When the bar’s owner arrived at 1:30, she found Ranma sitting on the sidewalk waiting for her. No chance she was going to be late today. The lady laughed, fishing in a small blue purse for her keys. “You’re early. Don’t worry, we’ll train that out of you.” She really was pretty, especially given her age. Ranma understood how she had been so successful in the entertainment business. The door sprung open with a click. “C’mon in. There’s a spot in the back where you can leave your bag.”
Ranma pushed through the blue saloon doors separating the back bar area from the kitchen and back rooms. The back of the house was broken up into several small rooms. To her right, a closed door proclaimed itself to be the management office. Straight ahead, there was a locked closet with a glass door. Ranma could see hundreds, maybe thousands, of liquor bottles inside. This must be their stock area, she thought. Moving down a narrow hallway to the far left, she found a passage leading to a narrow staircase up to the second floor, and beyond that, a small industrial kitchen containing a commercial stovetop, two microwaves and a prep line with a walk-in freezer behind. The place was spotless. As she wandered back toward the main bar, she found a little alcove with a few coats hanging in it and a broom and mop leaning against the wall. Doffing her backpack with a groan and propping it in the little space, she cracked her neck loudly as she walked back to the front.
“Hey there, kiddo. You ready to get started?”
Ranma nodded eagerly.
“Alright! Over in that bin there by the bar, you’ll find a bunch of lemons and limes. We need to get those cut into quarters, and then the oranges there into thinner slices. You think you can handle that?”
Ranma picked up a long, slender knife from the bar, spinning it in her fingers with a dexterity only a lifelong martial artist could muster. “I guess I can take a crack at it.”
The woman shook her head and laughed. “Alright, smartass, I get the point. Let me know when you’re done; I’ll be in the kitchen getting the prep table set.” With one foot through the double doors, she stopped. “Shit, I almost forgot. My name’s Hana. Sorry about that, Ranko.”
Ranma looked up from her fruit without her hands stopping. “No problem. Pleased to meet you, Hana. And thanks again for this.”
In less than ten minutes, Ranma had cleared the lemons and was halfway through the limes when the front door swung open with a bang and three young women walked in. The first, a tallish, slender girl in a crimson, long-sleeved silk button down shirt and a black flared skirt, pulled off her sunglasses. Her blonde hair framed her face in a sort of bob cut that reminded Ranma of Nabiki. “Whoa, hey, we got a new girl!”
The second to enter was a shorter, stubbier girl in a pair of jeans and a black corset top, her shoulder-length hair braided into two braided pigtails and dyed a shade of electric blue that made Ranma think of the cotton candy at the Nerima fair. She looked to be the youngest of the three, though probably still four or five years Ranma’s senior. “Hey hey! Welcome aboard!”
Finally, a brunette in an orange minidress peeked out from behind the pair. She was wearing just a little too much makeup, and from the looks of it, doing it took the time she would have otherwise spent brushing her hair. “Mama Hana, you here?”
The elder stateswoman of the bar popped out of the kitchen, now wearing a black vinyl dishwasher’s apron. “Morning, girls. Say hello to Ranko. She’ll be joining us today. Take it easy on her, huh?”
The brunette giggled. “Oh, like you did for us?”
Hana cracked a smile. “That was different. You needed a kick in the butt once in a while.”
The young brunette made her way through the gap behind the bar and gave Hana a friendly hug. “You know that’s right.” She turned to face Ranma with a welcoming smile. “Hey there, Ranko. I’m Izumi. Good to meet ya.” She opened a dishwasher mounted under the bar, beginning to stack clean highball glasses on the countertop.
The girl in the blue pigtails waved nervously, still standing near the doorway. “Hi, I’m Mei.” Ranma gave her a polite smile as she bifurcated the final lime in the bin.
The blonde took a seat at the bar, looking Ranma over analytically. “Yui.” Ranma meekly turned her cheek, trying in vain to hide her black and purple eye from the girl’s examination. She extended her right hand over the bar, and Ranma wiped the fruit juice from her hands with a nearby bar towel before accepting it with her left.
“It’s good to meet all of you. I know I’m new here, but I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
Yui nodded with a thin smile, but her furrowed brow and pursed lips gave Ranma a moment’s pause. Was she upset about something? Had she done something wrong already?
Mei closed the distance to the bar, smiling meekly at Ranma. “Hey, can I show you something real quick?” She extended her hand, palm up and fingers open. Nodding in understanding, Ranma flipped the knife around so that the blade was in her hand and the handle stuck out, pressing it carefully into Mei’s palm.
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The cerulean-haired girl picked up an orange. “You’re doing the slices like this, which is great and all,” she said, shaving a few thin slices of fruit onto the bar. “But, if you want them to come out really pretty, try this.” She pushed the knife through the flesh of the orange again, this time rotating her wrist ever so slightly as the blade passed through it. What fell from the orange this time was not a flat slice, but a wavy, almost spiral piece of art. Mei set the knife on the bar, the handle facing Ranma. “You wanna try, Ranko?”
Ranma copied her movements perfectly - years of analyzing the moves of opposing martial artists not totally going to waste - and finished the orange with six more spirals. “How’s that?”
Mei made a show of performing a little golf clap, giggling. “She’s a natural!”
While Izumi finished her pyramid of highballs and changed focus to martini glasses, Yui and Hana were huddled together in the back by the pool table. Ranma couldn’t hear what they were saying, but from their body language, she could tell that she was the subject of their conversation. It made her nervous, but she tried not to focus on it, accepting more pointers and a second pair of hands from Mei to finish the bin of garnishes for the evening’s service.
Mei slipped behind the bar, picking up and inspecting each bottle of liquor positioned along the shelves on the mirrored back wall. If a bottle was more than half empty, she noted it on a small pad of paper she’d pulled from a drawer. Yui and Hana walked over together, taking seats next to each other on the patrons’ side of the bar. Hana spoke first. “Okay. Obviously, we’re going to need to rearrange what everybody’s doing now that Ranko has joined us. Yui, you’re bartending, of course. Izumi, we’re going to have you on table service, with Mei running the service bar. Ranko, you’re going to do what we call bar-backing tonight. Have you heard of it?” She shook her head. She’d barely even set foot in a bar before yesterday.
“OK. It sounds simple, but it’s really not. Basically, when the place gets busy, Yui and Mei are going to be slammed three and four people deep back there. They’re going to need to make drinks as fast as they can. As the bar back, your job is to make sure they don’t run out of anything they need. They won’t have time to cut more fruit, wash glasses, get ice, any of that, so they’re counting on you to keep them supplied so they don’t have to slow down. They’ll let you know when they need something, but keep an eye out and try to be proactive if you can. Eventually, we’ll try you out on other jobs - I know you said you’ve waited tables before - but this is the quickest way to get you exposed to all the moving parts around here.”
Ranma nodded. “I’ll do my best,” she replied in as chipper a tone as she could manage.
The sound of a doorbell came from the back room. “That must be the grocery delivery guy,” Yui announced. “I’ll take care of it.” She disappeared back behind the double doors as Mei came through them in the opposite direction with a large armload of full liquor bottles. As Mei began to restock the bar. Ranma saw that several more bottles had been pulled out from the locked storage room but not carried in and rushed to gather them, bringing them to Mei with a smile. She hated to admit it, but so far, this was actually kind of… fun?
A loud clatter came from the back room, followed by Yui’s frustrated voice. “Aggh! Son of a…” She burst into the area behind the bar, a mop in her hand, and Ranma cringed. The sound she heard could only have been Yui struggling to get the mop out from behind the massive backpack she’d left in the alcove. She whistled loudly. “Oi, Izzi! Can you get this? I’m running way behind.” Tossing the mop, she turned back into the back area and made her way toward Hana’s office. Izumi caught the mop in mid-air and set about wetting it from a bar sink. Ranma watched the steaming water pour from the faucet in terror, silently praying that it didn’t end up being her job.
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The rest of the afternoon was filled with instruction about cash registers and liquor names and ice machines. The girls were all fun and seemed to enjoy working together, and there were no shortage of giggles between them. Ranma blushed periodically at the realization that she’d participated in more than a few herself. At long last, the first customers began to trickle in. Ranma stood at the entrance to the back door as if she were a soccer goalkeeper, her eyes flashing constantly between all of her various areas of responsibility. Not a single glass had left the stack yet - there was no way it could be empty - but Ranma was determined to excel tonight.
With what must have been shocking agility in her coworkers’ eyes, Ranma darted in and out of their workspaces with ease, somehow managing to keep everything topped off despite never getting in the way of the older girls. Mei noticed the only thing she was a little slow on was washing the glasses; for some reason, she seemed to be doing everything in her power to avoid putting her hands in the sink full of warm water. Oh well, everybody’s squeamish about something, she thought to herself.
While the stage in the corner went unused, the sound system in the bar never stopped. They played a variety of pop and rock songs on an almost jukebox-like rotation, and Ranma found that the high-energy beat lent an extra spring to her step. She was glad for it, because once the rush had gotten started, it had been relentless.
At one point, Izumi went on a short break and entrusted Ranma with a few of her tables. By the time she’d returned, the patrons had finished and Ranma had already cleared the tables for the next guests. While Mei and Izumi didn’t miss an opportunity to offer her encouragement or advice, it seemed that every time Ranma looked up, Yui’s eyes were on her. She didn’t know what to make of the head bartender, or why she seemed so intent on Ranma’s every move, but it really worried her. She didn’t seem upset or anything, just really focused on their new coworker for reasons Ranma couldn’t fathom. Ranma made it a point to smile brightly at her every time she caught her looking, in the hopes of disarming whatever might be building in her head.
Hana, meanwhile, was barely seen behind the bar. She spent most of the evening in the front of the house, welcoming guests and ensuring their needs were met. Between her frequent check-ins with Ranma to ensure she had no questions and was doing alright, she helped Izumi clear tables when she could, and carried the occasional drink when her hands were full. For the most part, she remained hands-off to see how her crew handled a Saturday night with a full complement of staff.
So far, she was fairly impressed.