Vicky picked up the three shot glasses and three beer glasses from the bar where the three men had been sitting. She was glad they were gone. They'd been jerks with her, and though she'd served them two shots of their best bourbon and two beers each, they'd only tipped her a dollar -- a dollar tip for over thirty dollars worth of drinks.
What was worse was the guy on the outside with the football jersey. He'd grabbed her left breast just as she was sitting their second round of drinks on the table. She'd almost dumped his shot in his lap, and now wished she had. He'd just laughed and said if she didn't want her tit squeezed, she shouldn't show as much cleavage.
Vicky's actual name was Victoria, a name her mother loved because it sounded regal, or so she told Vicky when the other girls teased her about it. As she grew older, she began to hate the name. Victoria sounded old and stuffy. To everyone except her mother and father, she became Vicky. She liked the way Vicky sounded -- short and cute -- and also thought it made her seem playful. Playful was important when she was just out of high school and looking for a man to spend her life with.
She'd found that man, or so she thought, in Ricky Masters. Ricky was a couple of years older than Vicky's nineteen when they met. He was a large man, tall and muscular, and was proud of the fact he'd been scouted by several college football teams. Ricky didn't talk about many things other than his high school football days. He did like to tell her about his construction job. Ricky drove heavy equipment for a local contractor and always told her he'd own the construction company some day. That seeming drive to succeed and his good looks impressed her, and when he asked, she said she'd marry him.
Now, Vicky was forty seven, and when she looked back, Ricky had been a huge mistake. Their marriage had started off well with a honeymoon to Mussel Shoals, or at least, that's what she thought then. Back then, she'd have said they made love twice a day. Now, she knew that really, Ricky had just used her twice a day. She couldn't remember him doing anything to give her the same pleasure.
Once they set up housekeeping, Vicky had tried to be a good wife. She kept the house clean, washed their clothes, and always had dinner ready when Ricky came home. She never refused his attentions even when she didn't feel like being intimate.
Ricky didn't hold up his end of the marriage. He did work, but construction jobs depend on the weather. If it rained, Ricky didn't work, and if Ricky didn't work he was usually at Ted's Bar drinking beer, spending their money, and telling everybody about the touchdown he scored that took the team to the state championships.
When she started coming up short of money to pay the bills, Vicky took a job as a waitress. She was pretty, had a young girl's slender figure, and she made up for the low wages with tips. The extra money tided them over the days when it rained or the winter months when it was too cold for construction.
They'd been married a year and a half when Ricky came home from work early. Vicky asked if the company had stopped work for some reason. Ricky said no, he'd quit because the construction foreman had told him to do something that wouldn't have worked.
Vicky didn't say anything, but she was worried. Without Ricky's paycheck, they couldn't afford pay the rent and eat too. The next day, she asked her boss if she could work more hours and he scheduled her for two more days a week. It still wasn't enough, but it would help. Ricky had assured her he'd look for another job as soon as he took care of a couple things around the house.
Two weeks later, Ricky was still sitting on the couch watching television, and Vicky pawned her engagement ring in order to pay the rent. When Ricky noticed it missing from her hand, he was furious. Their fight that night ended when Ricky stormed out of the house, got in their truck, and spun the tires as he left the drive. Vicky was nursing a bruise on her face and another where he'd grabbed her arm.
Vicky called her father once Ricky left. Half an hour later, she was sitting with her mother and father and explaining what had happened. Her mother tried to be sympathetic. Her father just said, "Victoria, it's not going to get any better. I talked to the construction company owner to see if I could convince him to give Ricky a second chance. I found out Ricky didn't quit. He got fired. The owner said Ricky had been missing work and when he did show up, he smelled like beer. He couldn't have someone like that driving heavy equipment. The best thing for you to do is to divorce him. We'll help you pay the lawyer if that's how you decide to go."
Ricky didn't show up for the hearing. Vicky heard later that he was at Ted's Bar again. When her father took her to have Ricky sign the papers, he didn't even read them. He just scrawled his name, threw them back in her face, and called her a worthless bitch.
Vicky had lived with her mother and father until she'd saved enough money to afford her own apartment. The waitress job paid enough for her to live and a few clothes if she did well with tips.
Vicky didn't think about another man for a year, and even then, she was very cautious. She'd made one mistake and she didn't want to make another. She dated a little, mostly with men who came into the restaurant. After three of them tried to get her into bed on the second date, she stopped going out with any of them.
The years that had gone by so slowly when Vicky was in high school seemed to speed up as she closed on thirty, and they kept speeding past faster and faster as she aged. It seemed as if one day she was twenty five and still had the figure she'd had in high school, and the next she was forty six and carrying some extra pounds in her breasts, thighs, and hips.
She looked around one day at work at the other waitresses and realized she was old enough to be a mother to most of them. She'd heard them talking in the break room about how much they earned in tips. They were doing better than she was even though she had more experience. There could be only one reason.
Vicky found the bartending school in the phone book, and called the number for information. She hated asking her mother and father for the money for tuition and the state license, but she promised to pay them back. Her father just laughed and said he was happy she was doing something to better herself and not to worry about the money.
Three weeks later, Vicky had a diploma from the bartending school and a license from the state that allowed her to serve alcohol. All she needed was a job bartending.
The bar didn't look like much on the outside, but Vicky thought the inside was charming. It had been built in the late forties when the GI's were all home from the war and had jobs and money to spend. Some of that money they spent taking their wives or girlfriends "out on the town". For the couples within walking distance, "out on the town" usually meant "The Lacy Club".
There was a tiny dance floor in one corner of the long, narrow bar, and against one wall was the bar proper complete with a brass footrail and real wood paneling on the front. The back bar was straight out of a prohibition era movie with a long mirror and rows of bottles with chrome pouring spouts. On the other side of the room were tables and chairs for four with red and white checkered tablecloths. After her interview, the manager said he'd get back to her in a few days.
Vicky was overjoyed when the manager called her at work and asked when she could start. She said two weeks and he asked if she could start in one. Vicky thought about her waitress job and the young girls. They wouldn't miss her that much.
"OK, I'll start in a week."
Her workday was from three to three. Twelve hours was a long time to be on her feet and working, but the pay was ten dollars an hour and the manager said she'd probably bring in another ten or twenty an hour in tips. The first week, she averaged about twelve dollars an hour in tips. Once the regulars met her and got to know her, that increased each week until she was putting two hundred dollars in her purse every night. She repaid her father and mother the second month, and then went shopping for new clothes.
The man who walked through the door and up to the bar that afternoon had white hair so Vicky knew had to be rather old, but he didn't act old. He walked with spring in his step and with the stride of a man confidant in himself. He took one of the barstools and said, "I'll have the usual".
Vicky asked him what the usual was. He put on a pair of glasses, looked her up and down, and then laughed.
"I guess I do need to wear my glasses all the time. I thought you were Herb. Now that I look closer, you're a lot nicer to look at than Herb. You're new aren't you?"
"Yes, about two months."
"What's your name?"
"I'm Vicky."
"Well, Vicky, my usual is scotch neat, but I want the good stuff Herb always kept under the counter. Glen-something I think it was."
Vicky smiled.
"Maybe Glenfiddich? I have a bottle of that."
The man slapped his hand down on the bar top.
"That's it, Glenfiddich. Wonderful stuff. Goes down smooth as a woman's thighs and tastes about as good. Oh...Oh...I'm really sorry about that last. I didn't mean any disrespect or anything like that. It's just an old saying. When you get to be my age, sometimes you forget things like that aren't acceptable anymore."
Vicky grinned.
"You won't embarrass me or offend me. I'm too old to think that was anything more than what you said."
The old man made a show of wiping his brow.
"Whew. Thought I was in big trouble there for a minute. I'd hate to make a pretty girl like you mad at me. Pretty girls usually run the other way when I'm around anyway, and I don't need to be chasing any more of 'em off."
Vicky laughed then.
"I can't believe women run away from you."
"Oh, but they do. I think it's because when you get to be my age, you tend to say what you think. Some of 'em don't like what I say much."
Vicky quickly checked the bar and tables. It was only three thirty and the after work crowd wouldn't be in for an hour or so. Harry, the manager was in his office. She and the old man were the only other people in the place besides Barbara, the table girl. It wouldn't hurt to talk with this man for a while, and he was interesting.
