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“That’s none of your business.”
“I’m making it my business.”
“I’m not letting you make it your business.”
I shivered as he slid his fingers along my jaw, his touch light and titillating, doing this as he took it away.
Also doing it as he said, “We’ll see.”
The bed moved when he got up.
And then, as silently as he showed, he was gone.
FOUR
THE SURF CLUB
The next morning, I swung into the back employee entrance of The Surf Club, only five minutes late for my shift.
A personal best.
To lift my mood after a wild, emotional night, I’d gone devil-may-care with a Parisian circa-1960s flair with my outfit. Black capris that had a cigarette pant feel with a side zipper and a high waist that rose to my lower ribs. Black and white striped, boatneck, long-sleeved top that was cropped to just under my breasts. Black ballet flats.
All I was missing was the beret.
Instead, I’d wrapped the black, pink, red and white Alexander McQueen scarf I’d scored on an online resell site, backwards kerchief style around my hair, tied just above my forehead in a neat little knot. My blonde hair was twisted and pinned at the back, the floof of its curls sticking out of the top of the wrap.
I’d decided to channel my Lucy vibe that day. After the successful, yet madcap night I’d had, it seemed apropos.
I went straight to my employee locker, stowed my purse and made my selection from the many different colored server aprons I had hanging there (I picked hot pink to go with the pink in the scarf). I tied it around my waist.
I then walked through the tiny kitchen and called a hello to Lucia, our cook.
She was prepping for the lunch crowd, and she could be intense (think Carmy fromThe Bear, except female, and she didn’t use tweezers to dress any of her dishes, though she did mumble to herself, “needs more acid” a lot). Therefore, she didn’t even look up at me.
This was not unusual, so I didn’t take offense.
Shortly after, (our kitchen wasn’t very big, though it was meticulously clean and tidy, by the edict of Lucia), I hit the bar area of the main room.
The Surf Club was neither for surfers (no surprise, considering Phoenix was landlocked) or a club. It also didn’t have surfer décor. In fact, I had no idea why Tito named it The Surf Club, except he was Tito, and if you knew Tito, you’d know this wasn’t uncharacteristic.
The bulk of the main room was chaotic.
A long, turquoise padded bench ran the length of the back wall, two- and four-top tables in front of it, mismatched chairs in front of those.
A huge mural was painted on the wall, which had a softly abstract, Mona-Lisa-smiling woman in the top corner. Instead of hair, though, she had dots and squishes that resembled flowers in varying shades of pinks and yellows against a background of greens and blues that flowed across the wall. In the middle of that space, painted into the flowers was the wordLive!
The rest of the floor space was taken randomly with tables or seating areas that had armchairs and couches and beanbags. There were standing floor lamps that looked like they came from vintage stores dotted here and there, and some tables had small lamps on top of them.
A pothos plant sat in another corner and it had to be prehistoric, because the trails of its foliage were so long, tracking up and out so far, they were tacked to the walls and even the ceiling. There were string of pearls plants sprinkled around the space, hanging with vines dangling five feet.
The Surf Club was a coffee and cocktail bar on Indian School Road, which also served food, that Tito had opened sometime in the aughts.
So there was a long, curved bar made of a highly polished ash at the front, which had stools with backs and seats covered in marine blue. The bar back was filled with bottles of liquor and a wide, double-filter, cream-colored espresso machine.
There was exceptional Wi-Fi, and outlets and USB jacks everywhere, some even embedded in the tables or the wood floors, so people could charge while they hung.
And hang they did.
