The question wasn’t exactly what she could do, but where.
She wasn’t certain a job would fall into her hands that day, but at least she could try.
The first place Riley went was the old ice cream shop. She used to love walking around and getting a free cone from Mrs. Eli. Now, the place was much different than she remembered: the owner was younger, and Riley learned that Mrs. Eli had died a year after she had left.
No luck finding a job there.
The second place was Miss Vicky’s restaurant. Riley remembered they served the best hamburgers in town, along with an amazing chocolate cake. Miss Vicky was still very much alive, but there was practically nothing of the old place she used to know; now it was a Chinese restaurant, due to Vicky’s sudden marriage to Chuan, a Chinese chef.
No luck there, either.
The third place was Mr. Eaton’s Bar. It was unknown to Riley, for when she left, it had been a library. The place looked dark and it gave her a sense of home. It was like a bar Santino used to take her to for date nights, nights when Santino often disappeared with his minions within five minutes. He would return with an innocent grin, and she hadn’t questioned his actions at first, but as time went on, the mystery that was Santino’s life revealed itself.
A round-cheeked, bubbly young woman with big hazel eyes and blonde hair welcomed her with a wide grin, contrasting with the dark environment inside. The smell of alcohol was pungent; if Riley were her old self she would have fled with dizziness, but after years of being around the same smell it felt like it was part of her.
“What can I get you, ma’am?”
Riley was a bit taken aback by the usage of “ma’am” and struggled to regain her focus on the task at hand. “Give me a beer. The best one you’ve got,” she said.
The girl frowned. “Isn’t a bit early for a lady to start drinking? It’s barely ten in the morning.”
“I could tell you exactly the same thing about a bar being open in the middle of a workday.”
The girl shrugged, then turned toward the sea of bottles behind her and handed Riley a beer. “I just work here.”
A loud crash interrupted Riley’s response, and both women turned to see a group of men in the back, laughing loudly as liquid poured from the table. A girl not older than the college-aged one in front of Riley collected the pieces of glass spread on the floor, her bare hands shaking. Once she finished, she crossed toward the bar and dumped the glass before wiping tears away from her rosy cheeks.
“Are you okay?” the girl behind the bar asked.
Peeking over her shoulder, the waitress saw the men still laughing and shook her head. “He grabbed my butt,” she explained with a trembling voice. “The bottle fell from my hands, and when I complained they started to laugh. One of them used the ‘b’ word.”
Riley glanced at the men again. They were all a bit old, probably around fifty, and looked like the type of men who spent every minute of their lives getting drunk on cheap alcohol, playing cards, and telling dirty jokes—the kind of men Riley hated. She had seen too many and knew the type well enough to know they turned to using “bitch” as an insult when they didn’t get what they wanted, no matter how outrageous or asinine their request.
“Who was it?” Riley asked.
The waitress turned and pointed to the one sitting at the corner, wiping the excessive liquor from his lips with the back of his hand.
Riley slowly rose from her seat. The girl stopped her with a grab of her hand, terrified.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ll just have a small chat with him, don’t worry,” Riley replied with a calm voice, disguising the fiery rage inside her chest.
“You can’t mess with them. You don’t know who they are–” the waitress protested.
“They’re just men. Plain and simple.”
“Listen, this is my fault–”
“Never blame yourself for asking for respect. You’re not a toy for them to grab, and if they don’t understand that concept, then I’ll explain it to them,” Riley replied, pulling away from the girl.
Riley walked toward the table with a determined, confident pace, watching as the men all fell silent at her arrival. The air around them expelled alcohol. It was hard to concentrate when her brain—the rational part—screamed to walk away. It wasn’t her business; the waitress could have called the police or defended herself. But Riley obeyed the irrational part that kept telling her to fight for the young, innocent girl’s honor.
“Yes, baby, can we do something for you?” one man slurred while the other four waited, as if she was going to be receptive to his lame line.
“Hi, there seemed to be a tiny bit of a problem with my friend at the bar, and I thought that, of course, an apology would be a good place to start,” Riley said with the calmest, politest voice she could muster. She waited for their reaction, and if she guessed correctly, it would be the wrong one.
“Yeah, there was a problem. That bitch over there didn’t want to serve us right. We’re paying to be treated like we want, right, boys?”
Riley didn’t falter. “Didn’t she give you the correct drinks? Was it another beverage that you wanted?”
“No, no, we’re cool.” The man eyed Riley from head-to-toe in a way that made her skin crawl. He looked like a dog in front of a piece of meat. “We just wanted some sugar. You know what I mean, darling?”
Exactly as Riley predicted, his big hand grabbed her left butt cheek and squeezed it so hard, it sent Riley forward against the table. His friends laughed, just as they had with the
