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No matter how many people slick some sadness onto their voices and say ‘what a shame’, ‘didn’t deserve to go out like that’, ‘poor guy was alone’, they’re talking more shit than what comes out of a cop station.
But Billie keeps the sorrow on her face, courtesy of Preston and nothing else, because it makes people a bit more generous than usual.
Unity—that’s the sense she gets in here.
Like everyone in Southside suddenly thinks they’re all family, untied peoples. And if that means, with absolute heartache etched all over her pained face, that she gets more and better tips?
Then she’ll milk the hell out of that.
And she does. The whole damn shift.
No rest for her in Jim’s Joint. Even Tonya looks so wiped that she might just hide under the bar at any moment.
Billie brings up a tray of dirty glasses to the bar. She just slides them to the side and reaches for a clean tray. “How you doin’?”
Sincere pity softens Billie’s tone. The only thing she could think to do for Tonya when the rush started was to let her take the bar, and Billie would take the floor—that way, Tonya didn’t have to hear the guy’s name every damn step she took around the Southsiders.
It meant Tonya didn’t get the tips like Billie did, but she did get a break from the name being thrown here, there, everywhere. So Billie’s going to split the tips—only fair, really.
She always does that when T stays at the bar.
But short of stuffing plugs into her ears, Tonya was still going to hear enough—more than that,too much.
“They’re late,” Tonya grumbles with a look at the clock. Her plucked eyebrows furrow (well, as best as over-plucked eyebrows can) and wrinkle together in the middle with a crease of frustration.
Billie traces her gaze to the time on the clock. “Only thirty minutes,” she says. “Might be caught up with the cops.”
At this, Tonya lifts her frown up. A question.
She shrugs something lazy and tired. “Well they’re questioning everyone, looks like. Probably working their way through your area now.”
Tonya and Gigi live in the same part of Southside that Kate does. Those cabins whose walls hiss when the winter winds are bad, whose air feels permanently damp, and whose roofs arepeelingoff.
Tonya just nods then gestures to the empty tray in Billie’s hands.
“Three buds and a house bourbon,” she murmurs.
Tonya starts on the order. The song is glass clinking together, bottles thudding down on the bar, gruff shouts and chairs scraping behind her.
“So your eyes being all bloodshot and teary,” Tonya starts, filling up the tray drink by drink. “Guessing that hasn’t got much to do with Cletus. What’s Preston done now?”
A bitter smile is Billie’s answer.
Tonya never had much patience for ‘Hurricane PB’. Not after that night. After that night, in fact, Tonya hasn’t got a lot patience for much of anything.
“It’s time, is all,” Billie says and pulls the tray free. She heads out to get a good tip and drop off the drinks by the dart board.
When she gets back to the bar, another tray stacked with empty beer bottles and lipstick-stained glasses, one of the trailer park locals is sat on a stool, hunched over the bar, and nursing a tall glass of bourbon in his oil-stained hand.
He looks up as Billie moves around the bar to start stacking the dirty dishes. “Oh, hey, Billie-George,” he starts.
Tonya hides her smirk behind some strands of red hair that have fallen out from her tight bun over the shift.
Billie-George. Makes her wanna stab a pen through her mom’s eye just for naming her that. All for what? All because mom loves the BeeGees, and really wanted the nickname for Billie to be just that.
BeeGees.
A living nightmare.
