Carson washes her hands and checks her reflection in the mirror. Her green eyes flash wickedly; that’s from the blow. Her cheeks have color. She looks better, she feels better, she can do this. She goes back to work.
“Mount Gay and tonic, strong, please, bruh.” This is from a young guy in the corner seat.
Carson rolls her eyes. “All my drinks are strong.”
“That was a joke,” the guy says. “Because of…last week? At your—” He stops suddenly. “Never mind. Mount Gay and tonic, regular strength is fine.”
Carson narrows her eyes at him. He’s cute if you like golfers and preppies. His golden-blond hair is a little long in the back and curls up under his baseball cap—DUCKS, the cap says on the front—and he has a strong chin, which Carson likes. What does he mean, “last week”？
She makes him a drink using a little more rum than she might normally, and when she sets the glass down, it dawns on her that she has gone only one place. “The Field and Oar?”
“Yes,” he says. “I’m Marshall. I bartend there? I’m really sorry about your mom.”
Carson isn’t sure how to react. She didn’t anticipate being faced with anyone here who knew about her mom. Her customers are primarily tourists—day-trippers, hotel guests, Airbnb dwellers, renters, summer residents. The locals stopped coming once the two-hour wait for a table started a few weeks ago.
Carson decides to smile through her agonizing pain. Her mother is dead. How can she be standing here? “Thank you,” she says. “I appreciate it.”
Marshall takes a sip of his Mount Gay, then asks for a menu.
“Are you waiting for someone?” Carson asks. He looks up at her with an expression that is both alarmed and embarrassed and she feels like a jerk for asking.
She reaches into her bag under the bar and pulls out her phone. Nothing for nearly a week and now there are two texts from him. She clicks on her camera and turns around to snap a selfie with Marshall. He grins and the picture is cute so she posts it to her Instagram with the caption
Taking care of Marshall from the #fieldandoarclub on his night off!
A dozen Island Creeks, four Bud Lights, two dirty martinis, and then three tables’ orders come into the service bar and Carson regrets taking the thirty seconds to post because now she’s in the weeds.
When she finally pops her head above water, Marshall says he wants to order dinner—the fish sando, extra tartar, and fries and coleslaw, and the chowder to start. Carson gives him a second Mount Gay and tonic on the house. She’s hitting the top of her high now; nothing can stop her. She’s moving like lightning, shaking up martinis and cosmos, joking with the couple on the far left side of the bar, pounding some high fives, delivering platters of oysters and clams, extra lemon, extra horseradish, extra crackers.
“You’re on fire,” Marshall says. “Is it always like this?”
“Always,” Carson says, though she’s showing off. She knows what Marshall’s bartending job at the club looks like—it’s making cocktails for Carson’s grandmother and Penny Rosen when they arrive at four thirty for dinner and pulling draft beers for New York investment bankers after they come off the tennis court.
Marshall’s food is up and Carson takes extra care in setting down the plate. “Fish sando, extra tartar, fries, and slaw. What else can I get you?”
“I never saw the chowder,” he says.
“Oh, wait…” Carson checks the slip. She forgot to put in the chowder. How is this possible? “I forgot to put it in. I am so sorry.” She feels like a fraud; she isn’t such a superstar after all. She’s a crummy server.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “This looks great.”
Carson hesitates. “Let me put it in, please. I feel awful.”
“What if you let me buy you a drink when you get off tonight?” he says. “You finish around eleven? We can hit the back bar at Ventuno.”
Carson nearly laughs. He’s asking her out? Marshall from the Field and Oar? Oh, how cute. He’s probably a year or two older than she is but she knows she would eat him alive. DUCKS means the University of Oregon—this comes to Carson out of nowhere. He’s fresh and piney like the Pacific Northwest.
“Let me see how I’m feeling, okay?”
“Whatever works.” Marshall stares down at his plate and Carson can tell he’s stung. He put himself out there and she turned him down and he doesn’t have any other friends, or if he does, they’re all working at the Field and Oar.