Page 33 of Blame it on the Bet
I don’t know why this idea hasn’t occurred to me. Or, maybe it has. In fact, I’m pretty sure it has, but I dismissed it so quickly that it barely registered in my consciousness.
“I don’t know, Walker,” I say quietly. “It just feels like… cheating to me. This isn’t about getting some stranger to bail us out on a technicality. Pops never would’ve wanted that. We save it, or we lose it. But whatever we do, we need to do it ourselves.”
The three of them seem to consider this for a long moment before coming to some silent consensus. Walker is the first one to move past the point.
“Okay, so then how do we go about finding a hundred- thousand bucks in five weeks?” she asks.
“I thought maybe we could brainstorm ways to attract more business into the pub. How can we win back some of the business we lost when that sports bar opened over in Hamilton? How can we appeal to a broader customer base?”
Blank stares. I try again.
“What is our customer base? Who do we serve, predominantly?”
“The blue-collar crowd,” Jameson pipes up.“We get a lot of the guys coming off a shift at the manufacturing plants.”
“We always have a full house for St. Paddy’s day,” Bailey points out.
“Okay, good. That’s good. We have to think out of the box. What can we do that we haven’t done before? That might attract a bigger crowd, a different crowd—without alienating our regulars, of course?”
“You know,” Jameson starts slowly, “when I was in nursing school, we used to go to a bar that had trivia quizzes once a week. It was hilarious—people took it so seriously! There were some little prizes and a drink special. Teams competed in finals and semi-finals. It was like a bowling league. I mentioned it to Pops once, but he didn’t seem too interested.”
“Oh, I like that!” Walker jumps in, and the rest of us are murmuring our agreement. “And don’t forget about darts. We could get a league going.”
“How about a chili cook-off?” Bailey throws in. “Good, good, good,” I murmur and nod approvingly as I jot down all of the ideas. After an hour, my legal pad has several filled pages, and my sisters and I are clearly all feeling a little bit better about our decision.
“We can do this,” I say firmly. “We can keep this pub running.”
“Yes, I think we can,” James agrees. “But it’s not going to be easy. We have to figure out who’s going to do what.”
“Okay, well, here’s what I’ve been thinking,” I begin, leaning forward to grab a cookie off the plate in the middle of the table. “I’ll do the day-to-day general management. James, you can do the books. One of us can drop the receipts off to your house every morning. You can also handle inventory and payroll—anything that can be done from home with some finance software and a spreadsheet.”
“I think I could also swing at least one evening and one weekend shift when Win is home to watch Jackson,” she offers.
Walker snorts from across the table. “Yeah, I bet that’s gonna go over real well, James.”
Jameson shrugs, seemingly unconcerned. “I couldn’t care less. He doesn’t want to help out? Well, now he’s going to feel the repercussions of that. Big. Time.”
“And that includes leaving him with his son?” I laugh. “Well, let’s just say little Jackson and I have been learning some special new words, and I’ve made a point of letting him play hide-and-go-seek with the TV remote,” she tells us, an impish grin crossing her fair-skinned face.
“Damn, I like this look on you, James,” Walker says approvingly. “Revenge suits you.”
This comment seems to stop Jameson cold. “What? What did I say?” Walker demands.
“I, uh…” James starts and stops again, looking down at her hands in her lap for a few seconds before meeting our concerned gazes again. “I just never really thought of it that way—as revenge. That’s not what I intended. I mean, he’s my husband…”
Uh-oh. I’ve got to intervene before she starts to unravel. Jameson may know what Win’s been up to, and Jameson may be fed-up with Win’s nasty attitude, but Jameson is not quite ready to publicly acknowledge the steady decay of her marriage. Or the decay of her love for Win, either.
I reach over and put a comforting hand on Jameson’s shoulder while glaring at Walker—who looks totally confused.
“No, of course not,” I assure her. “Walker didn’t mean it like that, James. We all know you’re just blowing off steam. Win’s being a pain in the butt, that’s all. It’s okay to give him a dose of his own medicine.”
Slowly, the horror and guilt seep from Jameson, replaced by a tiny smile and a hint of impishness.
“It is okay, isn’t it?” my sister agrees, her emerald eyes sparkling. “So, yeah, count me in for the books and a couple of shifts.”
“What about me?” Bailey asks. “What can I do?”
“Well, you can’t serve alcohol until you’re eighteen this summer. But, in the meantime, it would be great if you’d pick up some server shifts when school and work permit. Maybe help in the kitchen…”
