Double Time ✓

01 | clef

If you are looking to party on the first Tuesday—Halston's official student night, when bar and club prices drop and blood alcohol volume skyrockets—of spring break, the Foxhole provides entertainment and at least one jaded bartender.

Isabella, my name tag announces. Also known as the jaded bartender.

The student leaning far over the bar counter blinks. His eyes are red-rimmed and glassy, narrowing slowly as his flirtatious smile returns.

"Oh," he says, his chin propped up on his hands. "My bad."

"No harm." My eyes remain pinned to the shot glass in front of me while liquor trickles in.

"So..." he drawls, the last vowel dragging on and on until his lips form a perfect O. "Isabaya, I can't believe any girl is stuck working when she could be dancing. Specially you."

I get hit on a lot. I think the flirting is a combination of the low lighting, which perhaps airbrushes over my splotchy skin and too-square jawline, and the copious amounts of alcohol in people's systems. Everyone is drunk and feeling good, and they want to share the goodwill with the pretty bartender. Usually, if I'm behind the bar, I'm flattered by the attention. I like to lean in and extend my own figurative hand, turn people over like a Rubik's cube and watch their faces shift and rotate.

Besides, the longer I get them talking, the more they usually tip me.

"I'm dancing," I respond coyly, sliding the shot glass over to the woman waiting to his left. "You just can't see it behind this counter."

The salt shaker lands in front of her. "Here's your tequila," I say, reaching with tongs, "I'll just get your..."

She downs the shot before I can give her a slice of lemon, swaggering back into the arms of six screaming, cheering girls. Her friends squeal, "You did not just do that!"

Oh, yes she did.

"Oh, yes I did! Let's go dance."

The guy hitting on me has a green fleck of lettuce between his canine and incisor tooth. I ask, "So, what can I get you?"

He grins so wide his nose wrinkles. It's adorable. I take his order, he fumbles for his card. The DJ on the music stage transitions into a pulsing throwback song from the 2000s that thuds in my teeth. Just like that, I lose five people from the liquor line as they rush to relive their childhoods.

"Can I get your number?"

"I'm not supposed to give it out on a shift," I respond, feigning bashfulness. Dina, night manager, chef, and all-round marvel, won't care. If she weren't in the kitchen right now, doing an emergency load of dishes to restock the glasses, she would encourage me, so long as my interlocutor isn't dangerously intoxicated or underage.

See, now, I can't actually rule those out. Is he ruddy-faced in the daytime or is this a symptom of inebriation? Who knows? Not I.

"How about you leave yours and I'll text after my shift is over?"

I find a pen and place it down by the napkin and straw holders. The student (freshman, senior, I really can't tell) writes his number down on the napkin. Like kidnappers making an exchange of hostages, I make solid eye contact when I slide his plastic jug of beer over, retrieving his number on brown tissue paper.

"Talk to you soon," I say, my voice breathy and smile giddy. He puts a fiver in the tip jar and winks (who winks unironically? Is he getting flirting advice from WikiHow or Pornhub?), disappearing into the crowd.

When I am faced with the next customer to serve, the Foxhole bristling with chaotic energy and sweat, I accidentally use the phone number napkin to mop up a streak of water from the melting ice box and drop it into the bin. 'Accidentally'.