Chapter Text
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Quickly grabbing your bag and your water bottle from the passenger seat, you exit your car and lock the doors before rushing down the stairs of the employee entrance that’s behind the building.
You put your things in your locker, change your shoes, putting on black heels to match the outfit you’ve got on for the night.
The place you work at is sort of a dive bar/club mix. You got the job after highschool because the owner knew a relative of yours, and had you go through some extra training. You’ve been here for a while, as you’re making pretty good money on the weekends while going to university.
The atmosphere is dark and moody, it’s one of the only places in the city like it. You get the odd group of fresh teenagers here and there but they learn pretty quickly it’s not the loud club scenes they’re looking for. You mainly get adults well over their 20’s, the odd young couple on a date sitting in one of the closed off booth areas, goth and alternative looking people, and those here on business.
Or at least that’s what your manager calls it. He’s a small Asian man, but strong and pretty nice. He gives you the shifts you ask for, and splits tips evenly between all the waiters and the DJ (who sits in her own room above the main floor). The whole first floor of the building is nonexistent, giving the main floor of the club a tall roof. Further below are private rooms with their own personal bars, in which the bartenders and waiters will take on both jobs at once to serve whoever rents them. This is where most of the “business” is done, and the rooms are not very cheap. You’re not on call for them though, and have never had to work down there.
When you’ve finished getting ready you walk out of the employee entrance and get started with serving the private booths. They all have a light right above them, facing the outside, that will either be red or green, depending on whether or not they would like to be waited on or left alone. On the far end across from the bar (below the window of the room where the DJ sits) is a dance floor, which illuminates when she’ll begin to play faster music that people can actually dance to. The bar stretches out from the other end of the room, to the middle of the room. Then on the sides of the wall there are two stories of booths, small ones for two, medium ones for four and long ones for bigger parties. To get to the top deck you have to go behind the lower booths through a small hallway and up some stairs. The room is kept open so the waiters can see both stories from anywhere in the large room, and therefore see if the small light above each is red or green. Anyone at the bar will be helped by the numerous bar staff, and some will be called down to the lower levels to serve the private rooms customers.
The staff list is kept pretty large because of the size of the place and because they might need extras on hand in case people buy up the private rooms. You haven’t much experience being alone on serving and mixing drinks but you’ve helped out enough to know the menu by heart, as well as the classics. Only certain employees serve in the private rooms, you don't know why, your manager has never asked if you'd like to, so you never asked. You’ve never even been down there.
You finally see a booth light go green, and offer to check on them while their waiter is in the bathroom. You wrap a belt around your waist (which holds a pen, small notepad and a pay terminal). You begin to walk towards the stairs, and just when you turn the corner you run straight into somebody– they grunt slightly. A tall man wearing a neat dark grey suit holds his hand up around you as you fumble a little, knocked off balance in your heels.
“Oh- I’m so sorry sir–” you apologize swiftly.
His expression doesn't change. Instead he just looks you up and down, “You alright?”.
“Yes, sorry.”. You step aside to let him pass, and he takes a moment before he does, heading towards the bar.
You hurry up the stairs to check on that booth on the upper deck, taking an order for another round of drinks. You hand off their order to a free bartender, and pass the message along to the table's original waiter. You’re about to look back at the rest of the room when you hear your name. You turn around, and it's the manager. He looks rather nervous…
“[Name]-” he gestures for you to follow him. You follow him into the back employees room.
He turns to face you when you get inside and close the door behind you. You’re really hoping you’re not in trouble…
“Would you, take a room downstairs?”.
You pause for a moment- “Do you mean serve downstairs?”.
“Yes.”.
“Aren’t the others here? I’ve never worked behind a bar on my own before.”.
He nods, “I tried to tell him-”,
“Him?”.
“Yes, a guest has requested you— I know you-”,
“Hey— it’s fine, I think I can manage.”.
He looks only slightly relieved. “You’ll be able to keep all the tips you make!”.
You’re still confused as to why he’s being so strange about this? He takes you downstairs through an employee entrance, and you come out of the stairwell into a few hallways, black doors into what you imagine, based on the limited hallways space, are large rooms. He brings you to a door labelled 3.
“Behind the door is a small bar, but you’ll have everything you’ll need there. Then the private lounge. If they come up to the bar, make them whatever they want, if they ask you to bring them something, bring it to them. Just- try to read body language, they might not be… the politest customers. Any cash they give you is a tip. They will pay their tab afterwards. Just keep track of each order on the small tablet that’s in there, when you hit ‘complete order' it'll send the tab to the bar upstairs. I will take care of it.”.
You just nod along… be polite no matter what, just give them whatever they ask for (this probably means you won’t be worrying if they’re drunk or not, if they want more you’ll just have to give them more).
“There’s a help button underneath the bar counter. The help will send me an alert and I will come, and if you need to remove yourself do so.”.
The more he talks the more you don’t want to go in there. You simply nod again.
“Ah, ok…”. He steps aside and walks past you. “We had better not keep them waiting.”.
He leaves back to the way you came, and your head the door to that staircase up being opened and shut.
You take a few deep breaths before going inside. Like he said, the door comes out right behind a small bar, shelves of liquor on both sides of the door. Over the counter you see a rounded leather couch centered around a glass table. An ashtray in the center.
The only other door on the other side of the room opens, and a few people start filling in, but you only recognize the one— that man from earlier. He must have asked for you to wait on them.
They sit down and get comfortable, some of them start to smoke, a larger man pulling out what might be the fattest cigar you’ve ever seen. Finally some one acknowledges you, the man from earlier puts his arm onto the back of the couch and looks back at you, “A round of beer please.”.
You nod, and one of the others quickly chimes in, “Whiskey sour.”.
You start on their first round of beer, pouring each in ice cold glasses, and the one whiskey. The night goes on for about an hour and a half, and meanwhile they discuss some sort of purchase, some ominous third party, and get into a small disagreement about someone… You try not to listen too carefully, only waiting until glasses are empty or until they ask for something else to really pay attention or walk out from behind the bar.
They all seem to be in good terms when leaving, and you go over all their orders on the iPad before hitting that complete button. That man stayed behind however, bringing his glass and the other last one to the bar (you’ve been cleaning as you go).
“Sorry about the arguing earlier.” He says coolly.
You take the glasses and put them in the sink beside you, “Oh no worries. Is there anything else I can get you Mr…?”.
“Please, call me Cecil.” he smiles softly.
“Is there anything else I can get you Cecil?”.
“No, thank you. Your boss will be forwarding me the bill.”. He turns back towards the door, and leaves.
You tidy up the small bar and head out yourself a few minutes after him.
You get up the stairs just to be greeted by your manager looking anxious, and he comes right up to you.
“Come with me.” he says before leading you to the break room off of the employee entrance.
“How did it go? You okay?”.
“Yes? Yeah it was fine. They were a little loud and talked about some pretty odd—”
“No- no don’t tell me. You don’t tell anyone what you heard— that was a private conversation! In fact you never heard anything.”.
You suppose that’s reasonable. What’s the point of having a private room without the privacy?
You put your hands up in front of you, “You got it— I didn’t hear anything.”.
He nods. A moment of silence passes before he walks past you, back out into the main floor, “Good job.”.
You go home a little later that night, insisting on completing your regular shift. You drive home that night just ready to get upstairs into your apartment, wash your face and fall into bed.