Past Present

I slid the large gold bag across the granite bar, premium chocolates were boxed inside. "Your main present is that I actually drove out here to visit you." She smiled and told me that she hadn't had Godiva chocolates since she quit her other job, the beginning of September.

She started lamenting that no one was showing up for her birthday party. Her birthday wasn't actually until the following day and she was working behind the bar, news that she was having a party slightly surprised me.

"What do you mean? You just said Dave called you and you didn't call him back. The people that have been there for you are reaching out and you just ignore them. Maybe, he was asking when it begins."

"I was busy getting ready to come here."

"You ain't that busy now."

"I can't talk on the phone," she said as she shot a look towards the back of the bar.

"Oh."

Her new boss is actually her old boss, she has just changed from one bar and grille to a Mexican bar and grille, after a month away. Her boss was always against his employees talking on the phone but now, at the new place with an office on site in the back, he could enforce it better.

"And, I really don't need you talking shit right now."

Little victories. But it was her birthday, sort of, so I smiled and knocked it off.

"I can't talk on the phone or give the finger or throw things or swear at the customers," she continued.

"Yeah, I've been here thirty minutes and I haven't been hit with any flying ice."

"Yeah, I know..."

The old days are gone.