"I need you to come in tomorrow." Matt said during their night shift on Wednesday.
Phoebe had just gotten in from her babysitting job for Rochelle Anoa'i, barely getting to the bar on time for the evening rush of the bar. The bus was late, maybe it was time to start opening her mouth. She needed to let Matt know that she needed help. But she had never asked for help before. And then Matt needed her to do something off the clock.
"We're closing Island Boi bar because we're having a family gathering, at least for those that are in Florida and only for the ones that are of adult drinking age. Joe will be there, Rochelle I think will be there along with my parents. I really want them to meet you, both you and Heather." Matt said as he rubbed his chest.
"Are you okay?" Phoebe asked watching what he was doing.
"I'm fine. Just tired from the influx of people coming in to the restaurant and bar lately. You really have helped bring people around to Island Boi. Which is why I'm officially going to hire you and Heather as our night time bartenders."
"Great, I think. With the bar already filling up now, I can see why that would be a good thing." She glanced up as another group of five people walked in. "I'm glad that the kitchen is open now. Max is a great cook and the seafood dishes are great with the fruity drinks that everyone seem to be going for. I'm glad we finally put the Samoan Drop on the menu. That's the signature drink that a lot of people are willing to buy."
Matt excused himself. He continued rubbing his chest as he walked back through the swinging door that went into the restaurant. This only made Phoebe a little bit nervous. Her boss was the one hiding something, not just her.
"Everything okay?" Heather asked as Phoebe came back around to behind the bar.
"I think Matt isn't feeling good. He keeps rubbing his chest."
"Jon told me that Matt has had a heart attack like last year."
Phoebe sighed as she started grabbing glasses as people were waiting for her to start serving them. "I'll keep an eye on that."
That was something she was going to keep an eye on.
There was a light rain that greeted Phoebe and Heather as they were getting ready for that special Thursday at Island Boi. It was a light rain, not a down pour that had happened the nigh before.
"Thanks for letting me borrow your pants." Phoebe said walking out of Heather's bathroom.
Heather smiled, "You know, if you need to do laundry my apartment complex has a laundry room. I can pay half of it if you want me to." Heather said as she walked out of the kitchen area with two mugs of coffee in her hands.
Gratefully taking the offered mug, Phoebe took a tentative drink before answering. "That would be good, Heather. Thanks."
Matt explained that the family would be arriving around noon, with his three kids in school his ex-wife Mandy was going to be there and then others. She was told that Dwayne would be there with his ex wife best friend and then Joe would be there, Phoebe was sure Rochelle was going to be there with him. Of course Jon Good would be there as well.
"Colby has to be on the road, Jon was giving some time off." Heather said as they walked out of her apartment.
Hugging her hoodie closer to herself, Phoebe sighed. "Well, at least we'll only have to deal with the real idiot of the group."
"He's a good guy." Heather defended the Lunatic Fringe friend of theirs.
"I know he is. I just wish he would think before he opened his mouth. Great guy, great looking guy, and I see the way you smile at him."
Again with the rosey blush creeping up on Heather's face. "Okay, so I like him. He's cool, but he so has his eyes on you."
"Awe, thank you. Well, I'm not looking for anyone right now, I want to focus on settling in here and getting on with my life."
"You never did say why you moved down to Pensacola in the first place." Heather asked.
"I blindfolded myself, twisted around and threw a dart at a map. Pensacola was the closest to where the dart hit on the map therefore I moved here."
Heather crossed her arms. "That's not a real good reason."
"I wanted to move next to a beach and Miami is not the place I would have gone to in the first place. I wanted the beach, I put up a map of Florida, this is where the dart landed. End of story."
Phoebe was glad that Heather decided not to pursue the matter any further. It made her skin prickle with the knowledge that she had nearly spoken up about something she was trying to hide.
They got to Island Boi just as Matt was opening. Look who was with him, Kathy, Katrina and Candace. The three cousins glanced at the slightly wet duo of bartenders as they showed up.
"You look like drowned rats." Kathy giggled, looking at Phoebe in particular.
Matt wheezed slightly as he opened the door. "Don't start shit." He didn't sound happy or healthy.
"Come on, Kathy, can't you just get over it?" Candace asked as she opened the door to the bar.
"It's funny seeing them like that." Kathy shrugged as if it was an okay thing to say.
"Well stop or you may just loose your job." Matt quickly coughed right afterward.
Phoebe shook her head. "Let her talk what she wants. I've heard worse in my life." She leveled a look at Kathy, who just flipped her hair over her shoulder almost like symbolically flipping Phoebe off in the process.
When Heather followed the three women, Phoebe had to physically stop Matt from following the group of female employees. She stood there looking up at him, her jaw set hard that her molars crunched slightly. Not because of Kathy but because of what she was witnessing with Matt's morning wheezing movements.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." He responded.
"I call bullshit. Just so you know, if I see you struggling in there, breathing hard and rubbing your chest, I'm making you sit out for a the rest of the time your family is there. Let me take care of it."
"If it goes that far. And you don't know how to run a restaurant."
"You don't know how to run a bar so let's work together on this. Let's make this work for each other. I want to see your restaurant succeed, I want to see the bar get people in at night and have extra money coming in for you, your children's future, maybe even let me succeed in what I want. But right now, be extra careful with your health, Matt."
"Okay, sure. Can we go in before we get any more wet out here?" He asked as the rain drops started coming down harder.
She smiled and walked in, keeping an eye on him as she went.
Joe had gotten home on the night before the Thursday family gathering and he decided to stick to the house to be there when Malia woke up in the morning. Rochelle was already asleep when he got in and didn't want to miss waking his little princess up when he was home.
"Malia, honey." Joe said walking into his daughter's room.
She was still sleeping in her princess bed, a pink canopy bed that was specifically made for her. There were stuff animals, several doll houses and a Cinderella castle doll house where she liked playing most of the time. There were stuffed animals hanging around in the corners, and most of the cloths Joe could see in the closet were princess oriented. This was the perfect little girl's room, which he would be changing when she got older in a few years.
"Malia," Joe pushed her hair from her face, making her stir slightly. "Come on, Princess, time to get up. We need to get you ready for school." He shook her little shoulder.
Malia sighed and then turned to look at her daddy. Joe smiled and pushed his fingers through her thick hair.
"Morning, Princess. Can you get up now so we"can get breakfast in our bellies?"
Malia smiled and wrapped her little arms around his neck. Joe easily lifted her up, as he usually did in the mornings that he was home. He carried her out of the bedroom, meeting Rochelle in the hall.
"Hi, Baby." Joe said seeing his wife.
"You got her up? That's good, because she was being a lazy bump this morning." Rochelle tickled Malia's side, causing the little girl to squeal in laughter. "Go feed our baby, Joe while I get ready to go."
That meant Rochelle was going to be taking a shower, doing her makeup and picking out a dress to wear. She always did that when there was a large family gathering, like she had to look good for his family. Rochelle's parents were long gone, so it was Joe's parents that were like her parents. And with Joe's family being so big, he knew she some times felt swamped by everyone involved.
"Is cousins Joshua and Jonathan going to the grown up drinking party?" Malia asked as they got down to the kitchen together.
"No, unfortunately not. Though don't tell your mom but Jon Good is going to be there because Rapunzel and Strawberry Shortcake will be there. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if I got Phoebe to come over after school today and visit with you."
"Yes!" Malia laughed as Joe put the bowl of Cherrios down in front of her.
"Eat up, Princess. Then we need to get you in the bath and then dressed so we can get to the bus stop."
Cleaning up the kitchen a little bit, Joe stood around and talked to Malia. This was what he loved to do when he was home with his daughter, this morning routine of theirs. Joe gets her up in the morning and off to school when he could. Telling her one of her princess stories at night. Doing menial jobs around the house just so that Rochelle didn't feel like she was doing all of the housework.
"Phoebe said that you did her hair yesterday before she went to work. Did you do a good job?" He asked putting the dishwasher dishes up.
"She said I did. Her hair is not like mine. Is that because she's a white woman?"
"Everyone's hair is different, sweetie. White or black, Asian, we all have different hair. Grandma is Italian, remember?"
"Oh yeah. It's just that Auntie D and Kathy say that Rapunzel is white trash. They tell Mommy these things."
He glanced at his daughter over his shoulder, not enjoying where the conversation was going but wanted to know more about what Malia would say. "That's not nice."
"But they come over here and tell her that Phoebe doesn't belong at Island Boi, and Strawberry too, because they don't look like us. But Katrina and Candace didn't say that the last time they were here. They didn't say bad stuff about Phoebe or Heather at all."
"Why would Auntie D and Aunt Kathy say those things? Is it because Phoebe and Heather have peach colored skin like Grandma?"
"Yeah. They aren't exotic, not like they are. At least that's what Kathy likes to say."
Joe looked up because Rochelle was standing in the kitchen wearing her hair up in a towel and she had a robe on. She bit her lip, having pretty much heard a lot of what Malia had said.
"Do they really say that stuff, Rochelle?" He questioned her as he turned to fully face his wife.
She shrugged. "I hear a lot of stuff about Phoebe taking over, going over their heads. I, I guess they feel threatened by Phoebe because she's so well trained with the bar stuff."
"Then why did you hire her to be with our daughter?"
"I decided that since Malia seems to like her and she did help with that work packet when you took her to Island Boi that maybe I could use the help. She was nice, she didn't seem to be focused on the wrestling or the fame, as I'm sure most people would be." When Joe didn't interrupt, Rochelle continued. "I talked to Dwayne, to The Usos and Trinity. I just, they said she was good, that she was nice, smart and everyone says the nicest things. So I took the initiative to see if she would do this. Even when my sisters and cousins didn't like her at first. At least for Candace and Katrina."
"And yet you told Phoebe I told you to talk to her when I know I didn't. Sure I mentioned what the teacher said but I never once told you to go talk to Phoebe about it."
Rochelle bit her lip and looked down. He caught her in a lie.
"It's not that big of a deal, Rochelle." Joe walked up to her. "But you might want to start trusting me more, okay."
"I do, sort of." She sighed, pressing the heel of her hand to the side of her head. "I just, I don't think I can trust myself. At least with that knowledge."
"What do you mean by that?
She sighed again. "I want to believe you, Joe. I really do. The way Phoebe talks about you in a platonic way, and how much Malia seems to like her now, but I have other people telling me otherwise. I know I can trust her in our life. But before hand, I don't know. I don't like you being near other women."
Joe sighed. "Trust that I am going to be the best husband, the best father there is for you and Malia. And trust me when I say that whatever is going on at Island Boi with your sisters and your cousins, it's not going to be good if they start something with Phoebe and Heather."
"I thought I could trust them, my family I mean, but I don't understand why they are being the way they are, you know."
"Do you think it's because they feel threatened?"
"No," he gave her a look. "Okay, maybe a little. They are so much better at the bar than Kathy and Katrina and Candace. I don't understand why Danica would feel threatened."
"How would that be the reason for them being so mean to Phoebe?"
"Because, they are the ones telling me the things like she flirts with you."
Joe shrugged. "She does flirt, but tastefully. When she tried out, she made comments about my eyes, sure that's fine. She has a thing for calling everyone honey, sweetie and stuff of endearment. She's a people person. She just knows how to deal with them. She's a great bartender. But she's nothing more than a friend to me, especially with Malia being attached to her right now."
Rochelle seemed to be thinking about something, something really hard. Her dark eyes turned towards Joe for the briefest of moments.
"I don't deserve you, you know that right. You're too perfect, a dream come true."
"Hey, we deserve each other. We made Malia, remember?" He reached out for her, but she stepped out of his grasp. "Chelle?" he saw her smooth out the robe.
"I don't want PDA in front of Malia." She looked at their daughter. "I am going to get ready to go. Malia really needs her bath this morning."
No hug, no kiss, nothing normal that he and Rochelle would do in the morning when he was there. She was pulling and pushing with him again and he didn't really understand why.
First it were Rochelle's insecurities based around what her sisters and cousins telling her. She didn't know who to believe and He hoped that she would believe in him.
At that moment, Joe wasn't sure who to believe anymore. Not even he himself believed that he still loved his wife.
It was like going through the motions with it, and he didn't know why.
Actually he did know why. It was because of one very long haired woman who didn't know how much she was affecting the structure of Joe's family.
I don't know what it was with the last chapter, but I think I bungled it or something. Hopefully this chapter has brought a new life to the story. So I hope you guys at least enjoyed this one. I'll update when I can.
I am pursuing to finish the stupid thing because I have been playing around with a new series, a short story universe and my intention was to finish this thing before I started another story. I've been fighting with this story because I don't want to give up on it when I seem to like to drop the ball with my other projects that I bore myself with after a while. Now that the momentum is picking up, I see it now where I want to go- sort of- in this chapter. During the course of writing I have changed a lot of the storyline, and now it seems a little clearer but still not quite there yet in my eyes.
Thanks for bearing with me through this mess, everyone. I really appreciate it. Makes me happy at least some people believe in my writing ability when it is hard for me to believe in it. A major issue is second guessing myself and I am working on not doing that. Anyway, thanks for reading. I'll see you guys around next time.