Whenever You Call by Anna King Page B

laughed out loud. “Know what you mean,” s/he said.
    “You next,” Al said.
    “I’m Jerusalem, but call me Jelly.”
    Al said, “Jelly, I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but I gotta ask—,”
    Jelly interrupted, “Man to woman.”
    “Cool, cool.” Al’s hands landed on his thighs and did a quick squeeze. Very sexy. “What’s your deal with bar tending?”
    “Gotta make a living, thought it might work for me.”
    “Next.” Al looked at the very, very, very fat man.
    “My name’s Ike,” he whispered. “I figured this would be a good way to lose some weight, you know, because bartenders are always running up and down, plus I could meet nice people.”
    Finally, my table mates.
    “I’m Cathy, this is my friend Joan. We were working at a daycare center and just got so sick of it, all those whiny kids and dirty diapers and stuff, so we thought that women get good tips, you know, and this would be a lot of fun.”
    Al actually stood up on top of the bar. He was towering over us as he said, “It’s going to be work, work, work. Most of you won’t make it to certification, I may as well tell you right now. That movie with Tom Cruise, Cocktail , gave a lot of people the wrong idea.” Al paced down the bar.
    Cathy said, “Also the movie with the girls on top of the bar like you’re doing right now, where they dance and stuff.” Her face was animated and showed a faint resemblance to that of a human being instead of a hammer.
    “Exactly.” Al strutted a bit.
    My fantasy life for the next week, factoring in both Al and the mysterious stranger, Mr. Rabbitfish, was all set. I could hardly wait to go to bed that night. Maybe Mr. Rabbitfish would be hidden in a closet, for some reason I had yet to figure out, while Al … well … Al would be making love to me. I only vaguely paid attention as Al continued to lecture us about how hard it was to be a bartender.
    “That’s why bartenders get good tips. They friggin’ earn ’em. ”
    I looked at the others and noticed that Jelly was grinning and Ike looked like he was going to pass out. Cathy and Joan had regressed into a terror-stricken state. I felt a little frisson of concern. Maybe I wasn’t physically up to the task.
    “You’ll have to memorize one hundred drink recipes, then you’re timed as you make the drinks. We have very rigorous time standards. If you don’t have the speed, you don’t get the certification.”
    He jumped down from the bar and passed out thick pamphlets. “Test on drinks is tomorrow morning, covering the first 25.”
    I turned the cover page and saw the first drink, called Angry Angel. I decided that I’d make myself an Angry Angel before I got into bed that night.
    Al clapped his hands so that the sound echoed and made an explosive noise in the half-empty room. “Everyone up and behind the bar!” he screamed.
    With scraping chairs, we pushed nervously away from our safe little tables. I was the first behind the bar, Miss Goody Two-Shoes in her dirndl skirt.
    “Okay, spread out so that you’ve got at least two feet of your own space. We start with setting-up.”
    Because I’d been first, I moved all the way down to the end of the bar, with a wall on my left and Jelly on my right. She shot me a quick smile.
    I whispered, “I’m going to be so bad at this.”
    Her adam’s apple bobbed as she swallowed. I couldn’t help wondering whether it would eventually shrink, or what. Since that thought made me feel guilty, I said, “I admire what you’re doing.”
    “Thanks.” One thin white hand reached up and scratched at her scalp. Her hair was making both of us itch.
    “Behind you on the counters is everything you’ll need for a pared down, essential setup,” Al said. “Open your pamphlets and follow the diagram on page three to find what you need and get yourself organized. I’ll be up and down to help out.”
    I turned to page three. A hand-drawn diagram showed the particulars. For a moment, everything