Mia

The bar is louder and more rowdy when I return from my break. Janice nods at me as I take over, wiping her sleeve across her brow to clear away the sheen of sweat.

Being on my feet all night here is physically exhausting. I can’t complain, though. It gets crazy busy, especially on weekends, but I’ve done way worse jobs for way less money.

I’m a Southside girl. When I was a kid, I delivered newspapers, did yard work and babysat for my neighbors. I was thrilled when a neighbor offered me six bucks an hour to help take care of her grandma when I was thirteen. Watching game shows and playing cards with an old lady sounded much better than chasing toddlers around all day. But I soon found out I was in for more—I had to help her take showers and wipe herself in the bathroom. I had to rub her feet and cook her liver and onions.

The money got better when I turned sixteen. I started waitressing then, stuffing tip money into my grandparents’ coffee can savings account when they weren’t looking. I did odd jobs with my grandpa for extra cash, too. We shoveled snow, scrapped metals and fixed up cars. We didn’t have much, but now I know we had everything that really matters.

“Two cosmos, a white Russian and a Bud Light bottle,” a waitress named Cara calls out to me. I meet her eyes to let her know I’ve got it.

“What do you guys have on draft?” a man at the bar asks me. I rattle off the list, take his order and dart to my mixing station before anyone else can stop me.

I love being this busy. When orders are flying and it’s all I can do to keep up, the night goes by fast, I make great tips, and I feel outside of myself. I’m not Mia Marceau, a broke twenty-nine year-old college senior with an estranged husband. I’m just Mia the bartender, filler of drink orders who smiles, makes change and wipes down the bar.

You can’t think about your problems when your mind is this busy. On my nights off, I sometimes wish for the escape I get here.

“Hey, you got a boyfriend?” a customer calls out to me, belching and grinning.

“Yep.”

“He’s not here now, though, is he?” He waggles his brows at me.

“Nope, he’s in prison.” I lie with a straight face.

“No shit?”

“No shit. He beat a guy to death for hitting on me.”

I turn back to the tap and draw a couple beers. The guy’s gone when I turn back around. That one works every time.

I can’t help glancing over at the bachelorette party again. The laughter between them makes my heart happy, but it also makes me miss the girlfriends I’ve lost. Once I started dating the man I later married, I slowly lost touch with every friend I had. Eventually there was no one in my life but him. What a fucking fool I was.

A few women from the bachelorette party get up and walk over to two guys at a nearby table. When I look over at them, my heart pounds so hard I get lightheaded.

Shit. It’s Anton and Alexei Petrov, both dressed in dark suits minus the ties. I don’t think Alexei would recognize me, but Anton might. I freeze for a couple seconds, fighting my urge to dive under the bar so they don’t see me. The women are laughing and one is trying to slide onto Anton’s lap while another is asking Alexei to sign one of her boobs.

I’ll have to beg Janice to cover for me until they leave. Even though I knew this would happen eventually, I’m flipping my shit. Things are finally going well for me—Anton seeing me is likely to ruin everything.

He turns my way in that moment, doing a double take before shock registers on his face. Fuuuuuck.

I swallow hard, trying to get ahold of myself.

“Mia, a Guinness draft and margarita rocks,” Lana calls out.

I turn in her direction, my heart still hammering hard.

“You waiting for an engraved invitation?” she snaps. “Get my drinks!”

I put my hand up, silently asking for a shred of grace. Then I take a deep breath and go get her drinks. By the time I return to the bar, Anton is standing there.

“Mia?” His tone implores me to explain myself.

“Hey,” I say with a weak smile.

“What are you doing?”

“Please don’t tell Adam you saw me here. Or saw me at all, actually.”

He brushes a hand through his shaggy dark blond hair. “But…you work here?”

I understand his confusion. Most wives of NHL players don’t tend bar on Saturday nights. But then, most wives of NHL players also don’t live apart from their husbands and pray nightly to find a way to divorce them.

“Please don’t say anything,” I beg.

“I won’t,” he assures me. “But does Adam know?”

Hell yes, he knows, I think. And he revels in me earning money one dollar at a time.

“Hey, can I get some help?” a customer calls from the end of the bar. Another one is eyeing me like he’s ready to place an order.

“I have to…” I gesture toward the customers.

“When can I talk to you?” Anton asks me.

I shake my head. “Just…please, forget you saw me, okay?”

Without giving him time to respond, I turn and walk to the other end of the bar. My hands shake as I reach for a bottle of Stoli to mix a drink. My world is almost completely peaceful these days, and if Anton tells Adam he saw me here, it won’t be anymore.

I don’t know Adam’s team captain well. The Blaze traded for Anton Petrov around three years ago, making him their star center and highest-paid player. I used to see him at team parties and fundraisers. Other players’ wives told me he’s strict about his diet, sleep and workouts.

One player’s wife, Marla Lansing, said she tried to set Anton up with her sister, who was Miss California at the time, but that Anton wasn’t interested. Apparently he used to date women, but he hasn’t for a while. Maybe he realized he’s gay, I don’t know.

I don’t really care, either. I just need him to forget he saw me here tonight.

“Heard we had two NHL players in here tonight,” Janice says to me as she closes out one of the registers at the end of the night.

We’re closed, but I still check our surroundings to make sure no other employees are nearby before I respond.

“Anton and Alexei Petrov,” I tell her. “Fraternal twins. Anton’s the captain of the Blaze and Alexei plays for the Comets.”

“Huh. Don’t think we’ve had any NHL players in here since before Mike died.”

“Hopefully it was just a one time thing,” I say softly.

Janice is silent, but she has to know what I mean. I had to tell her who I am when she hired me, because I had to give my legal name and social security number to be paid. But to all the other employees here, I’m Mia Brown—my maiden name.

“Head home, kid,” Janice says. “I’ve got it from here.”

My shoulders sink with fatigue. “Okay, thanks.”

I button up my coat and pull my stocking cap down over my ears before leaving the bar. The walk home, in the dark, is always cold.

A few random snowflakes float down around me as I make the familiar trek past closed-down shops and businesses, passing the occasional homeless person huddled beneath a blanket.

There’s no place like Chicago. The bright lights and city smell are a comfort to me. With my grandma now gone, and my grandpa sick, I don’t have the house I grew up in to call home anymore. The city itself feels like a longtime loved one to me.

It’s after three in the morning when I walk up the two flights of stairs to the apartment I share with a single mom and her young son. I unlock the deadbolt with a key on my ring, sighing softly as I close the door behind me.

I’m home. Well, home-ish. Anita was looking for a roommate nine months ago, at a time when I was flat broke and desperate to find a place to stay. She’s working her way through law school and was struggling financially, so the room I rent from her is actually her son Dre’s. Now Dre sleeps in her room.

When I drop my backpack on the table and walk into the darkened kitchen for some water, I see a note on the fridge, the words written in bold black caps:

GROCERIES ARE NOT INCLUDED IN YOUR RENT!!! DON’T TOUCH MY CHEESE! BUY YOUR OWN CHEESE!

Rolling my eyes at the note, I take a glass from the dish drainer and fill it half full of tap water, drink it, and then rinse out the glass and return it to the drainer.

I didn’t touch Anita’s fucking cheese. I don’t even eat here. Last week she accused me of stealing her toothpaste, which I also didn’t do. Her kid hides shit and we both know it.

But at least when I close the door to my bedroom, I have a spot that’s just mine. It’s maybe eighty square feet and the radiator makes clanging noises that wake me up, but it’s mine.

Adam has never come here. I hope he doesn’t even know where I live.

I’m too tired to brush my teeth and wash my face. Instead, I crawl into bed still wearing all my clothes and fall fast asleep within minutes.