One Month Later

The bar was all abuzz on Saturday night, as I wiped another table down, then quickly moved back to the bar and tossed the rag into a bucket. “What can I get you?” I asked, looking at the redhead that just took a stool.

She grinned. “What can I get you, honey?” she asked, winking at me.

I drew up my eyebrows and then lowered them, then chuckled, but didn’t respond to her question. She wanted a rise out of me and I was too busy to make it work. I continued to look at her, with her grazing her tongue over her lower lip, and me thinking how that would normally do it. However, I owned this club and there was work to do.

When I didn’t break, she laughed. “Okay! I’ll take a Fuzzy Navel.”

I nodded. “Coming right up, little lady.” She watched my every move, as I worked quickly around the bar to get her drink prepared.

As the owner of the place, I wasn’t typically the one to do the dirty work behind the bar, but the place was jumping, and my usual Saturday night bartender had called in sick. That left me, until I could find a replacement for the night. Luckily, Brayton was on his way, but there were still people to serve until he got there.

I handed the Fuzzy Navel to her and she winked at me, then quietly said thanks and handed me the money. I nodded and went on to the next couple of customers. That was how the night was going, from customer to customer, up and down the bar, then pocketing the money into the cash register.

A few more women attempted to flirt, but I kept everything professional, barely giving them the time of day and they seemed to notice right off. When Brayton finally got there, I couldn’t breathe a sigh of relief fast enough. I tossed him the towel and he gave me a look that said he hated the fact that he had to come into work on his night off. I knew he did, but he needed to suck it up, because it was no way for the bar to be run.

I went into the back room of the bar and sunk down into the chair behind my desk, heaving a sigh as I turned to my computer. My office was small to say the least, but it did the job and provided me everything that I needed to get my work done.

I pulled up my computer screen and went to my emails, then started to read through them, tossing out every email that was basic spam or nonsense jargon. I was finishing up my list of twenty new emails, when I spotted Sam at the door. He was another employee that worked more on the front-lines, out in the open.

“Hey! What’s up?” I asked, looking up, as Sam walked into my office.

“We’re almost out of beer,” he said. His words came out in a rush and I was sure I had heard him incorrectly, even laughing as the words sunk in.

“What? Impossible,” I said.

Sam shrugged. “I looked at least five times and unless it was placed somewhere incorrectly, it’s not back here.”

I looked down and shuffled through some order forms, then pulled out the one I was looking for. “I just ordered beer the other day. There’s no way we’re out,” I said, still arguing.

Sam didn’t look pleased that I didn’t believe him, but the fact remained that I was looking at an order form as we spoke. If the beer had arrived, then we should have plenty. I got up from my chair and walked out of my office and over to the walk-in refrigerator that housed the supply of liquor we had on hand. I opened it up and we stepped inside.

I walked directly to where the beer would be located and found empty shelves. I then looked around to the shelves that were near it and also found that those were full, but beer wasn’t on them.

I glanced at Sam and we both looked confused. I then left the refrigerator and made sure the door was closed, then went to the back alley where sometimes deliveries were dropped off. The alley was bare. 

“Great!” I mumbled, frustrated that Sam wasn’t just mistaken. We both went back into the bar and I glanced at my watch. Hopefully someone was at the supplier location, so I could speak to them.

“I’ll take care of it,” I said. Sam nodded and headed back into the bar. I figured if the refrigerator box was empty, then we were talking about maybe twenty bottles that were in the refrigerator at the bar and that was simply an estimate. At how busy we were, chances were we’d be sold out of beer by the end of the night.

I got back into the office and closed my door behind me, then went to my computer. I scrolled through the list of suppliers on my screen, until I found the correct one, then dialed up the number. It rang. Then rang again. Finally after the fourth ring, someone picked up.

“Prescott Brewery…you buy em, we brew em. How can I help you?”

I rolled my eyes at the quirky one-liner, then told them my problem. “Hello, this is Trevor Wild and I own Mercury Wild.”

“Oh yes…Mr. Wild. We’ve been expecting your call.”

I frowned. “You have?” I asked. I sunk down in my office chair and unbuttoned the two buttons on my blazer jacket.

“Yes! After we sent you out the email about your order not going through, we just assumed you would want to take care of that.” I heard shuffling of papers on the other end of the phone and I was even more confused.

“I’m sorry? I’m not following. I didn’t receive the email. There was a problem with the order?” As I waited for him to start talking, I pulled up my emails. It was true that I would tend to go through emails quickly, chucking ones that weren’t prevalent, but I was certain that I hadn’t missed this one.

“Let me look here…” There was a long pause, then he came back. “Ahh…yes. It appears that the email went out two days ago.

I quickly pulled up the emails from that time period and didn’t locate one from the supplier. I was about to tell him so, when I went through the trash files on my computer and that was when I saw it. I read through it and my face fell with each passing word, the basic gist being that my card was declined and the order was canceled.

“Are you there?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m here.” I hit my desk with my hand and moved back from my desk. “I saw the email.” I took a deep breath. I had to do something, because we would be out of beer in no time and no beer would mean fewer customers and we were already losing business. Things weren’t as booming as they used to be. I dug my wallet out of my pocket. “Let me use another credit card.” This time I grabbed my personal credit card. “Will you add rush delivery?” I asked.

“Sure thing! Let me pull the info up on the computer.” There was some tapping on computer keys and then he came back. “Okay, I’m ready.” I gave him the card number and stated I wanted the same order that I had placed previously.

“We have you down for that and you can expect the order in a few days.”

I swallowed. “A few days?” I didn’t expect them to load up a truck and bring it out tonight, but I had hoped maybe it could be there by the next day. That’d be Sunday and we wouldn’t be open, so I wouldn’t have to worry about running out.

“Yes! Rush delivery would put it on Tuesday most likely.”

“Okay!” I reluctantly said. If that was the earliest we could do, then I just would have to accept that. I thanked the man and then we hung up.

I sat there for only a few minutes, before I knew what I had to do. Well, there were a couple of things I needed to do. I had to check to see why the credit card was overdrawn and I had to start calling around and begging other bar owners to outsource some beer to us.

I was just about to dial up a number, when Sam peeked his head in the door. “How’d it go?”

I never wanted to bore my employees with how the business might not be doing all that well, so I smiled. “It was just a simple oversight. It will be taken care of soon.”

“Great!” Sam said. He left the office and I dialed up the company credit card number first. I punched in some numbers, until the automated service confirmed the bad news. We were over a thousand dollars over the limit. I shook my head, disconnecting the call. I hadn’t realized things had gotten that bad. I then dialed up one of the competitor’s numbers and started begging for help.

I didn’t stop until I had traveled to three different bars and got enough that I felt would get us by. I just had to make a trip to start picking them up. I left my office and went back through the double doors to get in the bar, when I spotted Brayton.

“Did you bring your truck to work?” I asked him.

He arched an eyebrow and nodded. “Yeah, why?” he asked.

“Well, there was an oversight with our beer order. I need to go pick some up and you can’t get much in an Aston Martin. So, can I borrow it?”

Brayton didn’t even think about it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys. “Thank you!” I replied. I hurried through the bar and out the front door. I needed to get the beer and get back to the bar before we had a mob on our hands. You never knew when the last beer would be served.