Post by Melissa Gold on Jan 22, 2008 1:48:44 GMT -5
The snow crunched under Mimi’s boots[/u] as she crossed the half-empty parking lot, making her path slippery and wet. The weather was cold against her legs, with nothing more then the protection of her tights to shield them from the icy winds, and she quickened her step in an effort to shorten the walk from the subway station to the bar she called home. She reached into her pocket, punching the button on her ipod in an effort to find a song more suited to her quick brisk walking style then the piano concerto that had been afternoon choice.
She was late to work. This wasn’t a new occurrence, or even one she was slightly bothered about. She was always late to work. Only a few weeks before she’d been told by her boss that in the four years she’d been working at the bar, she’d never managed to come in less then half an hour late. Her usual average was an hour and ten minutes. Most of the waitresses would be bothered by this slander against their character and work ethic, but Mimi went largely unbothered. She had simply given a short acceptance speech, thanking the New York subway system, her faulty alarm clock, the slow barrister at Mocha Joe’s, and her general inattention to detail for helping her in archiving this award, and promising to do her best to make sure that the record continued to be unbroken in hopes of one day achiving the all important “ten years without showing up on time” mile stone.
Her boss had been less then amused. But, luckily for Mimi, she was good at her job and well liked among the bar’s regulars, so she hadn’t been fired. She spent a few weeks working the “noon to 6 on week days” shifts, which were typically known for few customers and poor tips and which were typically given to the waitresses who were new, being punished, or just plain bad. But Mimi, thankfully, was too good at her job to languish in “noon-to-six hell”, so after a few weeks she was rescheduled back to her regular hours with one noticeable difference, she was now scheduled to start one hour earlier then she previously was.
Which is why she was currently an hour and forty-five minutes late.
Tossing her cigarette aside, she left it to burn out in the snow without stepping on it, and hurried up the steps to the bar. Pushing open the door to the bar, she let in a huge gust of wind that rattled around through the bar and dropped the temperature three degrees. Even though she shut the door as quickly as she could, leaving it open only long enough and wide enough for her slender body to slide in, she still earned a “close the door!” from the nearest table.
“Bite me.” She returned cheerfully, pulling the earbuds out of her ear and punching the off button to cancel the music, which was currently so loud that the base line could be heard several tables away. Rolling the earbuds up into a neat band around one hand, she tucked them in one pocket.
“Mimi, you’re late.” Loomis called from his usual position behind the bar, glaring at her with his one good eye. He was a large man, who Mimi always said reminded her of John Goodman, only older and with an eye patch and four extra arms. She swore up and down he was a sort of green tinge, especially around the eyes, but she had yet to find a customer who agreed with her on it. He’d been the bartender at Harry’s probably longer then she’d been alive and had taken on a role with her that might be considered fatherly, or uncle-ly rather. Maybe neighborly. A bit like the ex-boyfriend of your mother who was around a lot when you were in junior high but took off before you hit high school, but you still see him hanging around sometimes and he asks you how your mom is, let’s you pinch a few cigarettes, and see you around.
“Loomy, you’re ugly.” She retorted as she approached the bar, pulling off her purple mittens and tossed them onto the bar. (They were purple and appeared to have been made by a six year old with a glitter fettish). Putting her hands on the front of the bar she pushed herself up so she was leaning over it, her feet dangling off the end, and planted a large wet kiss on the bartender’s cheak. “But I love you anyway.”
“Dumb brat.” Loomis said gruffly, looking back to his work as Mimi dropped back to the ground, looking utterly pleased with herself. “What happened to your face?”
He was referring to the slight shadow of darkness under her right eye, barely visable under the thick make-up and purple, sparkling eyeshadow she was wearing. Reaching across the bar with his third hand, he pinched her chin, tilting her head towards the light to better study the bruise.
“Genetics.” Mimi said, pretending not to know what he was talking about as she pulled her face away from his hands and made a big deal of fixing the damage the wind had done to her mane of curly purple hair. “Got me some crazy, ugly parents, remember?”
“Sure.” Loomis said, frowning at her as he deposited the beers in front of the waiting customers and scooping up the money, all without looking at them. He made change and handed in back to them, all while watching her fix her hair in silence. “Want him killed?”
He was, of course, referring to Current Boyfriend, the newest in a long string of useless men who paraded through Mimi’s life. She seem to have an unfailable talent to look through a room of decent, upstanding, hardworking men and take home the only one of them who was teetering on the verge of an jobless, abusive, alcoholic binge. They never said long, as she was luckily as much afraid of commitment as she was afraid of dating a normal, decent guy, but they made wonderful splashes in the waters of her life while they were there.
“Na.” She said, admiring her hair in the slightly discolored mirror behind the bar. “Harry’s pissed at me enough already thanks to the late thing, and the free drinks thing, and the broken pool table thing, and the calling him a tub of hairless wonder thing, and the getting his son drunk thing, and the letting Artie and Mac sleep in the bar without asking him because I didn’t realize they were going to steal the karaoke machine thing. If I get you arrested, he’s likely to actually fire me.”
“Besides, he’s gone already.” She added, running a finger over her lipstick to fix an imaginary smear. “You believe that man thought Wagner was a type of enhancement cream.”
“Sure.” Loomis didn’t sound to convinced, and he appeared to want to take the conversation further, but Mimi was already gone, flirting around the bar as she made her rounds, collecting drink orders, chatting with her friends, flirting with the men, and generally having a good time. She had a tendency to forget what she was doing if she ran into a interesting conversation or a fun group, and she would just sit down at the table and start chatting away with no regard to her duty. But she could usually be roused with a few shouts from the bar, and sent back about her business.
She was surprisingly good with the troublemakers, something that was fairly surprising given the fact that her powers were not particular suited to her current profession, unless you want the entire bar punished. But she had a memory for faces and was a genius with fake IDs (having spent most of her life selling and using them), and usually knew who was under age, who was there to make trouble, who needed to be given another drink or stopped from drinking all together, and who just needed to be taken out back and screamed at.
Plus, the whole subliminal “shut up and by more beer” thing was golden, and had gotten the bar out of much more tricky situations then she had gotten it into. Maybe. On some days. Actually, the "get the bar in trouble / get the bar out of trouble" scale was pretty much dead even.
“Hey Loomis, you got five hundred bucks I can borrow?” She said the next time she approached the bar, after she’d rattled off thirteen drink order from memory. “I bet the guy in the corner that the fire extinguisher wouldn't....."
She was late to work. This wasn’t a new occurrence, or even one she was slightly bothered about. She was always late to work. Only a few weeks before she’d been told by her boss that in the four years she’d been working at the bar, she’d never managed to come in less then half an hour late. Her usual average was an hour and ten minutes. Most of the waitresses would be bothered by this slander against their character and work ethic, but Mimi went largely unbothered. She had simply given a short acceptance speech, thanking the New York subway system, her faulty alarm clock, the slow barrister at Mocha Joe’s, and her general inattention to detail for helping her in archiving this award, and promising to do her best to make sure that the record continued to be unbroken in hopes of one day achiving the all important “ten years without showing up on time” mile stone.
Her boss had been less then amused. But, luckily for Mimi, she was good at her job and well liked among the bar’s regulars, so she hadn’t been fired. She spent a few weeks working the “noon to 6 on week days” shifts, which were typically known for few customers and poor tips and which were typically given to the waitresses who were new, being punished, or just plain bad. But Mimi, thankfully, was too good at her job to languish in “noon-to-six hell”, so after a few weeks she was rescheduled back to her regular hours with one noticeable difference, she was now scheduled to start one hour earlier then she previously was.
Which is why she was currently an hour and forty-five minutes late.
Tossing her cigarette aside, she left it to burn out in the snow without stepping on it, and hurried up the steps to the bar. Pushing open the door to the bar, she let in a huge gust of wind that rattled around through the bar and dropped the temperature three degrees. Even though she shut the door as quickly as she could, leaving it open only long enough and wide enough for her slender body to slide in, she still earned a “close the door!” from the nearest table.
“Bite me.” She returned cheerfully, pulling the earbuds out of her ear and punching the off button to cancel the music, which was currently so loud that the base line could be heard several tables away. Rolling the earbuds up into a neat band around one hand, she tucked them in one pocket.
“Mimi, you’re late.” Loomis called from his usual position behind the bar, glaring at her with his one good eye. He was a large man, who Mimi always said reminded her of John Goodman, only older and with an eye patch and four extra arms. She swore up and down he was a sort of green tinge, especially around the eyes, but she had yet to find a customer who agreed with her on it. He’d been the bartender at Harry’s probably longer then she’d been alive and had taken on a role with her that might be considered fatherly, or uncle-ly rather. Maybe neighborly. A bit like the ex-boyfriend of your mother who was around a lot when you were in junior high but took off before you hit high school, but you still see him hanging around sometimes and he asks you how your mom is, let’s you pinch a few cigarettes, and see you around.
“Loomy, you’re ugly.” She retorted as she approached the bar, pulling off her purple mittens and tossed them onto the bar. (They were purple and appeared to have been made by a six year old with a glitter fettish). Putting her hands on the front of the bar she pushed herself up so she was leaning over it, her feet dangling off the end, and planted a large wet kiss on the bartender’s cheak. “But I love you anyway.”
“Dumb brat.” Loomis said gruffly, looking back to his work as Mimi dropped back to the ground, looking utterly pleased with herself. “What happened to your face?”
He was referring to the slight shadow of darkness under her right eye, barely visable under the thick make-up and purple, sparkling eyeshadow she was wearing. Reaching across the bar with his third hand, he pinched her chin, tilting her head towards the light to better study the bruise.
“Genetics.” Mimi said, pretending not to know what he was talking about as she pulled her face away from his hands and made a big deal of fixing the damage the wind had done to her mane of curly purple hair. “Got me some crazy, ugly parents, remember?”
“Sure.” Loomis said, frowning at her as he deposited the beers in front of the waiting customers and scooping up the money, all without looking at them. He made change and handed in back to them, all while watching her fix her hair in silence. “Want him killed?”
He was, of course, referring to Current Boyfriend, the newest in a long string of useless men who paraded through Mimi’s life. She seem to have an unfailable talent to look through a room of decent, upstanding, hardworking men and take home the only one of them who was teetering on the verge of an jobless, abusive, alcoholic binge. They never said long, as she was luckily as much afraid of commitment as she was afraid of dating a normal, decent guy, but they made wonderful splashes in the waters of her life while they were there.
“Na.” She said, admiring her hair in the slightly discolored mirror behind the bar. “Harry’s pissed at me enough already thanks to the late thing, and the free drinks thing, and the broken pool table thing, and the calling him a tub of hairless wonder thing, and the getting his son drunk thing, and the letting Artie and Mac sleep in the bar without asking him because I didn’t realize they were going to steal the karaoke machine thing. If I get you arrested, he’s likely to actually fire me.”
“Besides, he’s gone already.” She added, running a finger over her lipstick to fix an imaginary smear. “You believe that man thought Wagner was a type of enhancement cream.”
“Sure.” Loomis didn’t sound to convinced, and he appeared to want to take the conversation further, but Mimi was already gone, flirting around the bar as she made her rounds, collecting drink orders, chatting with her friends, flirting with the men, and generally having a good time. She had a tendency to forget what she was doing if she ran into a interesting conversation or a fun group, and she would just sit down at the table and start chatting away with no regard to her duty. But she could usually be roused with a few shouts from the bar, and sent back about her business.
She was surprisingly good with the troublemakers, something that was fairly surprising given the fact that her powers were not particular suited to her current profession, unless you want the entire bar punished. But she had a memory for faces and was a genius with fake IDs (having spent most of her life selling and using them), and usually knew who was under age, who was there to make trouble, who needed to be given another drink or stopped from drinking all together, and who just needed to be taken out back and screamed at.
Plus, the whole subliminal “shut up and by more beer” thing was golden, and had gotten the bar out of much more tricky situations then she had gotten it into. Maybe. On some days. Actually, the "get the bar in trouble / get the bar out of trouble" scale was pretty much dead even.
“Hey Loomis, you got five hundred bucks I can borrow?” She said the next time she approached the bar, after she’d rattled off thirteen drink order from memory. “I bet the guy in the corner that the fire extinguisher wouldn't....."