“What do you mean you quit,” Willie
asked looking dumbfounded at Lena. “You can’t quit I won’t let you. You’re the
best bartender I have.”
“Sorry Willie, but you can’t stop me
from quitting,” Lena sighed sitting at the bar. “Like I told you, I just need
to take a year off. I’ll be back at school next January.”
“Next January? This is January, that’s
a whole year. You’re the reason my bar stays open. I’ll give you a raise, more
hours, less hours, I’ll let you make the schedule,” Willie pleaded.
“As tempting as that is,” she laughed
softly. “I can’t, there’s something I’ve gotta do. But I promise when I come
back next year, I’ll work for free.”
“So you’re really giving me your two
weeks notice,” he asked rubbing his head.
“Not exactly,” she said biting her
lip.
“What do you mean not exactly? When is
your last day?”
“Umm,” she said pulling out her phone.
“January 31st, next Thursday, a week from today.”
“Lena, you’re killing me. Slowly
killing me. You’re not going down to one of the big chains are you,” he asked
writing.
“I promise I will not be working at
any restaurant or bar in South Carolina unless it’s here. And when I come back
I promise I’ll make it up to you. If you can find someone I promise I’ll train
them when I’m here. I’m scheduled for four more days.”
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Whatever it is,
it must be important because I think you’ve used close to no sick days in 6
years. But damn, we’re gonna miss you.”
“I’ve had a lot of shitty jobs since I
turned 16, but trust me when I say, this was hands down the best. Oh I got a
new number, let me give it to you before I forget.”
Willie took down her new number and
made a final plea to get Lena to stay before she left. Lena felt just a little
bad, she honestly did. Willie and his wife, Michelle, had been more than flexible
with her and her ever changing schedule as she worked through college and now
graduate school. She would miss them, but in a year she would be back working
for them again, for free. And as far away as it seemed it was only a year, less
than that technically.
Lena shook the tiny bit of guilt out
of her head as she pulled into her driveway. Grabbing her bags from the
backseat, she went inside and set to work with Daisy by her side. After
flipping a coin twice to see which she would book first, the concert tickets,
hotel room or plane ticket, she put her feelers out to get the name of every
last hotel the band stayed at last tour. In a matter hours, not only did she
have every last hotel information, she had it all booked. It was truly amazing
sometimes what the Bon Jovi fandom community could accomplish in such a short
amount of time.
Lena poured herself a glass of wine
and set to work with her new calendar to fill in tour dates and hotel
reservations that she had made. The next four hours she slowly began to
accumulate tickets and dealt with the scheduling nightmare that would be
airfare.
Daisy demanded her dinner around 5,
and Lena happily obliged before she started her and Sammy’s dinner. Lena
happily hummed along to the new single she put on repeat, smiling bigger when
she realized that exactly two weeks from today she would board a private plane
en route to Uncasville, Connecticut to begin her adventure.
