfriend, Deneen, and a group of their friends.
Tia pulled her gaze from Jerome when another customer approached the bar. She smiled at the excruciatingly thin, young, white woman who stood before her and said, “Hi! Thanks for choosing Tia’s Place. What can I get for you this evening?”
“Two vodka-mango smoothies, please,” the young woman said, tucking her long, blonde hair behind her ears.
“Coming right up.” Tia dumped crushed ice, frozen yogurt, slices of fresh mango, several dashes of lemon juice and grenadine, and two generous shots of Absolut into a blender. She was pouring the smoothies into tall, frosted glasses when the woman cleared her throat and said, “Excuse me, but would you mind if I asked you a question?”
“Ask away.” Tia smiled and pushed the glasses across the bar.
“Well, I’m the secretary for the student council at U-M. The College Park campus.” The young woman nervously re-tucked the hair behind her ears. “And I was wondering . . . Well, the food is really great here, you know? And I was wondering whether I could meet the owner.”
Tia smiled and said, “Thank you. That would be me. I’m Tia Jacobs.”
The woman’s face turned red with embarrassment. “Oh! I . . . I . . . I thought you were just the bartender. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“No offense taken.” Tia extended her hand and said, “Let’s start over. Hi, I’m Tia Jacobs.”
The young woman shook and said, “I’m Kirstin Roy. And I’m really, really sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it, Kirstin. This isn’t the first time that’s happened.”
“Oh. Well, that’s a relief.” Kirstin laughed hesitantly and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Well, what I was wondering is . . . the reason I wanted to meet you? I was hoping you might be willing to cater our monthly student council meetings.”
Tia opened her mouth, but Kirstin rushed on before she could say anything. “We wouldn’t expect you to bring the food to us and serve it or anything. I know you wouldn’t do that. But maybe I could call you a day ahead and place our order – there are a lot of us when you include our faculty advisors. And then I could come pick up everything right before the meeting.” She smiled uncertainly and added, “If you’d be willing to do something like that.”
Tia turned to greet two brothers who looked to be in their early thirties and told them she’d be with them shortly, then she turned back to Kirstin and said, “That sounds like an interesting idea. Why don’t you give me a call tomorrow morning when things aren’t so busy around here and we can discuss it?” She plucked a business card from the stack she kept behind the bar and handed it to Kirstin before ringing up the smoothies.
The last twenty minutes of happy hour ticked by as Tia tidied up behind the bar and waited on a customer here or there. It wasn’t long before the restaurant emptied and she carted the final load of dirty glasses to the kitchen.
She pushed through the swinging doors to find Yvonne loading one of the dishwashers and B.J. washing pots at the sink. She handed her tray to Yvonne and said, “I’m heading up to work on the books. I’ll be back in a few.”
Upstairs in her office, she closed the door behind her and locked it. Thank God her father and Morrison had insisted on putting up three walls and a door around her office. She placed the black leather bag containing the evening’s receipts on her scarred oak desk and opened the window, sat down in her battered tweed armchair and pulled a cigarette from the bottom desk drawer. Within seconds, she’d clicked on her smokeless ashtray and lit the cigarette.
She inhaled deeply and leaned over to blow smoke out of the window. After a few more puffs, she put out the cigarette and liberally sprayed air freshener toward the door. Yvonne and B.J. had caught her smoking in the alley a few weeks ago, but she still didn’t want anyone else to know.
She pulled her laptop computer from the steel safe her father and Morrison had bolted into the floor, and she spent the next twenty minutes tallying up her sales and updating her records. When she finished, she leaned back and lit another cigarette.
Her first happy hour had been a disaster. Only Roz, Sam, Jerome, and Steven had bothered to attend. But now that she’d begun advertising at the local colleges, the happy hours were finally starting to catch on. The students were making all the difference.
If she could somehow find a way to attract customers on the other weekdays, she’d be set. The restaurant held its own on Friday nights and throughout the weekend. And thankfully, she was closed on Mondays. But on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Tia’s Place was a total ghost town. And during the day on Thursdays and Fridays until about five or six in the evening, she’d be lucky to get even a handful of customers.
She’d already laid off two of her part-time hostesses and half of her waiters, and she’d replaced the bartender from the temporary agency with a part-timer from a local bartending school. Overtime for B.J. and Yvonne was kept to a minimum by scheduling them only during her peak hours, and the rest of the time she was on her own. But the bottom line was that she was still losing money.
She’d recently begun to wonder whether she had made a mistake by turning down that job offer from Drummond & Drummond. As a matter of fact, she was so stressed out about her finances that just this past Monday she’d gone on interviews with four legal temporary agencies. She didn’t know where she would find the time to complete the part-time assignments she signed up for, but something had to give because she needed the money.
She noticed that her cigarette had burned down to the filter. She crushed it out and reached for the air freshener. She should be downstairs helping Yvonne and B.J., not sitting up here having a private panic party. So, she put her laptop and the evening’s receipts in the safe, closed the window and hid her ashtray, then scooped up her purse and headed downstairs.
She could hear Yvonne and B.J. in the main dining room talking as she approached the bottom of the staircase. She made a brief detour through the kitchen, where she found that everything was sparkling clean, before joining her assistants in the front of the restaurant.
“Anything else you want us to do before we leave, boss?” B.J. asked. “Yvonne ran the electric sweeper out here while I hit the bathrooms.”
Tia glanced at her watch and noted that it was ten minutes after eleven. “Then I guess we’re set,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
* * * * * * * * * *
Thirty-five minutes later, Tia pulled into the extra parking space Sam had leased in the garage beneath his building. He’d told her he didn’t want her walking in from the parking lot alone at night. And then he’d slipped in a comment about how she hardly ever arrived before midnight any more anyway.
Tia climbed out of her car, grabbed her overnight bag from the trunk, and made her way up to Sam’s condo. She entered with her own set of keys and found Sam stretched out on his bed wearing a t-shirt and boxers. He opened his arms and beckoned her forward. She walked over and lay down on top of him.
“How are you doing tonight, baby?” she asked.
“Much better now that you’re here,” he said.
She looked into his eyes and smiled. At this point, there was no denying that she had fallen head-over-heels in love with him. She slowly lowered her open mouth to his for an intimate kiss.
After a few seconds, Sam slid his hands beneath her blouse and began to massage her back. The blouse eventually came off, followed by his t-shirt and her bra. By the time he got down to her panties, she was reaching into his bedside drawer for a condom.
* * * * * * * * * *
Tia and Sam were both sound asleep when the phone began to ring at a few minutes before four in the morning. She awoke first and nudged him in his side, telling him to answer the phone. He fumbled around in the dark for the handset.
“Hello?” he croaked.
She nestled under the covers and immediately began to drift back off to sleep, but she was jolted awake again when Sam abruptly sat up and shouted, “Jerome’s what? Oh, my God! Where is he now?”