The bar owner looked to be pushing sixty hard, if he wasn’t dragging it already. He still had a full head of hair, but it had gone more salt than pepper, and the years had etched lines into his face like the veins in marble, heavy and dark. He held my application in his hand, but dismissed it with a cursory glance and turned instead to the gold paper I’d slipped in behind it. His bushy eyebrows raised as he worked to get the paper under his brown-framed bifocals in a good spot for reading, and I shifted uneasily on my seat.
“Resume, huh?” he said. “I don’t get too many of those in here.”
I looked around and didn’t doubt it. The place was small enough that he probably only had one bartender working at a time. If he worked the bar himself, as he was now, he wouldn’t have the occasion to hire bartenders very often. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well,” I said, “I try to be professional.”
He nodded without taking his eyes from the paper. “Nothing wrong with that.”
I sipped the soda he’d given me when I came in and glanced around the room while he read my resume. It wasn’t much of a tavern. A simple bar of dark wood with a regular brass rail ran along the back of the small space, with an office and storage rooms in the back on the right and rest rooms on the left. We sat at a table on the office side of the room. Perhaps half a dozen other tables filled the small space over to where a pinball machine and dart board stood over on the restroom side. The mirrored backbar made the room seem at least a little larger. From my seat, I could see in the mirror the reflection of the top of the juke box, which was actually back behind me by the entry door.
He finished with my resume, put it down on the table and looked me up and down. “You’re younger than the bartenders usually come in here. What makes you want to work in a quiet place like this?”
“Well, I’m not sure,” I said. In truth, I wasn’t sure at all that I did want to work there. True, this was about the closest bar to my new apartment, and true, it seemed to be a simple, quiet place. But what I found myself craving was some excitement–and, frankly, the attention of young women. I couldn’t imagine either springing from a place like this. So, what was I doing here? I inhaled deeply and opted for the truth. “To be honest,” I said, “I’ve been applying at the big clubs and the popular chains, but I haven’t had any luck.”
This brought a smile from the bar owner. “Yeah, they can be tough to get into,” he said, “unless you happen to be an attractive young woman.”
“Yeah,” I said. I was tempted to leave it at that, but the silence grew between us, and it felt like my turn to say something. “To be honest, sir,” I said. “This feels like the right place to me.”
He cocked his head at me. “The right place, for you?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, nodding. “It’s only a mile from my apartment. This would be my first bartending job, and no offense, but I think I could handle the pace of this place. And I think right now a nice, quiet place would be good for me.”
He nodded and inhaled deeply, looking down at my papers again, thinking.
“Plus,” I said, “you’ve had your ad in the paper the whole time I’ve been looking for a job. It was the first one I circled. I’ve been trying to get a job at one of those exciting places, but they don’t feel right. It kind of seems like I’m supposed to work here.” I paused and looked around again at the room. “It almost feels like destiny.”
This startled him visibly. “Destiny, huh?” He gave me a smile, more warm than patronizing, but a little of both. “You believe in that?”
I frowned to myself, considering the question and wondering why I felt the need to answer truthfully. My expression softened slowly, and I noticed I was nodding. “Yes, sir. I think I do.”
His smile had turned wry. “Well, can you start tonight?”
I looked up at his bemused expression. “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “We can’t stand in the way of destiny, now, can we?”
I was smiling now, too. “No, sir,” I said. Inside I could suddenly feel a warmth and joy I could barely contain. “No, sir. I don’t think we can.”
