Page 24 of Falling Backwards
I grab my coat, confused and curious, just as the assistant manager appears next to me with crossed arms.
“What’s this I’ve heard about you being rude to a customer?”
Actually,nowI’m confused.
I take in the displeasure on his face as I scramble to recall what he’s talking about.Nothing is coming to mind, though.
Unless someone really did hear me say‘ass’earlier at the hostess stand.
Surely not, right?
Oh my God, Maggie would never let me live that down….
“I’m…” after a second, I shake my head, “…I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Just a few minutes ago, I had a lady approach me and complain that during her meal, she saw our bartender getting in another customer’s face and arguing where people could hear.”
My eyebrows are in the sky.
His go up, too, silently demanding an explanation.
But I don’t have one, obviously.I haven’t even acted that way towards Maggie, nevermind towards a patron of the restaurant.I don’t think anyone short of my dad would warrant that kind of behavior from me.
“Sir, I don’t know what that’s about.Honestly.”I shake my head again, confusion mounting.“That definitely didn’t happen.”
He turns incredulous.“Are you saying a customer and I are both lying?”
“I—well, no, but—”
“It sounds quite a bit like you are.So here’s what we have going on, huh?”He holds up a hand and starts counting things off.“You fit the description: tall, dark hair, bartender.Your shift ended just now at four, which means you were on the clock when the cause for complaint happened.And now that I’ve confronted you, you’re telling me nothingdidhappen, which means you’re calling me and the customer liars.”He drops his hand and shrugs.“And that, my friend, warrants a write-up.”
My jaw drops.
Okay, it’s no secret that this guy is an especially customer-pleasing assistant manager, but this is outrageous.I’m seriously getting in trouble for something I didn’t do?
I protest, “Ronald, no.IpromiseI didn’t—”
“Save it.And stick around for another minute, please, so you can sign the write-up form and I can get this on record.”
I suck in a breath to respond in one of about five different ways.
But as I’m turning to follow his pivot and keep standing my ground, a quieter voice speaks up: “It was Cristiano, sir.”
Halting in my tracks, I snap my gaze to Maggie, who apparently entered the room at some point.
As her words register with me, I level a dumbfounded look on her.
Ronald has stopped walking too.“Excuse me?”
Her eyes flick from him to me, then back to him.“Just now, I overheard what you were saying about someone complaining against Luke, but you’re mistaken.Cristiano—”
“Cristiano isn’t a bartender, Maggie.”
The blink she gives him isn’t as slow as the ones that she tends to give me, but I can still tell she doesn’t appreciate being cut off to basically be told she’s stupid.
“No,” she agrees, “he’s a server.But a man who’d been sitting at the bar dropped his credit card when he was leaving, so Luke ran outside to try to catch him and give it back.While he was gone, Cristiano went behind the bar for a second—I don’t know why—and his girlfriend followed him over there.They’ve been in a fight for a week or something now, and she showed up here today while he was working.”Her shoulders lift and drop in a graceful shrug.“Whoever you spoke with wasn’t complaining about Luke.He wasn’t around.But Cristiano just so happened to be and he was trying to tell his girlfriend to leave before she caused a scene, but a little bit of a scene got caused anyway.He hurried her away right before Luke came back.”
Ronald has his arms crossed again.
