The Barmaid Blog™: Life for a 20-something Manhattan Barmaid

It's a couple of Thursdays ago, and while most of the people in the Bar are watching the Yankees walk all over the Kansas City Royals, I've got one television tuned to college hockey. It's not even really for me, though I'm watching when I have the chance; it's for Will. It's the first time he's been back here since Samantha died, and we're all naturally worried about him. But for the moment, he's sitting at the bar talking to Mario, and Maya - Samantha's friend, and the reason she started coming here and met Will in the first place - is mostly just standing there and listening to him. Simone and I are taking up the slack willingly.

Notre Dame is playing Michigan in the national men's hockey semifinals, and they've jumped out to a 3-0 lead. Will has said in the past that he doesn't really care that much about Michigan's hockey team, even though he played on their football team, but it's the reason he's supposedly here, and he keeps shaking his head as things look bleaker and bleaker. During the second intermission, after Michigan has finally made a game of it by scoring two in a row, Will asks me a question I'd sort of been hoping wouldn't come up. But I suppose if it was to come up at all, it's best coming from him, because the main reason I wasn't going to talk about it was not to rub it in his face. "How's things with you and Jenny?"

"They're good, thanks. We've been spending a lot of nights together." Maya slips off to serve some customers so that I can stick around and talk for a while.

"Is it love?" he asks, the second reason I was going to avoid the subject.

"I have no idea, Will." And that's the honest truth. "But whatever it is, it feels very good."

"Okay, I'm - listen, I'm only going to say this once, but I'm sorry, there's just no way I can let it go without saying it at all, it's just who I am... can I, uh... please come over and watch it feeling good sometime?" Will finishes by smiling the most innocent smile. If it were anybody else but him, I might actually be a little angry, but with Will I have to laugh - and I have to be relieved that he's in a good mood.

"I'll make you a deal - as soon as New Hampshire wins the Frozen Four, you can videotape Jenny and me having sex."

Mario laughs, but Will just sticks his hand out for a shake. "You've got a deal, Debra. And you've made a brand-new New Hampshire fan." I wonder, for a moment, what I've gotten myself into... and then I wonder for a few more moments whether Jenny and I will still be together when next year's Frozen Four arrives, much less whenever my alma mater finally wins one. We've never really talked long-term.

Will sips from his Anchor Steam. "So how did you and Jenny meet, anyway?"

"Oh, it was a blind date. It's all her fault," I say, pointing to Simone, who's a few yards away trying to convince a customer that she doesn't really want to order a tall glass of Goldschläger on the rocks. "We road-tripped up to New Hampshire for a few days in mid-December. I met her family, we hung out at their brewpub in Portsmouth, then she came with me to see UNH play hockey against Maine... we got totally socked in by a snowstorm that weekend, and ended up raiding her Dad's wine cellar. She was bitching about the pressure she was feeling to get a boob job, I was bitching about the online dating thing, and suddenly she said, 'Hey, you and this lawyer I know would totally hit it off.' So she gave Jenny my e-mail and here we are."

"Wait," says Mario, "how did Simone know Jenny in the first place?"

"Oh, I think Simone used to be a Starbucks barista across from the courthouse in Brooklyn Heights, and Jenny used to come in a lot, or something."

"Nice," nods Will. "You really never know how you're going to..." He can't seem to finish the sentence, and looks away as he drinks more of his beer. Mario puts his arm around Will's shoulders. I really don't know what to do except reach for his hand on the bar, and give it a squeeze before I go back to serving drinks. When Michigan finally loses to Notre Dame in overtime, 5-4, Will has long since left for home.

It's St. Patrick's Day, and the Bar is jammed. It was a tough decision for me, because with my seniority I'm allowed to schedule myself for the busiest nights and the best tipping situations, but St. Patrick's Day... well... pisses me off. People in bars are rarely using their best judgment to begin with, but something about March 17 every year makes people - and New Yorkers in particular, I think - cast off every bit of good sense, common sense, common courtesy, and inhibition that they might have previously had.

It's like spring break on Daytona Beach and Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street got together and had a baby, and it was raised by the cast of "Jackass." And only dresses in green.

Did I say "jammed"? I meant to say that the Bar is "a fucking zoo." I can usually judge how bad a night I'm having by how many times I have to remind myself what a great night of tips I'm having, and tonight I've lost count of both my tips and my reminders.

Sometime around ten o'clock, I'm pulling a few pints of Guinness when I see a petite woman desperately struggling to force her way through the crowd to the bar. I set down the pints to let the heads cascade for a minute, and try to get those bellied-up to make room for her. She finally makes it, and I see she's wearing a smart business suit, with a look of abject terror on her face. "I totally forgot it was St. Patrick's Day!" she shouts, which would explain the terror.

I nod. "What can I get you?"

"Do you have a lost and found box back there? I left a shopping bag with a brand-new pair of shoes here yesterday, they're very expensive and I feel like an idiot!"

I look up and down the bar and notice at least a dozen customers waiting to place drink orders, Jocelyn and Maya madly pouring and making change, and Diego barely managing to keep up with demand for clean glasses, cold beers, and full bottles of booze. "The lost and found is in the back room, I'd have to go get it, and it's really crazy right now - can you come back another time?"

"I made a special trip down here tonight - I'm sorry, could you please look now?"

I shrug and gesture "one minute." After serving and making change for the pints, I head for the back, hoping this might do something for my karma that I don't believe in. But I don't find anything resembling a shopping bag, a shoebox, or a pair of shoes, and I return to deliver the bad news.

"Oh my God, I can't believe anybody would do that - why would someone take my shoes? My feet are so tiny, they've got to be too small for whoever took them!" She's on the verge of falling apart, so I try to distract her with possible solutions.

"Do you remember where you were sitting yesterday?"

"Yes," she says, turning, "right over --" And as she points, I'm not sure if I can't hear the next word because it's so loud in the Bar, or because she never actually said it. Either way, I follow her finger visually until I see, hanging from a coathook on the wall beside the last table, a shopping bag bulging in a suspiciously rectangular fashion. She turns back, mouth open. "I'm so embarrassed! I'm sorry!" I wave her off as if it's nothing, because it really is nothing. As she goes off to reunite herself with her footwear, I dive back into the weeds.

A few minutes later, Diego comes back behind the bar with a tall stack of used pint glasses, sidles up to me, pivots, and presents his hip. There's something sticking out of his jeans pocket. "Lady said thank you and to give this to you, she didn't want to try to push her way back to the bar." I pull it out, and it's a ten dollar bill, which makes me smile, however briefly.

My only other real smile of the night comes when I'm leaving, at a little bit after two in the morning. Things are still going pretty strong, but I think Maya and Jocelyn have a handle on it - it's certainly no worse at this point than the peak crowd of your average Saturday night. So I cash out, grab my stuff from the back room, and make my way to the front door. I'm feeling sweaty and disgusting, and I know it's not too freezing out, so I carry my jacket instead of putting it on; when I step outside, I feel instant relief from the sudden chill.

I scan the area around the Bar to make sure I'm not going to step in anything green and disgusting. A group of five people is hanging out on the sidewalk, eating falafel or gyros or whatever they've bought from the cart down the street, but only four of them are standing. One is sitting down, in his own green mini-portajohn with the door open. It's a Hallowe'en-worthy effort, and I have to smile.

That's when he looks up at me from his sandwich, and says, "Your nipples are fantastic." I take a deep breath, put on my jacket, and start out on my walk home.

When I finally tell her on Sunday, she's braiding my hair, an act at once childish and intimate. She doesn't pause or slow down, and I think maybe she doesn't get it. But when she's done she asks me what we'll do when her job brings her back to the Bar every few weeks, and I know she understands. I tell her we'll act like adults, and I hope like friends.

"I don't know if I could handle being just your friend again," she says. "It's not enough."

No, it's absolutely not enough. "I know it's not your fault, Bonnie, but it breaks my heart to be with you."

"Did you make up your mind before you came over here tonight?"

I made up my mind before I came over here the first night. "I'd been thinking about it."

"But you wanted to fuck me again."

Okay. I take a deep breath and reach for my jeans on the floor. I've got one leg nearly through when she reaches an arm around my chest and yanks me backwards onto the bed, my yelp meek like a puppy's. "Maybe I get to fuck you again, too," she says, and pins my arms. I don't even have time to think about the incongruity of the desire and the threat before she gets up again and walks to her window. I lie there equal parts sad, excited, and afraid. "You don't have to go now," she says, her back to me. "It's not a place to be walking around in the middle of the night."

I just stare at her body in the dim wash of the streetlight at the end of the block, and wonder how I'm going to watch her flirt with my customers without wanting to tear them apart. "Please don't leave yet," she says more quietly, and then she comes back to bed. We sleep, a little, here and there, but mostly we just grab at each other, unsure of how to let go. When I leave in the morning I'm leaving a gap in a part of me where, not so long ago, I never even knew I had a part of me.

Tuesday afternoon I'm at the Bar with my laptop, Jocelyn over my shoulder, taking advantage of the nearly complete lack of customers at this hour. I've logged into the one dating website on which I've ever had a profile, and I'm reactivating it and editing it ever so slightly. "I can't find the damn setting," I bitch at her.

"There," she points. "Wow, that could be a little less intuitive."

I switch from "Straight" to "Bisexual," and just like that, I've come out. I did it here many months ago... but this is a different kind of anonymity. On the dating website I'm just another 26 year old woman with a few witty sayings... it doesn't even say what I do for a living. But right there at the top is my photo. This, the profile now says, is a photograph of a girl who likes both boys and girls. Step right up and take a gander, you might see her on the street. My head spins.

"So what are you looking for in a girlfriend?" Jocelyn asks.

"Huge tits."

She laughs, "I'm taken!"

We craft a search for women around my age in or near the city who are also interested in women, and we start browsing. "Hey, she's cute," Jocelyn points, and I smile, thinking how far we've come since our first conversation after she found out I was bi. She is cute, though, and I scroll to read more about her. I barely get past "poetry," though, because the laptop goes "ping" and a new little instant message window opens up in the corner.

"ur hot," the IM says. The tiny little photo is of a mostly bald guy with a big, toothy smile.

"Thanks," I type in response.

"my gf & i love 3somes, u?"

"Wow," Jocelyn says. "That didn't take long."

"I might have to make a few more edits to my profile," I reply, and close the IM window just as a group of businessmen enters the Bar.

Mario leafs wordlessly through several pages of the magazine, then hands it back to Jocelyn and looks down at his beer.

"What do you think?" asks Simone.

"I'll tell you when I figure out how to look at you again, okay?"

Jocelyn laughs. "I think that means your photos turned him on." It's been several months since Simone did her first shoot with John, a porn photographer who left his card here, and some of the photos finally ended up in a magazine. Jocelyn and I are working the relatively docile Wednesday shift; Simone just came in to show us the mag, hot off the presses.

"Debra?" Simone holds it out to me. I've been avoiding this since I knew the photos existed, but now I feel like I'm being a bad friend, so I shrug and I take it. The title makes me want to roll my eyes; then I flip to the page marked with a Post-It, and the first thing I see...

"Holy shit, Simone," I say. "They couldn't ease me into it a little more than that?" She smiles, and shrugs. I flip through her layout, and wince a little at the story accompanying the photos. But I have to admit two things - she looks great, at least in the shots where they're not too close for my comfort; and this guy knows what the hell he's doing. "You did a fantastic job, honey. You look just great."

"Thank you, Debra! That means a lot to me."

Jocelyn grabs it again to take another look. "Are you going to do more?" I grin as Mario gets up from the bar and goes over to the jukebox to stare at the selection, something I'm pretty sure I've never seen him do before.

"Well, I'd like to! John said he's already gotten some calls asking for me specifically, but he said a few of them were... well, conditional."

"On what?" asks Vince, cleaning the taps. "You already told him you wouldn't have sex on camera."

"No, nothing like that - and that's still true. No, he said he thought he could sell a lot more layouts if I had my boobs done. They want my face and most of my body, but her tits," she says, gesturing at Jocelyn.

"Oh, no, don't do that!" Jocelyn shakes her head. "You have no idea how lucky you are not to have these! Please tell me you won't make yours bigger just to make some money?" I decide to stay out of this one, given that I happen to think there's only one good reason that Jocelyn's tips are usually better than mine.

"I don't think I'm going to, but I haven't decided for sure."

A debate on the issue continues for a while, and I try to stick to serving drinks, though at one point I'm a little surprised to overhear Mario talking about how difficult it sometimes is for him and Jocelyn to find a comfortable position. I mostly take orders down at the other end of the bar.

"Could I have a dry martini, please?"

He's easily six feet tall, but his face makes him look about sixteen years old. Bill's not working the door tonight, so I ask him for some ID. As he pulls out his wallet, I notice he's wearing latex gloves on his hands. He hands me his license, and I check it over. Twenty-four, and it looks legit, so I hand it back and mix his drink. He leaves enough cash on the bar to cover the drink and a decent tip, and wanders off to join a friend on the other side of the room, holding his glass with a gloved hand. I wonder what his story is, but it's not really the kind of thing you can ask about politely, so I just go on with my night.

Simone taps me on the shoulder. "Hey, before I leave, Debra, are you still thinking about going up to New Hampshire for a weekend?"

"Yeah, but I haven't really decided when. Why?"

"Well, I was hoping to get back to Portsmouth sometime to see some friends from high school, I thought maybe we could roadtrip together - maybe rent a car, share the driving, make it more economical?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Okay, I'll call you and we'll figure out when, okay?" She waves, and leaves The Bar.

Not a minute later, she comes back in, and marches right over to me. "Hey, uh, you know I'm not making a pass at you, right? I'm not into that, I just, I mean, I know I've said I think you've got a great body, that was professional, John wanted you to -- well, I'm saying it was an objective -- not objectifying, that's not what I meant to -- look, I know what you're into, but just because I take off my clothes..."

I can't help laughing out loud at this point. "What?!" she says.

I clear my throat and do my best to get rid of the smile. "Thanks for letting me down easy." She blushes, and I laugh again.

Two Weeks Ago (Friday, August 31)

It's a warm, busy Friday evening. The Devil Rays are gradually having their way with the Yankees, bending them over just a little bit more each inning. Maya and Kira and I are holding our own; another couple of dozen customers and we'd be in the weeds, but it's the beginning of Labor Day weekend, so a lot of people have left town.

There's no mistaking it anymore; anybody who looks at Kira knows she's pregnant, and to her pleasant surprise she seems to have found the one thing that guarantees good tips even more than huge breasts. It's a little counterintuitive, maybe, since being pregnant means she's even less likely to go home with any customers than usual, but it's certainly nice to see people treating her well. That's especially true since she's determined to keep working until she decides she can no longer stay on her feet for an entire shift.

Bonnie and Susan, the Coors promo girls, are in the Bar tonight getting guys to play their music trivia game, giving out swag, and drinking bottles of Coors like they're going out of style. When they take a break, Bonnie seems uncharacteristically silent, but Susan comes behind the bar, coos at Kira's tummy, and even gets permission to lay her hands on it for a minute. Nothing's moving around in there much yet, but Susan still gets... well, a kick out of it.

There's time for a quick break right around when the baseball game ends, and I take myself to the ladies room for a bio break and to splash water on my face. When I come out, Bonnie is waiting in the short hallway, taking a pull from her bottle of Coors with one arm, and with the other holding out a full bottle for me. "Take five, Debra," she says, after swallowing. She's a little flushed from what must be six or seven beers by now. I smile and take the beer, and we lean up against the wall next to each other while people come and go.

She asks me what's going to happen when Kira takes her maternity leave, and the truth is that I don't know. I imagine Lanie and Victor, the owners, will hire someone temporary, or maybe they'll beg us all to work more shifts, but it'll all work out somehow.

"Debra, when did you do... that with your hair?"

"Oh, I did that while I was on vacation out in California a few weeks ago. What do you think, do you like it?"

Bonnie smiles, and doesn't say anything, but keeps looking right at me.

"What?" I say, getting self-conscious. She rolls off the wall, puts a hand in my hair, and kisses me.

It's such a soft, easy, unexpected kiss that it's the most natural thing in the world for me to kiss back. It's a friendly kiss, a "what if" kiss, a "your new blonde hair turns me on a little and I just want to innocently show you" kiss, a "we've become close enough friends that I can kiss you like this" kiss. And after a while, it's lasted long enough that it's no longer any of those things, it's an "oh, my God" kiss, a "why haven't we ever done this before?" kiss, a "this is really fucking hot" kiss, and an eternity later, as her free arm goes around my waist and pulls me in toward her, and I feel myself start to get wet, it becomes a "shit, what am I doing, what the fuck am I doing?!" kiss, and I push her away.

We're breathing heavily, and not saying anything, just looking at each other, when a random guy standing in the men's room doorway says, "Could you do that again?" Reality comes crashing back in, and without saying a word I turn down the hallway to get back to work. Everything he was worried about, I think to myself, everything I've managed to convince him he's just simply paranoid about, I just became that. And he's going to find out whether I tell him or not. And he's going to learn what kind of person I really am and he's going to leave, and I don't want him to leave, I love him. I love him and I just did the one thing he's been most afraid of since we started dating, and how could I do that when I love him?

The rest of the night I manage to stay behind the bar mixing drinks and earning tips without allowing my eyes to meet Bonnie's. She and Susan leave a little after one in the morning, and I go to the back room and cry.

Monday is another gorgeous day, and I'm walking to midtown to meet Gary for a late lunch at a nice restaurant with outdoor seating, so we can spend some time together and catch each other up on our weekends before I head for my shift at The Bar. Everybody is really starting to dress for the weather, which is wonderful, but awfully distracting - there are some incredibly attractive people in New York City, and the more skin they show, the more I have to remind myself to watch for traffic when I cross the street. So when I'm crossing Third Avenue, and crossing in the opposite direction is a curvy blonde woman who must be close to six feet tall, I'm mostly paying attention to her tan, and how the light blue spaghetti-strap tank top she's wearing flatters her form.

And then only a few feet away, I finally notice what's on her shirt. It's a Barmaid Blog t-shirt!! In those few split seconds, I stop and open my mouth to say something - then once I realize I have no idea what I would say without revealing who I am, I start walking again - then I stop short, and wonder if I should lie and tell her I'm just another Barmaid Blog reader to have an excuse to talk to her and find out who she is, but I'd have to run after her at this point, which would just be weird, so I start walking again. I'm so flustered I'm sure I've gotten in other people's way, but nobody says anything, so I just keep going, my heart racing and a smile on my face.

Over the last few blocks to my destination, I remember to my chagrin that it's been several months since I launched that t-shirt store, and yet I still haven't figured out how to order the two shirts I owe Rebecca Sweeton (Yoo) for her winning logo design sent to her without my name and address on the packing slip. I make a mental note to ask a friend to do it on my behalf - the same friend who's acting as a sort of casual, de facto agent/lawyer for me on a couple of other things that are brewing. If he reveals who I am, I get to sue him. Goodness knows Rebecca's waited patiently long enough.

At lunch, I tell Gary what happened, and he seems amused by the whole random encounter and tiny little bit of fame thing, but he also seems confused.

"You were staring at the chick's chest before you noticed she was wearing an ad for your blog?"

"Yeah, she was gorgeous. And almost as tall as you are, I think."

"I don't get it, are you into chicks as well as blokes?"

"Haven't you - well, yes. I am."

"Haven't I what?"

"Read my blog."

He puts down his fork. "Just the first bunch, so far. Do you blog about having sex with women, too?"

"Well, the one time it happened with my friend Jessica, yes, I did."

"Jessica - you're going to California in a couple of days for her wedding, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I'm really excited about it."

"Are you going to...?"

"Am I going to sleep with her the weekend of her wedding? Are you really asking me that?"

"I guess I am."

"No, of course I'm not. It was just something she wanted to get out of her system before she moved out there. Besides, I'm with you now."

"Are you sure?" He actually looks nervous. "I mean, you like girls as well as boys, are you sure I'm enough?"

"You think I'm going to go behind your -- look, Gary, do you like blonde women?"

"Of course."

"I'm brunette, are you sure I'm enough?"

"That's not the same at all!"

"How is it not the same? You think just because there are twice as many people I could be attracted to, I'm less likely to be faithful?"

"You're sharing a hotel room out there, right?"

"Yes, with Amy, another girl we used to work with."

"Well, you wouldn't expect me to be okay with you sharing a hotel room with a man I've never met, would you?"

"Yes, I would - if you trusted me, yes, I would expect you to be okay with it. What do you want me to do, spend twice as much on my hotel room because you're afraid I'm going to cheat on you - with a woman who as far as I know is completely straight? And after this wedding, what then? I can't ever go by myself to visit a friend of either sex because my being bisexual means I can't control myself?" A man at the next table turns to look at me, and I realize I've started talking a little too loudly.

"I just - I just wish I had more time to absorb this. I mean, you're leaving in two days."

"Yes, I am - and you either trust me or you don't, and it has nothing to do with what parts you have." I watch his eyes for an answer, but he just looks away and says nothing. I drop my napkin on the table, push my chair back, and leave, waiting for neither dessert nor check. I walk briskly - angrily - in the direction of the Bar, trying not to bump into people in my haste. It's a good several blocks before I start to take slower, deeper breaths, and then I reach the Bar. I look at my watch, and roll my eyes. It's barely three o'clock, so I've got an hour to kill before I open the place - I'd expected a longer, more relaxed lunch than the one I ended up getting.

Well, nothing a stiff drink might not help with, I decide, and I unlock the door. Locking it behind me, I head for the back room to drop off my bag. When I open the door, the first thing I see is tits bouncing up and down. When she stops in surprise, I see it's Maya, and she's astride some guy who's lying on a towel on the floor, just as naked as she is. "Oh, for God's sake," I say, and shut the door again. I leave the Bar, locking up behind me, and head down the block to another bar. Make that a few stiff drinks.

"I know this is ridiculously late, but I was so busy the first few weeks with Aidan that I almost completely forgot about your birthday. And then shipping took a couple of weeks, so..." My cousin Rebecca hands me a package, then takes a sip from her iced tea. It's a beautiful day, and we're at a sidewalk cafe in the Village where we've just ordered lunch, with Aidan napping in his stroller next to us.

"Oh, Rebecca, you didn't have to do that!" I open up the package, and I laugh. It's a "Science Is Satan" baby-doll t-shirt:

"I know how much you love that comic strip, and you're always wearing that 'Republicans for Voldemort' t-shirt you got from them, so..."

"Honey, it's perfect. Thank you so much, I love it!"

"Happy belated birthday."

We catch up for a while over lunch, about important stuff like breast-feeding (hers), new boyfriends (mine), and sleep deprivation (both). Plus, she asks a lot of questions about my trip to California next week for Jessica's wedding, and what the festivities are going to be like. I really can't wait - I'm so happy for Jessica, but I miss her terribly, and I'm very excited that I'll get to spend a couple of days with her before the wedding.

"There's something else I wanted to ask you, Debra. It's kind of weird, but I hope it doesn't make you uncomfortable." Uh, oh. I tense up a little, wondering if for some reason she's going to ask me something about what happened with Jessica last summer.

"Sure, what is it?"

"Well, Paul and I are getting ready to go meet with your dad soon about having wills drafted now that Aidan's in the picture, and we'd like to name you one of his alternate guardians if you're willing."

"Wow. What?"

"If something happens to us, and the people we listed as guardians are also gone, or there's some other reason they can't look after Aidan, we want you to do it."

"Rebecca, I'm really honored - but are you sure? I mean, I'm out until four in the morning several nights a week, I'm not married, and I'm terrified of having kids."

"Sweetie, you're out until four in the morning working hard and earning a living at the Bar, you're one of the smartest people I know, and it's the people who aren't scared of having kids who shouldn't be having them. Besides," she pauses for a moment and grins, "you were the only woman we considered who I knew wouldn't be offended by being an alternate instead of our first choice."

I chuckle. "You're right about that one. Plus, it's not like you're going anywhere. Of course I'm willing, and it's incredibly sweet that you have that kind of faith in me." I get up and go around to her side of the table to give her a hug, and I accidentally knock over her iced tea - which splashes all over poor Aidan.

"Oh, no!" I cry, and kneel down on the sidewalk, frantically reaching for napkins and water as the baby wails. "I'm so sorry!" Then I notice Rebecca's laughing. "What's so funny?"

She finally catches her breath. "Oh, honey - he pukes all over his clothing and shits himself a half a dozen times a day, and you're worried about iced tea?" I sit back on my heels and exhale.

Wednesday evening, 8pm

"You checked him out?"

"Of course I did, silly. He's totally legit."

"Did you talk to anybody else who's posed for him?"

"Yeah, I e-mailed one girl, and we talked on the phone a little."

Simone, the newest barmaid at the Bar, is wrapping up a short early shift as I take over, and she's heading out for a modeling session with John, a guy who was in here a couple of weeks ago.

"You sure you want to do this?" asks Vince, as he's wiping down the taps.

Simone gapes. "Wait, are you sure you're a guy? I thought guys love porn."

"Yeah, we just don't usually know the girls in the pictures."

"Is it really going to change what you think about me? It's just my body. It's not like I'm even having sex on camera, I'm just taking off my clothes. I can earn half my rent in two or three hours, and I can do it legally."

"Legal doesn't mean smart."

She shrugs. "Okay, well, do you really picture me running for president someday?"

"I think she's brave," pipes in Jocelyn. "I've always wanted to do something like that."

"You have?" I ask.

"You have?" repeats Mario, a regular and her boyfriend of several months.

Jocelyn turns to Mario and smiles. "Yeah! I get really turned on by the idea of posing for a camera, and thousands of guys lusting after me. Plus, with these babies," she hefts her considerable breasts in her hands, "I'll bet I'd be in serious demand."

Simone asks, "So why haven't you ever done it?"

Jocelyn shrugs. "It's not like I haven't been asked. Hell, this weekend in Prospect Park, it seemed like every jerk in Brooklyn with a camera phone asked me to flash him. I guess I'm just afraid of what would happen if my father found out. He's pretty old-fashioned."

"Wouldn't your father have to buy the porn magazine you posed for to find out you posed for it?" Simone offers.

"I don't know, I never thought it out that far. I just know I would never go ahead with it, and I'm a little jealous that you have the guts. So I say, you go get naked, girl!"

Simone finishes cashing out, and takes off. I dive into my shift, wondering if I'm the only twenty-something woman in New York who's not a wannabe porn star, and trying not to picture Simone naked.

"Do you suppose she talked to Lanie or Victor about it first?" Vince asks me a little while later.

"I don't know - but do you really think the magazine is going to mention the Bar? I thought they make up fake stuff to say about the models."

"I don't think that'll matter if someone comes in here and recognizes her from the photos."

"Oh. I hadn't thought about that." I've certainly thought about it for myself, in the context of my blog, which is one reason I won't post photos of myself here, but even that may not be enough to prevent me from being "found" eventually.

"Yeah, but at least she isn't planning to run for president." He wanders off to collect glasses.

I stand there wondering how much it would affect an aspiring novelist's career to have posed for nude erotic photos - and for that matter, how much money I would have to be offered before I'd consider not turning it down.

Girl: Look at the boobs on that bartender. They're enormous! My boobs aren't big enough.
Boy: Your boobs are perfect. I wouldn't change a thing about you.
Girl: You're only saying that because I blow you at least once every single day.
Boy: I'll admit, it doesn't hurt.


One of my favorite parts of my job as a barmaid is overhearing snippets of conversation that people think nobody else can hear. But often, they're downright shouting - and although I may be in large part invisible unless you're thirsty and your glass is empty, I do hear what you say. I occasionally submit something I've overheard in the Bar to Overheard in New York, but usually I don't bother - some of it, nobody would believe! But I almost always jot them down if I have the time.

So here I present some of the random conversation snippets I've overheard in the last few months from people I didn't know and have been idling in my notebook. Despite my inability to write clever, snide "headlines" for each one like the people at Overheard in New York do, I hope you enjoy them. (Feel free to write your own headlines for them, though.)


Dude #1: Swear to God, dude, she's looking at you.
Dude #2: Which eye? It's so creepy, they're not pointed in the same direction. One's pointed at me, but the other is pointed over there, at some chick.
Dude #1: Maybe her eyes are bisexual.
Dude #2: That's so hot.


Girl #1: Can you believe the nerve of that bouncer? Where does he get off telling me the photo on my license doesn't look like me?
Girl #2: Wait, isn't it your dead cousin's license?
Girl #1: Yeah, but it's the principle of the thing!


Woman #1: This cosmo tastes like crap.
Woman #2: That's not a cosmo, it's a martini.
Woman #1: What the fuck? I ordered a cosmo!
Woman #2: No, you ordered a martini.
Woman #1: Are you sure? I didn't think I was that drunk.
Woman #2: Pretty sure.
Woman #1: Wait, who are you?


Dude: Can I call you sometime?
Chick: Why?
Dude: Uh - so we can go out.
Chick: We're out now.
Dude: No, I mean like on a date.
Chick: Oh! Then no, you can't.


Dude #1: We should come back, like, every night until we've tried all the different beers they have.
Dude #2: How many are there?
Dude #1 [counting]: A metric fuckload.


Dude: Let's go somewhere a little more quiet and, y'know, talk.
Chick: No, thanks.
Dude: Why not?
Chick: I don't want to sleep with you.
Dude: Who said anything about - okay, why not?
Chick: I just don't find you attractive, is all.
Dude: What? Not even a little?
Chick: Come on, I don't want to get into it like that...
Dude: No, I want to know, am I completely hideous to you?
Chick: Well, let me put it this way. If it had been a year since the last time I had sex, then I accidentally swallowed a gallon of Spanish Fly, everybody else had turned me down, and you were the last guy I ran into on my way out of the bar to go home, I'd still stop off at Ricky's to buy a vibrator.


If you enjoyed these, I'll post more in the future.

By the way, belated thanks to two people who sent me birthday gifts off my Amazon wish list - Nancy, who sent me José González's "Crosses," and whichever Barmaid Blog reader sent me Harry Chapin's "Sniper and Other Love Songs." The packing slip on the latter got kind of munged up in transit, I'm afraid - but thank you nonetheless. I'm enjoying both CDs very much.

And the line at the East Village Ben & Jerry's was ridiculous this evening! But, yum.

It's Saturday evening in Manhattan, and I'm a couple of hours into an 8-to-close shift at the Bar; Jocelyn will be with me until close, and Sophie's off at 1. It's a good crowd, the mood is light, people are drinking less beer and more hard liquor, and so the tips have been pretty good. I'm trying to save up to buy a dress I saw last week, even though I haven't yet worked up the courage to walk inside the store to find out how much it costs. I'm cooking at home more instead of getting take-out, I'm trying to take on an extra shift here and there, and there may even be some news to report in the semi-near future about me writing a regular column somewhere...!

I'm in a pretty good mood, too, and enjoying myself. Things at the Bar have been pretty good recently, and it's nice when you can let your guard down a bit and just enjoy the company of your colleagues and your customers for what it is. I feel good, too - between the general feeling of having recovered from something both physically and emotionally draining, and the fact that I'm not only blogging regularly again but also working on my novel on a semi-regular basis, it's hard not to feel good. I was worried that I might have gained a little weight the past couple of weeks, but I fit into my jeans with no problem this afternoon, and I'm wearing one of my favorite shirts, a deep pink Lacoste polo with the little alligator on it. I don't mind saying I look pretty good.

Sometime after ten, a guy I'm pretty sure I've never seen before comes up to the bar and orders a gin and tonic. He's on the short side - a couple of inches taller than me - and not very good looking, but he's smiling and friendly. As luck would have it, a stool opens up just as I'm serving him, so he grabs it and makes himself at home. He tips $2 on a $6 drink, so I make a mental note to keep an eye on his glass.

When I check on him about twenty minutes later, he's about to need a refill, so I approach to ask if he wants one, and as I get closer I hear the woman sitting next to him say, "...fucking hint?" She gets up, and she and her friend walk away, toward the other end of the bar. He shakes his head and downs the last gulp of his drink.

"Another one?" I ask him with a smile.

"Yeah, definitely. What's your name?"

"I'm Debra. And you are?"

"Leonard." We shake hands, and while I mix him another G&T, I feel him looking me up and down. I tell him to enjoy, then I collect his cash and move along. At one point not long after, I notice he's left his coat on his stool and his still half-full glass on the bar, so I keep an eye out. When I see him again, he's holding his head and shaking it a little.

"Are you okay, Leonard?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm good, I'm great, don't worry about it. Debra, right?" I nod. "Debra, keep 'em coming, I'm in for the long haul." He rubs his nose and smiles so widely I think his face might crack, then he turns to the guy next to him and laughs.

It's a busy night, so I'm not on top of Leonard's situation all the time. But he's keeping up a pretty good pace on his G&Ts, and he seems to be alienating the people around him. Nobody's asked me for help, or gone to Bill or Vince, so it probably isn't anything serious, but judging from the looks on people's faces as they walk away from him, he must be doing or saying something offensive.

Then at just after one, when Sophie's getting ready to head out, Leonard calls me over. "Debra," he says, gesturing toward Sophie, "do you think she'd stay and have a drink with me? I really want her to come home with me and fuck me."

"What?"

"It's cool, I'm a good guy, I'd treat her right. I always make sure the girl comes a few times before I get mine!" He's slurring his words, and I'm not real happy with the things he's saying - luckily, Sophie's already in the back room and out of earshot. "So how about that refill?"

"Leonard, honey, I think you've had enough, and it's probably time for you to get going. Can I have someone get you a cab?"

He gestures for me to lean closer, so I do. "I have to get something off my chest. I've never been with a black woman. She's really hot! I just want to know what it's like. Can't you please ask her for me?" This guy's got some serious stones.

"She's got a boyfriend, Leonard, and he's not someone you want to mess with."

"Okay, just give me another drink, then."

"I really think you've had enough tonight."

"Can I get something else off my chest?"

"What's that?"

"There's something I want to get off your chest." And just as if he's shaking my hand or tapping me on the shoulder, he reaches out and grabs my breast, and says, "I want to take that fuckin' crocodile home with me." It's a couple of seconds before I'm sure I believe what's happening, but as soon as I do, I take his hand off my breast, twist it, and slam it down on the bar.

"Vince!" I call out loudly, over Leonard's yelling, and the barback is there within moments, with his hands on Leonard's shoulders. I grit my teeth, trying to resist the impulse to take advantage of his position by socking him in the nose as hard as I can. "Vince, this gentleman needs an escort out of the building and a cab to take him home."

"What?!" Leonard protests. "I just wanted another fucking drink! Where's the goddamn manager?" Shit. We have a good deal of autonomy at the Bar to enforce rules and keep ourselves safe, but if the customer asks for the manager, we give him what he wants. I reluctantly release his wrist, and go to get Todd from the back room while Vince maintains his position keeping Leonard under control.

In the few moments it takes us to make it back to the bar area, I manage to get out the words, "This guy groped me," but Todd stops in his tracks.

"That guy? The one Vince is holding to his stool?"

"Yes!" He looks at me quietly for a moment, then we walk down to the scene of the crime.

Leonard brightens up immediately. "Todd, my man, I thought you might be here tonight! What the hell kind of place are you running here?" I notice he's talking somewhat more coherently than he was just a few minutes ago.

"Todd, you know this guy?"

Leonard doesn't wait for Todd to answer. "I'm just having a few drinks, I said something a little off-color, and this girl nearly breaks my hand!"

I feel my face flushing. "He asked me to get Sophie to f-- to sleep with him, then he grabbed my breast!"

"What?! I didn't lay a hand on her! Todd, man, you know me - I'm always working on new material for my stand-up act or my screenplays, she must have misunderstood me. I just wanted another drink."

Todd rubs his forehead for a moment. "Vince, did you see what happened?" Vince looks at me, then shakes his head. Todd calls Jocelyn over, and she has the same answer. Sophie's already gone. The crowd at the bar is three deep, and nobody's been paying the slightest attention. Nobody saw it.

"Leonard, I'm really sorry. What were you drinking?"

"Gin and tonic."

I can't believe what I'm hearing. "What?!"

"Debra, please get my friend another gin and tonic, on the house."

This can't be happening. "No."

"Excuse me?"

"Todd, he felt me up! I'm not serving him a damn thing!"

"Suit yourself. Jocelyn, please get my friend a gin and tonic." She looks at me, helpless. "Jocelyn!" Todd snaps. She looks down, then goes to the rack of highballs. Then Todd turns to me. "Debra, go take a break."

I step up to him, seething with frustration, the tears starting to form, and I look up at his eyes. "Do you want me to dust my goddamn chest for fingerprints?!"

"Take. A. Break." He turns around and steps around to the back of the bar to help Jocelyn out.

When I get to the back room, I grab my jacket and my bag, and I turn right around. The only thought I can form in my head is, "What the hell just happened?" I'm almost to the front door of the Bar when Todd calls out to me and asks where I'm going. What I yell back to him is something I've never said to anybody lightly, much less someone who has the power to fire me.

"Fuck off!" And I'm out the door before the crying really starts.

Mmmmm, Ethiopian coffee...

Thursday nights are funny. Remember in college, when people would try to schedule their classes so that they'd have Fridays off, and they could have three days of going out and weekending instead of two? Manhattan is kind of like that during the summer. So many people take Fridays off (or at least Friday afternoons) to go to their summer shares in the Hamptons, or their mountain houses in Rhinebeck, that they think of Thursday night as the beginning of their weekend, and so they go out to bars.

This particular Thursday night the Yankees are also playing on TV, so the Bar is packed, loud, and crazy. Amy and Jocelyn and I are getting slammed. Our bar karma ("barma"?) seems to be on a downswing, too - the tips have been mediocre (albeit plentiful), people are ordering more mixed drinks than usual, and Amy has dropped five, count 'em five, bottles of beer. Tommy the barback is pissed at having to clean up all the glass every time she does this, especially while the three of us are running around trying to fill drink orders and practically tripping over him.

But it's nothing worse than we've seen before at the Bar, and we're managing to get through it pretty well.

In the meantime, there's a group of three Suits bellied up to the bar to watch the game who seem incapable of letting Jocelyn pass by them without hooting "Hey, honey" or "Baaaaaaaaaaby!" or something equally deranged at her. Jocelyn, you may recall, is a short, blonde barmaid who is rather significantly endowed in the breastal area. She seems to take it all in stride. I mean, I would imagine* that you can't reach adulthood with breasts like those without getting accustomed to the effect they have on people and how crass those people can get. And since she is, as usual, wearing a tight t-shirt that shows off her chest to maximum effect, I suspect she enjoys some of the attention - or at least the tips that tend to increase with bra size.

(*Let's just get this out of the way right now: I think I've got a pretty nice pair myself, but they're not big. They're not tiny, they're not small - I would say they're medium-small. Above that on the scale would be medium, medium-large, large, udder, pornstar, Jocelyn, and absurd breast fetish pornstar.)

As much as she tries to humor these Suits and throw a smile their way every now and then, Amy and I have been trying to take their orders most of the evening. It's just our way of having her back. But at one point, Amy and I are just both too occupied with other people's orders when the Suits run dry, and Jocelyn ends up face to face with them. The Suit in Charge orders for all three of them, and I'm close enough to overhear that he finishes by saying, "You have the most spectacular breasts I've ever seen." Uh, oh.

Women aren't stupid. We know that guys tend to think stuff like this all the time, and it isn't a problem as long as they leave it mostly unsaid - or if they know us really well and know how we'll react to them saying it before they go ahead and say it. But there is a line that shouldn't be crossed by strangers, even when their barmaids are dressed a little provocatively. Maybe that line is a little farther down in New York City than in other places, but there's still a line. And as much as I may not be positive that the line has already been crossed, I look at the three Suits grinning, giggling, and swaying - and I suspect that if it hasn't yet been crossed, it's surely about to be.

While Jocelyn is drawing their beers, I stop Tommy on his way through and half-yell into his ear that I'd like him to keep an eye on the Suits and make sure they don't start any trouble. Tommy's a good guy with sharp instincts, and is generally pretty good at defusing tense situations without having to take a bouncer off the door. He nods and sets off to collect glasses from tables, and I turn back to the bar just in time to see the line get crossed.

Jocelyn has delivered the Suits' three beers and asked for $18, and Suit in Charge is holding a pair of twenties out in front of him. "You can have these both," he shouts, "if you show me your breasts." Jocelyn tries laughing it off, but with the other two Backup Suits hooting and laughing, it's not very clear that her laughing it off will settle the matter. Besides, he hasn't yet actually handed her any money at all, and they still owe $18 for the beers. She says, "C'mon, guys," and holds her hand out, but Suit in Charge pulls the twenties back. Backup Suits hoot some more, and Amy and I both slow down what we're doing and give each other a look.

Suit in Charge adds, "You can have a fifty dollar tip, honey, if you let me feel your breasts." Backup Suits are now hooting, hollering, slapping backs, and starting to pull cash out of their wallets, too. Jocelyn has a look on her face like someone has run over her dog. Thankfully, the very next thing that happens is that Tommy has forcibly waded through the crowd to the bar, and is standing behind the Suits. "Guys, I think you're done for the night," he says. "Please take your business elsewhere."

Suit in Charge adopts a high, nerdy voice (think Eddie Murphy mocking the black California cop in "Beverly Hills Cop"), and repeats back to Tommy, "Guys, I think you're done for the night." Backup Suit One laughs himself silly. Only Backup Suit Two seems the slightest bit concerned. Suit in Charge turns back to Jocelyn, and says, "So how about it, gorgeous? Easiest fifty bucks you've ever made, just let me feel your tits!"

The next moment, my faith in humanity is restored. Mario, one of our regulars (remember him spoiling a Yankees game?), is standing next to Tommy, and says, "Guys, you heard the man. You're done for the night." And Mario's got two of his friends standing next to him.

The Suits aren't laughing anymore. Suit in Charge says, "Hey, man, we were just fooling around. It's not a big deal. We're cool." They start to move away from the bar toward the door, and Mario gets in their way.

"Pay the lady for your drinks," he says.

Suit in Charge hesitates a few seconds, sizing up the situation. He turns back to the bar, and drops a twenty on it. The Suits make their way through the crowd to the door, and exit. Most of the people in the Bar probably haven't even noticed what was going on, but up here at the bar Jocelyn has fallen apart. She's tearing up and on the verge of crying, and quickly makes her way to the back room so nobody has to see it. Tommy makes his way back there to make sure she's okay, and Amy and I go back to trying to fill everybody's glasses. Mario and his friends will drink on the house for the rest of the night.

Jocelyn comes back out about ten minutes later, and if she's not fully recovered, she has certainly put on her "fully recovered" face.

The rest of the night, her tips are fantastic.

A rainy Sunday night during the summer is among the deadest times we see at the Bar, topped perhaps only by a rainy Sunday afternoon during the summer. So it's a perfect time to train and supervise a brand-new barmaid, and it falls to me. Todd introduces me to Jocelyn, a girl with long, curly blonde hair, and my chin bounces off the floor with a "whap." She's barely five feet tall, and each of her breasts is about as big as my head. They're enormous. She's also wearing a fairly tight t-shirt. It's impossible not to stare, so I do.

"They're real," she grins, and I figure I'll take her word for it.

"You're going to make a shitload of money here," I tell her, shaking my head. We start running through the Bar's procedures, then I let her take some orders. She's had some experience, according to Todd, but every bar does things a little bit differently. So it doesn't worry me much when she has a little trouble getting the hang of our register. She's not great at basic math, either, but then a lot of people in my generation have that problem - we grew up with calculators and computers to do our math for us. I guess I'm lucky; it's always come naturally to me. And she doesn't have trouble with, say, three beers at $5 each - but for three drinks at three different prices, she has to think about it for a minute. But she'll get the hang of it.

Her mixology, on the other hand... well, let's just say I thought Todd said she's had some experience. Anybody who's worked a bar in this city in the last several years has had to mix at least one cosmopolitan - probably a couple hundred of them. That's Sarah Jessica Parker's fault. Someone orders a cosmo from Jocelyn, and she hesitates, then starts panicking a little. It's a good thing I've overheard the order, because the first thing she grabs is rum, and there's no rum in any cosmo I've ever had. I quietly pull her aside, and whisper in her ear: "Two vodka, one Cointreau, one cranberry juice, squeeze of lime, shaker with ice, strain into a martini glass, lime garnish." She nods briskly and gets to it.

After she's served the cosmo and made change, she comes over to thank me. "In this bar, you should never be embarrassed to ask someone you're working with how to make a drink you don't know or don't remember," I tell her. "You should only be embarrassed if you don't ask and then get it wrong. Then instead of taking ten seconds to explain, we have to take five minutes and ten dollars to make an unhappy customer happy again."

She smiles, and says, "I've never thought of it that way. The other girls at my last bar weren't very helpful - sometimes I think they wanted to see me screw up."

I wonder why, I think to myself, staring at her breasts again.