and loves poker and golf and clamming out on Coatue. If there’s a problem with George, it’s that he knows too many people, some of them famous (Jimmy Buffett), and customers throw his name around like it’s currency to get a better table or any table at all—but that’s Nikki’s problem, not Carson’s. Carson has no complaints about George.
“What are you on?” George asks.
“Excuse me?”
“What are you on?” George says. His expression is inquisitive rather than angry. “You just lost your mom in a tragic accident, Carson. You know what? My sixteen-year-old sister was killed by a drunk driver when I was in college, so I get it, I’ve been there. And because of that, I want to know what you’re taking because there’s no way you can come back two weeks later to do a job that requires breakneck speed, laser focus, the patience of Mother Teresa, and a sense of humor without some kind of chemical help. Tell me the truth, please.”
Tell him the truth?
Carson wakes up every day around noon, brushes her teeth, then pours Kahlua into her coffee or drinks a screwdriver. For lunch, she smokes some weed or eats a magic cookie. Before work, she drinks three shots of espresso and snorts some cocaine. Sometimes that’s too much, she can feel her heartbeat in her throat and her temples and her ass cheeks, so she tempers the high with a Valium. Some days—most days—she hits productive equilibrium. She comes to work and knocks down the crowd like she’s John Dillinger with a machine gun. During work, there’s more espresso and a bump or two in the ladies’ room. After work, the serious drinking begins—a couple of cocktails first, shots, then beer. Then weed and an Ativan or a Valium to fall asleep.
“I’m not on anything,” she says. She’s surprised by how convincing she sounds. “I mean, I smoke a little weed on my day off and I usually grab a drink after work…”
“But no oxy, no pills, no smack?” George says.
“No!” Carson says, sounding affronted, feeling affronted. “Oxy? Smack? Do I seem like a junkie to you, George, really?”
George takes a visible breath. He’s a lot grayer now than he was when Carson started here three years ago, but Carson likes the gray. Zach has some gray at his temples, and she finds it very sexy. “I’ve been in this business thirty-eight years, so I have to ask. One drop, fine, accident. Two drops and I begin to think there’s a problem.”
“I had a bad night,” Carson says. “That’s allowed, isn’t it?” She thinks back over her previous summers working at the Oystercatcher. “What about when Gunner reached across the bar and jacked that guy up because of something he thought he heard? At least I didn’t assault a customer.”
“You’re right. Gunner had a temper, which was a liability I chose to ignore because he was a big draw—handsome, charming, never forgot a drink—and because he made us so much money.” George points. “You, Carson Quinboro, have the potential to be even better at this job than Gunner was.”
Carson reels back a little. This is high, and unexpected, praise. Gunner—Greg Gunn—is a living legend. He tended bar at the Oystercatcher for four years until he was “discovered” by one of their hotshot customers, who offered Gunner a job on Wall Street.
“I don’t know what to say. Thank you?”
“You’re gorgeous, and I say that with all due respect, and no, I’m not hitting on you. You’re a little cold, a bit indifferent, you’re witty and quick but not flippant, you’re tough on the barbacks, and you should be, they need to shape up. I heard about the card to Lemon Press for Jaime. That was a strategic move.”
Carson smiles in spite of herself. “I’ve been where they are,” she says. “I know how to manage them.”
“More than one person on the staff has come to me saying they think you’re doing drugs in the bathroom,” George says. “You display a marked change in temperament when you return, they tell me.”
“Because I’ve relieved my aching bladder and gotten off my feet for thirty seconds.”
“If I find out it’s true or if you have another remarkably bad night like you did tonight?” Greg points a finger-gun at her. “You’re fired. Consider this your warning.”
Carson walks through the dark parking lot to her mother’s Jeep. She’s so chastened that she skips her usual post-shift Corona but not so chastened that she doesn’t do a bump once she’s safely in