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

Friday evening, for the first time since January, I see Bonnie. I don't see her at the Bar in her old Coors gear, or run into her on the subway; I see her on the side of a bus stop shelter in midtown. She's gazing at me seductively from a fashion advertisement, and it absolutely stops me in my tracks. I'm grateful that Jenny isn't with me, because although she knows about Bonnie, I don't know if she'd understand my need to stop and stare. Before I can convince my feet to move again, I start to remember what it was like for someone to have that much control over me just by looking at me or saying my name. Obsession isn't love, but being owned so completely can be just as overwhelming.

Eventually I peel myself from my spot on the sidewalk and finish my trip to the Bar, making a mental note to avoid that corner for a while.

As I walk in, I see Tony and Carl sitting at the far end of the bar, and they both get up to give me a hug. I'm running a little late, so I promise them we'll catch up shortly, and I run to the back room to drop off my bag. After I've checked in with Jocelyn and Maya, I check in on the boys with a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon in my hand.

"How's your girlfriend, girlfriend?" Carl grins.

"She's good, thanks. Working hard, as always. And she asked me to move in with her."

"Holy cow," says Tony. "That's huge! Are you gonna do it?"

I smile. "I don't know, to be honest. It's fast, and her asking was sudden. I've got a couple of months to decide before I have to renew my lease with my roommates, so I'm not thinking about it much right now. But it sure would be convenient - I haven't taken the subway this much since I was a grunt at a publishing house."

"You don't move in with someone because it's convenient, Debra," Tony lectures.

Carl snorts at his boyfriend. "Who do you think you're kidding? This is New York, my friend. You moved in with me because I had a balcony and a wide-screen TV!"

"Don't you believe him, Debra," Tony wags his finger, "I moved in with him because he cooked the best risotto I've ever tasted." I laugh, and leave them in order to serve some other customers.

"Where's Mario tonight?" I ask Jocelyn a little while later. He isn't always there when she's working, but it's unusual for him to miss a Friday night.

"Oh, he's away for the weekend with Angelo. They went to Atlantic City, I think."

"You didn't want to go with them?"

"Nah, I'm not much for gambling. Besides, it's good for them to have a boys' weekend every now and then."

"So what are you doing Sunday?"

She shrugs. "I don't know, what am I doing Sunday?"

"Come over to my place, the girls and I are doing our traditional bagel brunch and watching the Yankees-Mariners game, and Jenny will be there. I'd love for you to get to know her."

She bounces a little (which makes her enormous breasts bounce a lot), and says, "Hey, that'd be great!"

At a little after ten o'clock, Susan and Grace, the current Coors promo girls assigned to work the Bar, enter and start making their way through our customers. As far as I know, Grace doesn't know anything about the woman she replaced or why she left; she just happened to be next. Susan on the other hand stops by the bar to say hi, and gives my hand a squeeze.

"Have you seen her ad?" I ask, and she nods. "I don't think I was prepared for it," I add.

Susan shakes her head. "Nobody has ever been prepared for anything about Bonnie," she says, and turns to dive back into the morass. For the first time, I wonder if Bonnie seduced her, too, or if she's talking about something else entirely, and then I decide it doesn't really matter. The very next thought in my head is to try to remember who actually paid for the enormous leather sectional couch in my apartment, and whether my roommates Cassie and Jill will want to keep it when I leave.

When I leave. I've already started to make up my mind, haven't I? I think to myself. And for a moment - just a moment - I bounce a little, too.

(Many thanks to Bridget E. Wilde of Bewildered Art for permission to use her Barmaid Fox drawing as a userpic.)

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.

Todd Rundgren plays on The Bar's jukebox, a sappy, needy ballad that seems out of place on a semi-rowdy Saturday night. Cleveland and Boston are playing baseball on our televisions, and they've been battling it out for what seems like ten or twelve hours already, with the game now in extra innings. For reasons I've never quite understood (other than the obvious financial bottom line), as much as this is a Yankees bar, other teams' fans are strongly encouraged to drink here anytime their season extends past the Yankees' - which is more often than usual these last few years, I suppose. So the place is packed, with a ratio of about three Indians fans to every Red Sox fan.

Jocelyn pokes me in the side as she passes on her way to the wines, and yells over the din, "Wake up, Debra!" I'm having kind of a hard time maintaining an appropriate level of interest in what my customers want and how frequently their glasses are empty. It could be the Yankees' seventh-in-a-row early departure from the playoffs several days ago distracting me, but I doubt it. When I have a spare moment I turn to the top shelf and glance at the usual suspects. I finally choose the Macallan 12, and pour myself a finger.

Here's to you knowing me better than I know myself, I toast internally, and drink my Scotch.

The crowd erupts in cheers, and I see that Cleveland has scored on a Trot Nixon RBI single to go ahead in the eleventh inning. It's the wee hours of the morning already, far past the usual time for even night baseball, but I've got nothing against people staying longer and drinking more. Indeed, I'm almost hoping the Sox tie it up in the bottom of the eleventh so that I can sell more beer, and get more tips.

Here's to independence, I toast, and drink some more Scotch.

But that tie becomes far less likely after Cabrera scores on a wild pitch, and then a short while later, Martinez comes home on Garko's own single. So now it's 9-6, and the atmosphere is festive. I can barely keep up with the orders, but I find time to pour myself some more Scotch as I go.

Here's to the law of unintended consequences, I think, and then I drink.

The score has somehow become 10-6 without my even noticing, and Vince is even having trouble keeping the cooler filled with beer. My cell phone vibrates for the first time in days, and my heart leaps with a bizarre mix of hope and cynical certainty. Ignoring my usual habit of waiting to look, I take an immediate glance at it. It's a text message from my friend Henry, comprising exactly three words: "What the hell?!" It's like a punch in the gut spreading guilt to the rest of my body. I take a deep breath, delete the message without responding, and pour myself another finger of Macallan.

Here's to the power of public humiliation - his and hers, a matching set. And down it goes.

Gutierrez puts the final nail in the coffin with a three-run homer, and everybody goes berserk. Jocelyn and I are in the weeds, just barely keeping up. When Boston is back up at the plate, and clearly not about to have a similar seven-run rally, the place gets so loud I can barely hear the orders. A big girl in a Cleveland cap orders a couple of cosmos, and I reach behind me for a shaker and two glasses, without even looking.

"Debra!!" Jocelyn runs over, grabs my shaker hand, and nearly knocks me over - the glasses in my other hand slam into the bar, and shatter. Somehow, I escape without a scratch.

"What the hell?!" I scream, and the indignance of the phrase resonates in my throat with irony.

She holds up my shaker hand, and it's not holding a metal shaker, I'm holding a metal bottle. "You almost mixed some drinks in Eddie," Jocelyn says.

"Well, what the hell was he doing next to the shakers," I rationalize. It's not my fault, these things just happen. The intervention of another human being in a well-laid plan. Mistakes were made. Nothing to see here... move along.

I overmix for the two cosmos, so that after I fill both glasses, I have a good, long slug left for myself. Soon the game is over, and although a decent part of the crowd sticks around to celebrate, it's very late. Soon enough it's down to a few regulars, die-hards, and disbelieving Red Sox fans, and before long even they have to leave. It's after four in the morning, and I'm not numb enough yet for my feet not to hurt.

After cleanup and another couple of fingers of Macallan, I manage to get a taxi with ease. "Brooklyn," I tell the cabbie when I get in, and then I tell him which intersection.

He hesitates when he hears the street names. "At four-thirty in the morning?" he says. "Are you sure?"

I don't have the time or the patience for this. "Are you turning down a twenty-dollar fare?" He shakes his head, and activates the meter. I send a text message reading "On my way," and then I close my eyes, waiting for the dread to go away.

I catnap for part of the ride, in my warm, fuzzy, Scotch-induced blanket. At this hour the traffic is light, so it's not even five when he pulls up in front of the building. He makes good on his promise and waits until he sees the door's been buzzed open for me before he drives off. I take my time climbing the three flights of stairs, not in the mood to be out of breath or to stumble, and when I arrive on the landing, the door is already open.

Bonnie stands there in a white kimono and slippers, looking down into my eyes, looking for - what? I avoid her gaze by staring at the curves in the silk where it meets her body, trying to remember how to breathe, trying to understand the red patterns in the design despite the poor hallway lighting and the Scotch in my eyes. The quiet fills the landing, and all I can think about is how badly I want to know what her skin smells like. My stomach is still on its way up the stairs, I feel like I want to start crying, and she holds out her hand.

I let Bonnie lead me into her apartment and close the door, and then I let her lead me into her room and close that door. And then I let her lead me, and lead me, and lead me, and that closes another door, probably forever. Her skin smells of freedom, and choices, and collateral damage, and burnt bridges. Friction drowns out the emptiness. Sweat silences the pain. Rhythm suffocates the guilt. And as the sun slowly starts to rise over Bushwick, our cries justify everything. Everything.

It's a rare quiet moment on a busy Thursday night, my eleventh shift at the Bar in fifteen days, making up for eleven days out of town. I want to go lie down somewhere, but I can't do that. Bracing myself for a moment on the shelf the cash register occupies, I let my head relax and look at the floor.

Jocelyn puts a hand on my shoulder. "Debra, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just tired."

"Hey, I hope you don't mind my asking... you haven't posted on your blog since you got back from your vacation."

"Yeah." I'm not sure what else to say.

"Aren't people getting impatient?"

"Hard to say. I haven't checked that e-mail account in a few days, I'm afraid of what I'll find." I lift my head and look at her. "I'm just tired, and I've been busy. I'll post soon. Not that there's been much to post about. Hey, could you and Mario split up again or something?"

"Ha, very funny. Well, maybe you could tell everybody you were sick or something."

I sigh. "Nah, I don't want to do that. Even when it's true people think I'm just making excuses for my absence or fishing for sympathy."

Jocelyn spots someone waving an empty glass at her. "You don't owe them anything, you know." She puts on a smile and heads off to take an order.

"Well, now, that's not true, either," I say to nobody in particular, and head in the other direction to check on some customers.

For the last month or so, both Gary and I have been feeling a little burnt out. We've both been working hard, and neither of us has had a real vacation in a long time - a chance to get away, relax, and recharge without the pressures of work or the "realities" and responsibilities of home impeding. But because we've only been dating for a few months (and not without a few stumbles), whenever one of us brought the subject up, it wasn't "We should take a vacation," it was "I need a vacation."

Late Tuesday night Gary comes over to my place after his newscast is over, and after he kisses me, the first words out of his mouth are, "Come away with me."

"What?"

"I got one of those super-saver e-mails today, and there's a really unbeatable fare to fly somewhere I've always wanted to go. I want you to go with me. On Friday."

I laugh. "Supah-savah," I mock, and laugh again. Then I stop. "This Friday? Are you serious?"

"Never more. Start making calls, get your shifts covered, I want you to come away with me for ten days."

"Wait, where are we going?"

He grins. "Do you trust me?"

I search his eyes for a moment, and I realize that what I told him on Sunday wasn't a mistake or a slip of the tongue. I love this man. "Just tell me what to pack," I reply.

So I leave him alone on my laptop for a little while to make the reservations, and I start making phone calls. It's late, so I have a little trouble getting hold of some of the girls, but by the time Gary is done I have this weekend covered. By the end of Wednesday, I have next week's shifts covered, too. I'll be working a lot when I get back, but I think it'll be worth it.

Thursday night I'm on with Jocelyn and Simone, and the speculation is rampant.

"I think he's taking you to Vegas to get married," says Jocelyn.

I sputter. "What?! That's ridiculous! We'd never even talked about taking a vacation together up until two days ago, much less spending our lives together."

"Maybe you're going to Chicago to see Lollapalooza. Isn't that next week?" offers Simone.

"I have no idea," I shrug, "but I doubt he's into alternative music enough to fly us out there for ten days just for that."

"Toronto to see the Yankees play?" says Diego.

"Hm... I wouldn't put it past him, but I think we're coming back Monday or Tuesday, so we'd only get to see the first game of the series at most."

"Well, what did he tell you to pack?" asks Jack.

"It's all about the logic with you lawyers, isn't it, Jack?"

"I prefer to think of it as detective work," he smiles.

"Well, I can't help you solve this mystery, because he hasn't told me yet. He said I would have to wait until tomorrow, but he knows for a fact that I have everything I'll need."

"What if what you need isn't clean?" frets Jocelyn.

"He sent out my laundry yesterday."

At this, everybody kind of stops what they're doing for a moment, and all I can hear is the Yankees/Royals game on the TVs. Diego clears his throat, sticks one last beer in the cooler, and says, "I think you should take him to Vegas to get married."

The group gets a nice laugh out of that, then goes back to focusing on the doomed baseball game, or on serving drinks.

And now it's Friday, and I'm packing as I write this, and I still have no idea. Light clothing for days, a sweater or two for nights, a couple of swimsuits, one nice dress, comfortable walking shoes. There's a cab coming to pick us up in a couple of hours, and we're just praying that the rain will hold off long enough to let us fly out on time. I know only two things with certainty right now: I won't be around for the next ten days, and I'm starting to fall in love with this man.

Thursday evening, Maya and I are on, with Jocelyn expected later. Most eyes are on the television watching the Yankees, but shortly before eight I hear Bill shout, "Vince!" and half a dozen heads sporting curious looks turn just in time to see the barback in question high-five the bouncer who greeted him. Entering behind him are the reasons we're all so curious, his girlfriend/my roommate Jill, and Vince's father.

Vince hasn't talked much about his past, so we have no idea what to expect - only that Vince's father is in town for a few days for a conference, that Vince wanted him to meet Jill, and that he would be coming back to the Bar after they went out to dinner to see what his son does for a living these days. What we aren't expecting, given that Vince is a wiry, hip-looking, tatooed guy who wears nothing but black jeans and t-shirts, is what walks in the door with Jill on his chivalrously extended arm: A middle-aged man sporting a fancy walking cane, and wearing a tweed jacket with suede elbow patches.

"Everybody, this is my father, the Professor," says Vince as he approaches the bar, and his father introduces himself to Maya and me, and then to Mario and a few other regulars who have gotten to know Vince well.

"What can I get for you, Professor?" I ask.

"Debra, my dear, I would be most grateful and, indeed, most impressed if you were to mix me a burnt fuselage." He smiles warmly.

I freeze for a moment, and then I remember something I read a while back, something about Paris during the Great Depression. I nod and smile back at him, then I turn to the back of the bar and mix equal parts Grand Marnier, dry vermouth, and Courvoisier cognac over ice, with a bit of lemon rind. After four years of doing this, every now and then someone still stumps me, but it won't be tonight. I also mix a cosmopolitan for Jill, and then serve the drinks. The Professor takes a sip, then turns to his son, who's now behind the bar starting his shift, and says, "Vincent, your colleague seems quite knowledgeable. So far, I most heartily applaud your choice of workplace." I beam, and Maya chuckles.

"What did you think of his last job, Professor?" she asks.

"I'm not sure what you mean, young lady. Are you referring to one of the musical combos he traveled with?"

Maya laughs. "Yeah, the punk bands - you know, Cheap Sex and 7 Seconds?"

"Well, personally I thought that 7 Seconds were rather derivative of the Dils, but Vincent seemed to learn an awful lot about life in their employ. And quite frankly, how often do you find a punk rock band capable of conveying a positive message?" With her jaw practically bouncing off the bar, Jill offers a toast to the Professor, while Maya skulks off to the other end of the bar to serve some thirsty Yankee fans. Vince just shakes his head, smiling, and goes off to collect some glasses.

The couple comes into the Bar shortly before the end of the Yankees' 4-1 victory over the Diamondbacks. When the crowd thins out a little post-game, they find a couple of stools, and she orders Beam & Cokes for both of them. She also pays, and thanks me, while he just smiles and nods. I move on to other customers.

"That guy over there thinks you have a beautiful smile," Diego says to me a little while later, as he drops off some dirty glasses in the sink. I look where he's gesturing, and it's the quiet one with the generous girlfriend.

"He told you to tell me that?" I get propositioned for a threesome every now and then, but nobody's ever tried to do it by getting the barback involved as middleman.

"No, he told her." I look again, and finally I notice they're signing to each other. Diego must have... "overseen" him say it.

"Diego, you know sign language?"

"Yes, my wife was deaf."

"So what else has he said to her about me?"

Diego smiles. "I was trying not to pay too much attention, it's rude to... what's the word? Detras de... eavesdrop, right?"

"You're right," I say, and wander back over to check on their drinks, barely noticing that Diego is shaking his head.

I smile at them for a moment. "Can I get you both another?" I enunciate very carefully, in case he's a lip reader.

"Sure," she says, as he nods. As I pour, he starts signing to her. "My brother says to thank you for bringing your bright smile back over here. This end of the bar was... stormy without you. Stormy?" She signs back to him, and he spells something with one hand. "Gloomy."

"Tell him I said thank you, that's very sweet," I say as I set their fresh drinks in front of them. "It's the nicest compliment anybody in this bar has paid me in a long time."

More signing. "He says he wants -- No, I'm not going to tell her that. No!" They sign furiously for a minute.

"What? I'm dying to know!"

She shakes her head, and turns back to me. "He reminded me that he introduced me to my husband, and then asked me to tell you that he's only in town for a couple of days, and he..." She shakes her head.

"What??" I laugh.

"This is so cheesy I can't even believe I'm saying it. He wants you to be there to wake him in the morning with your natural sunlight." He nods, and makes a gesture with his hands to his heart that goes beyond cheesy, but it works for him. I blush.

"Please tell him that was very forward, but very sweet of him, and that I'm seeing someone."

He nods, and waves me forward. He slurs when he speaks, but I can make it out just fine: "Does he treat you right?"

I picture Gary, and it makes me smile. "He does." I give my would-be suitor a kiss on the cheek, and move on.

It's a few hours later when the man himself comes into the Bar. Done with his newscast and wrapping up afterwards, he's here to walk me home. I check in with Jocelyn, who's on until close, then I cash out and we head for the door.

It was raining earlier, so the roads and sidewalks are shiny and a little slick. About halfway home, we turn onto a cross-town side street. Most of the way down the block, I catch some movement out of the corner of my eye, just before I feel my legs come out from under me and I hit the ground. The wind's been knocked out of me, so I lie there unable to call out Gary's name or cry for help.

One of my contact lenses has come out, too. In the barely haloed darkness, there's movement I can't follow, and shouting. When I finally catch my breath enough to right myself, I watch two or three figures run down the street the way we'd come from. Gary kneels down. "Are you all right?"

"I think so," I wheeze. Then I notice the red splattered on his shirt, and I grab his shoulders and start screaming. "Gary! What happened to you?"

He looks down, and then back at me. "It's not my blood." I'm still in hysterics, so he shakes me a little. "Debra! It's not my blood."

Gary lifts me up off the sidewalk, and slowly walks me to the next avenue, where he flags down a cab so we can go home and he can get us cleaned up.

EDIT: We're okay... just shaken up.

It's a warm Thursday night, and I'm double-shifting again, with Jocelyn until 10, then Simone until close. This should be my last double for a while unless I'm needed to fill a shift in an emergency, which is just as well, as I've been finding them truly exhausting. I never seem to get home with twice as much in tips as I would in a normal six, or even one and a half times as much as in a normal eight, and I blame my waning enthusiasm at the end of the night. On the other hand, there's an unwritten rule that if someone works a double, the other barmaid(s) on at close have to clean and close - I'll get to go straight home tonight.

A little after eight, Jocelyn comes down the bar to where I'm drawing a few pints of beer, and gestures for me to lean down. "Do we have any Manischewitz?" she asks loudly enough for me to hear, but as quietly as she can manage. [EDIT: It's pronounced "man-uh-SHEV-itz"]

"Are you kidding me? Somebody actually came in here and ordered Manischewitz?"

She points to the guy. "Debra, he didn't just order Manischewitz, he ordered Manischewitz and milk!"

"What?! Manischewitz is disgusting enough, why would you add milk to it?"

"I know! But I thought that, you know, if anybody knew where we might keep a spare bottle of kosher wine..."

I smile. "Yeah, yeah... let me just check something with the guy, then I'll probably send you to the store."

I walk over to the customer in question, a middle-aged man in a suit in a group of four, all of whom practically scream "police detective" in their bearing. "Sir, my colleague just told me your drink order, and I wanted to ask if there was a particular flavor you wanted."

"Flavor?" He looks confused.

"Yes, sir - most people are familiar with the concord grape, but there's also blackberry, cherry, malaga... I've seen a few others, but I can't remember what they are. I'll have to send Jocelyn to the store either way; we don't stock kosher wine, since we don't get much call for it."

"Kosher wine? Young lady, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry - didn't you order Manischewitz and milk?" His jaw drops, and his three friends burst out laughing.

"Chivas and milk, young lady - Chivas, the whiskey. The milk is so it doesn't upset my stomach."

I can't stop grinning. "I'm really very sorry, sir - sometimes the noise in the bar makes it harder to understand. I'll explain to Jocelyn." Which I do, still grinning, and she blushes.

"Oh, God, I can't believe I thought... shit, Debra, just kill me now, I can't face him!"

"Don't worry about it; if that's the stupidest thing you do all night you're doing just fine." She goes to serve him and apologize, and he seems to take the minor absurdity in stride.

Simone comes in at about 9:45 to get ready for her shift. When Jocelyn cashes out at ten, Simone hands her a black binder, and she heads for the back room.

"You want to see it when she's done?" Simone asks me.

"What is it?"

"It's the contact sheets and a bunch of samples from my shoot with John. I think they came out really well."

"You're letting people see pictures of you naked?"

"Yeah! They're going to be in a magazine anyway, this way you just get to see them for free."

"And you don't feel weird about it?"

"I feel fantastic about it! Debra, don't you enjoy when guys look at you with desire?"

And girls, too, I think silently. "Sometimes, when it's not so obvious and desperate it scares me. But I'm okay with them doing it while I have my clothes on."

"Sure, in public! But I feel like my body is a work of art, and in all modesty, I think it's a much finer work of art than the clothes I put on over it. And let me tell you, Debra, your body's a masterpiece."

Now it's my turn to blush. "You're just saying that because John still wants me to pose for him."

She grins. "Maybe. And maybe I'd get a bonus, maybe not."

Jocelyn comes back out, and hands Simone the portfolio. "Simone, these are fantastic! I'm so jealous... I really wish I had the guts."

"Thanks! You do have the guts, you're just choosing other priorities, don't worry about it." She holds the portfolio out to me, but I wave her off, and she stashes it below the bar. "Don't let me forget that later," she grins.

I go serve my friend on the job his fifth Chivas and milk, and his friends their refills as well, and ask if they need anything else. I see one of them looking me over, as if appraising me. It's the three millionth time a customer has looked at me like that, but the first time I've ever pictured myself naked, in a large, gilt frame, mounted on the wall, as he does the appraising. I think to myself: This is what she likes about it?

Saturday evening I'm working a double, to help make up for the time I spent away for Jessica's wedding the previous weekend. It's too early in the season for people to be out at the Hamptons, the Yankees are playing their cross-town rivals the Mets in iffy weather, and the Bar is very crowded with fans of both teams, though mostly of the Yankees. Jocelyn is on with me until midnight, and Maya will join us at eight.

A small group of Mets fans arrived early to stake out some stools at the bar, all of which are usually taken up by Yankees fans. One of them is drinking Glenlivet, and when I stop by to ask if he's ready for a refill, he asks me to recommend other good single malts. I quickly launch into my usual "peaty vs. smoky" spiel, pointing out some of the other options we have on the shelf, but when I'm done, he asks, "What's that one in the middle, in the back row?"

I look, and smile when I see the silver bottle. "That's Eddie."

"Eddie's not a single malt Scotch, is he?"

"No, Eddie's the brother of one of the owners."

"The owner keeps his brother's ashes in the bar?"

"Her brother's ashes, and yes, that was Eddie's wish. Some of his ashes here, some in Yankee Stadium."

"The Yankees let people do that?"

"The way I hear it, they actually don't. But Lanie managed to bring them in anyway, and scattered them on the Yankees' dugout during warm-ups."

"So is he there because he was a Scotch fan or something?"

"No, he doesn't stay in one place. Lanie says he was like that when he was alive, too - he'd sit in a different place in the Bar every night. I've never seen anybody move him, but one night he's next to the beer taps, the next, there he is among the Schnapps. Um, Schnappses?"

"Now you're just yanking my chain because I'm a Mets fan."

I smile, and pour him half a finger of Lagavulin. "Give this a try. If you like it, you can pay me for a full one." He thanks me and tosses a couple of singles on the bar for me. As I turn back from the Scotches, I see Gary making his way through the crowd, and I tense up. I've been back for six days and he still hasn't called - and as tempting as it's been to call him myself, he said he would call me, and that's the one time I think it's not unreasonable to expect someone to be the caller and not the callee. But he came into Manhattan on a night he's not working, so the least I can do is listen to what he has to say. After checking with Jocelyn that it's okay, I step out from behind the bar and take him to the back room.

When we emerge ten minutes later, I've made a promise not to blog about what we talked about, but I'm smiling - partly because I'm happy that he came down here to see me, partly because of what he said to me and how it made me feel about him, and partly because I think it's funny that it seems like the back room at the Bar is becoming something of a no-blog zone. I give him my apartment key so that he can go wait for me there, and he gives me a big kiss. Then he's gone.

By the time Maya comes in, the Yankees have mounted a respectable rally to within one run, but it's not enough, and the Mets score a couple more runs to take their second win in the first two games of the three-game series. That's going to stick in a lot of people's craws. But the Mets fan drinking Scotch is gracious about it, as are his friends, and they stick around for a while afterwards.

"How did Eddie die?" he asks after a few more fingers of Lagavulin.

"September 11," I reply. "He was a firefighter."

"And they recovered some of his remains?"

"One of the few."

The Mets fan repeats the story to his friends, then he orders another round for all of them and one for me. In the middle of a noisy, crowded bar, the four of them take off their hats, raise their glasses toward Eddie, and observe a moment of silence.

Friday I'm on an earlier shift than usual to accomodate some other girls' schedules, and I regret it even before I set foot inside the Bar. It's another beautiful day, the third or fourth in a row, and there's still a few more hours of sunlight left when I arrive for work. I wait outside until the last possible moment, just a few minutes before four o'clock, even though I know Pat, Kira, and Vince are already inside and getting things ready for opening, and I should really be helping them.

After I get inside and my eyes adjust to the dark for a few moments, I see Pat on the phone, and Vince checking the top shelf and the well for bottle levels, but no Kira. Pat hangs up. "No answer on her cell, either. Well, she's not quite late yet, just getting there."

"Maybe she's just on the subway and isn't getting the call," Vince offers.

Pat says, "Yeah, probably. Hey, Debra, thanks again for coming in on first shift." She heads for the back room with some paperwork, and I flip the front door's sign to "Open" before I head behind the bar to sign in on the register.

I smack Vince on the ass as I pass by. "Hey, superhero, you haven't left the toilet seat up in weeks, are you feeling okay?" He's been dating my roommate Jill for several months now, so I see almost as much of him at home as I do at work.

"Yeah, I got so tired of the three of you complaining about it, I just started leaving it down when I pee. Nothing to forget that way. That's okay, right?"

"You're joking. Vince, please tell me you're joking!" He grins, grabs a bar rag, and heads out from behind the bar to wipe down some tables. The first couple of customers wander in, so I get my game face on, and start serving.

It's nearly 4:30 when Kira finally hustles through the door. It hasn't been a problem for me, since the weather is so gorgeous. Even on a Friday, and even on the eve of Cinco de Mayo, people are staying away in droves, so I've barely felt like I'm working, much less extra busy for lack of help. But she feels bad anyway. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Debra, I'll totally make it up to you!"

"Don't sweat it, Kira, it's been pretty slow. Are you okay?"

"What's the story, princess?" asks Pat from behind her.

"I'm really sorry, Pat, I got held up at the doctor's office. I had already waited for a couple of hours, so I didn't want to give up my place in line, and then they made me wait in the exam room forever. I couldn't do anything about it. I ran over here as soon as I was done."

"Okay, just try not to let it happen again, all right? Make sure your hours are right for the week." Pat returns to the back room.

Kira grabs me by the shoulders. "I'm pregnant!"

"What? Kira, that's wonderful, congratulations!"

"Thank you! I'm so excited."

"You and your husband have been trying for a while, right? I'm sorry, I can't remember his name."

"Neil. Yeah, close to a year, now. I mean, I was able to take some night classes last year that I probably wouldn't have if we'd gotten pregnant earlier, but I'm just so excited I can barely stand still! I barely had time to call Neil on my way over here, but he sounded pretty relieved. There'll be a celebration tonight, baby, count on it!" I smile as she twirls around a few times, signs into the register, and pours herself a ginger ale.

The crowd grows pretty quickly after five o'clock, though still nothing like what I'd expect. Bill, our bouncer, settles in at the door at about six, and things continue to pick up. By nine, the place is packed with Mexicans and other Latinos, and it's a full-on party. I get a kick out of a lot of the toasts they make while drinking to the Mexican victory over the French at Pueblo Puebla nearly a hundred-fifty years ago, but my favorite of the night is "¡A los monos de entrega!" which I'm told means "To the surrender monkeys!"

The revelry is in overdrive by the time Jocelyn arrives at ten, and things are even more crazy when Simone relieves me at midnight. I head home with a bulging pocketful of tips, but not without lingering outside some other bars just to get a glimpse and a whiff of the celebrations. It's a gorgeous night, and tomorrow will be just as beautiful - and, I'm sure, just as crazy if not more so. Gary is out of town with friends for the weekend, so when I get home, I just throw on my pajamas, watch a movie, and go to bed.

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.

I awaken slowly, from half-remembered dreams of performing onstage in a Broadway musical about barmaids in the big city, the last few oddly dissonant notes ringing in my brain. Before it disappears forever, I get the sense that the song was about bad tippers, and I grin. Then I remember what happened last night, and I pull myself out of bed and into my alpaca-lined slippers.

There he still is, sleeping on our giant, L-shaped leather couch, under a spare comforter.

We talked quietly almost until dawn, taking care not to wake my roommates, and then I insisted he crash here instead of dragging himself home to Park Slope at that hour. He was the perfect gentleman. Even when I came back out of my room in my pajamas to say goodnight, he just sort of waved from the couch, and I began to wonder if he had really, literally just wanted to make sure I got home okay. But then he probably wouldn't have stuck around to talk for so long.

I pad my way into the kitchen, pour out the last of the coffee that either Cassie or Jill made for the two of them, and start another pot brewing. I stick my head in the fridge to see if there's anything there I can make for breakfast, but there aren't even any leftover bagels in the freezer from Sunday's brunch. Then I realize I'm presuming he'll stick around for breakfast in the first place, when it's entirely possible he has to get home and get ready for another day at work.

Soon the coffee is done. I grab a couple of mugs, and pour myself one. I'm inhaling the aroma deeply when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn around, and Gary's standing there. "Smells good," he says. I reach the mug out to him, and he takes it, but then sets it right down on the counter, steps forward, and kisses me. It's a sweet little kiss.

"Good morning," I smile.

"Did I mention how great your accent is?"

I laugh. "My accent?"

"Good MORE-ning," he spoofs, drawing out the R that he would never pronounce himself, and I kiss him again.

"Can you stick around for breakfast, or lunch?"

"Wish I could. I've got the rundown on Thursdays, and it wouldn't do for me to be late for my own meeting or show up in the same gear as yesterday."

"No, it wouldn't."

He kisses me, a little longer this time. "Can I make it up to you this weekend, then? Maybe Saturday night?"

"I can't, I'm working at the Bar."

"Right, lunch on Saturday, then?"

"Absolutely."

"I'll pick you up at one." He puts his arms around me, draws me in, and kisses me like he means it.

When he lets go, I say, "Explain to me again why you're leaving?"

"Because I'm a stupid, stupid man."

Nevertheless, a minute later, he's gone, and I sit down with my coffee to catch my breath.

Friday night I'm on with Jocelyn and Maya, with Vince barbacking. When I arrive at eight, Samantha and Will are standing at the bar. Before I get a chance to ask about their travels or offer my condolences to Samantha on Ohio State's loss, or even for that matter get to the back room to drop off my bag, Samantha steps into my path.

"Tell me it's true! You really took a boy home with you Wednesday night?"

I glance at Maya, and wonder whether she waited until today, or called Samantha the minute Gary got into the cab with me two nights ago. "It wasn't like that."

"Which part - a boy, home with you, or Wednesday night?" She's got me, and I grin. "Oh, Maya," she cries, a hand over her heart, "our little girl is growing up!"

I manage to get through the early part of my shift without them pestering me too much for details, but the teasing doesn't stop. I'm beginning to remember some of the pretty good reasons I try not to go too far in responding to guys' advances here at the Bar. First off, there's no privacy - and second, nobody ever lets the truth get in the way of a good story.

"So Debra," Jocelyn says at one point, "when you're with a guy who produces a newscast, is there a little scroll that runs across his chest that says, 'BREAKING NEWS: I'm about to come'?" I smile and keep mixing martinis.

"What I want to know is," Vince joins in, "does a guy from the southern hemisphere go down on you in a counter-clockwise direction?" Not everybody gets it, but I laugh and blush at the image.

I don't even bother protesting that nothing happened, because I know - as much from having been on the other end of the teasing, as anything else - that it won't help a damn bit. "Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than the arguments of its opposers," William Penn said, but I assume he wasn't talking picking up guys at his tavern. As with most other things in my life, I know the truth, and that's all that matters.

Later on, Former B-List Actor comes in with a couple of friends, and they manage to squeeze in at the bar. It's the first time I've seen him in here since Warren and I broke up a few months ago, and I guess I'd started to think he was staying away out of loyalty. After I serve their drinks, he and I make a little small-talk, nothing too serious that would reveal how either of us feels about the break-up. We're still chatting about his kids when Samantha comes over with a fresh Long Island Iced Tea.

"So Debra, how was this guy? Are you gonna do him again? I mean, see him again?" I glare at her, with FBA throwing looks back and forth between her and me. She finally looks at him, and points. "Hey, I recognize you from TV! You're that actor guy. Wait, hold on, didn't Maya say you were friends with --" Her voice and her hand gestures trail off at the same moment, but it's still another good ten seconds before I think she's actually gotten it. She looks back at me, and takes a long sip of her drink. Finally she says, "Wow, that could have been really awkward," turns, and walks to the other end of the bar where Maya is serving.

"I'm sorry," I say to FBA, almost as if he's Warren - who will, undoubtedly, hear about this later.

FBA shrugs. "Life goes on. And it's none of my business."

"You're always welcome here, you know that, right?" He nods. "And so is Warren."

"I'll let him know you said so." I blow him a kiss and move on to serve other customers.

It's Saturday night, and all is right with the world, because I'm tending bar.

It's good to be back, at least so far. After the events of the last couple of weeks, I can't help feeling a little bit like I'm waiting for another shoe to drop, but there's comfort in the familiar. The clink of bottle against glass, the splash of tap overflow onto rubber floor mats, the drink orders shouted out amid white noise, the pickup lines and the return volleys, the sweat on the small of my back, the dodge and bump with Jocelyn and Kira and Vince - it all feels like home.

It's a good Saturday night, probably because the weather has improved; highs have been in the low teens here in New York for the last week, but now we're back into the far more reasonable territory of thirties and forties, with some forecasts of fifties and even sixties for early next week. The crowd is deep and demanding, and Jocelyn and Kira and I are hard at work. But right now all I want to do is get through my shift, get home, and get some sleep, so that tomorrow I can enjoy myself having brunch and playing poker with my friends and roommates, and maybe get some more work done on my novel.

The novel is starting to take on a life of its own, which I've never really experienced before, but it's a wonderful feeling. One of the movies I watched while I was on walkabout from my job the last couple of weeks was "Stranger Than Fiction," which was surprisingly deep and charming for a Will Ferrell movie. Emma Thompson plays a novelist with writer's block - and when she finally realizes what has to happen next to her protagonist, she comments to her assistant (Queen Latifah) that "like anything worth writing, it came inexplicably and without method."

This is a fairly apt description of what's now happening to the narrator of my novel, who's based on my mother. As long as I tried to restrict her actions and even her thoughts to what I knew about my actual mother when she left in 1994,