Chapter 11

After John left for class, Katie got out of bed, cleaned up the room, took her shower, dressed, and drove north to her mom's house. When she got there the house was empty and her mom was already at work. She changed into her Shannon Rose work tee-shirt, the green one which was a little tighter than she normally wore, and drove across town arriving there a little before the lunch crowd.

"Katie, it's good to see you again," said Tim O'Shea the majority owner of the tavern. "Like I promised you last time, you're going to work the bar this summer. I'm going to teach you all about the business. You won't be able to tend bar until next year when you turn 21, but I show you what you'll need to know."

Tim gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "I swear, every time I see you you're a little bigger and a little more solid than you were before; maybe I should hire you as a bouncer instead of a waitress. And what's this?"

He held her left hand and smiled.

"You got married? I assume the lucky guy is that John you were telling me about. Congratulations, my dear. There are going to be a lot of broken hearts sitting at this bar when they spot that ring on your finger."

Over the next two and a half months, Katie learned the bar business from the inside. She waited on the patrons that sat at the bar and ate their lunch, and on the half dozen tables around the perimeter of the bar room. When the lunch crowd thinned out, Tim showed her how to make the standard drinks that made up about ninety-five percent of the bar sales. It was pretty simple really. Most of the guys drank beers and/or shots; the women mostly drank wine or beer. Then there were the more exotic drinks. Because they were in Arizona, margaritas were fairly popular, as well as martinis for the business men and women.

But her real education came between three and four, when the bar was almost empty and Tim would tell her how he ran his business.

"Katie, the most important lesson that I can teach you is this; never, ever cheat a customer. There's plenty of markup in the liquor, wine, and beer sales; you always want a customer to feel like he's getting his money's worth. The next thing you have to remember is that this is a cash business. Less now than in the good old days, but there is still plenty of cash that goes across the bar every day. Cash is hard to ignore, especially for those who really need it. That's why I have those security cameras in the ceiling over the bar and the dining room. Everyone assumes that it's for watching the patrons, and that's true in a way, but the real purpose is to keep my employees and my partners honest. In the back of their minds they know that Tim is always watching. There's only one person that pockets any cash around here and that's me. I take care of my partners but I keep control of the amount of cash that never hits the register. You can't be a pig in this business. The tax people can get access to your alcohol purchase records, and with that they have a pretty good idea what your sales volume should be. If you're a pig and take too much, you end up in the slaughterhouse. I keep two sets of books: one for the tax people to see, the other stays in my head. I know how many sales dollars were never recorded and can calculate my real gross profit at almost any time. That's the way I can tell if my employees are stealing or being careless, either way it costs me money."

Katie stored these pearls of wisdom away. They would be just as valuable to her as her formal education, maybe more so.

The summer went by quickly; it wasn't all work for Katie. She would meet Joan later in the evening after her shift; they would push each other hard and had a real competition between them to see who was the stronger of the two. Katie usually won, but Joan was never far behind.

Her strength provided a break from the daily grind of her job. Whenever Tim ran short of clean glasses, he would ask Katie to get a clean rack. The patrons, especially the men, would notice the bulges of her arms as she carried thirty or more beer mugs out from the kitchen or when they need a couple of cases of beer for the bar, Katie would bring them up from the cellar in one trip.

One day a couple of the regulars were watching as she brought up two cases of beer. One guy commented rather loudly that he didn't think she was very strong. Tim overheard the two arguing and asked them if they wanted to find out how strong she really was.

He put a ten-spot down on the bar and said, "Show me the color of your money; put up or shut up. For each bet placed I'll match it. I propose a little arm wrestling contest; winner takes all."

He walked over to Katie and whispered, "Take it easy on him; make it look close. I don't want to scare them off; this could be good money for the both of us."

When Katie and Tim walked back to the other side of the bar, there were ten ten-dollar bills lined up on the bar and a guy about thirty-five years old had his arm on the bar waiting for her. Katie smiled at him and placed her arm on the bar, trying to make her arm look smaller than his.