She got a quick kiss from her father before he sat down. A quiet grace, they passed the food, and her mother led off the conversation. “How’s business, Evie?”
Her mother’s tone was polite, almost completely covering the tension underneath, but Eve knew what it cost her to even ask. “Steady,” she replied as her fork sank into a slice of eggplant she could only describe as mush. The cheese sprinkled on top had the texture of oily paste. “Is this mozzarella?” she asked, distracted.
“Fat-free,” her mother said, an edge to her voice.
Moving right along. “I hired another bartender,” she said quickly. The eggplant needed something, anything, so she looked around for the saltshaker. It was missing from the table, so she settled for a generous sprinkling of pepper.
“I didn’t know you planned to hire another bartender,” her mother said.
“He’s a replacement, not an add. I had to fire Brent,” she said, using energetic motions to section off another tiny piece of eggplant. Maybe if she actively feigned eating motions she’d convince her mother some of the food had actually gone into her mouth.
“Not working out?”
“He was working out too well,” Eve said. “I caught him in the back of a truck with a customer, so I fired him. The last thing I need is the bar getting a reputation as some kind of stud service.”
Her mother’s lips tightened, but for once Eve wasn’t sure if her displeasure stemmed from Eve’s irregular job or from the mushy main course. Her mother pointedly looked at her father. Her father mournfully considered his unpalatable dinner, and Eve steeled her spine for one of three possible discussion tracks: Lack of Husband Prospects, Late-Night Hours in an Unsafe Environment, or …
“I saw Lee McCullough last week at the SCC Board meeting. He said he’d be interested in seeing your resume for a position in their marketing department.”
Lee McCullough was the VP of HR at Lancaster Life Insurance, so this was Door Number Three: Getting a Better Job. Eve kept her tone bright and positive. “Dad, that’s really kind of him, but I don’t need an interview, or career counseling, or a job. I have Eye Candy.”
Her mother’s face tightened. “This is a good job, with benefits, and a career track. Lancaster Life is growing. They’re actually hiring, in this economy.”
“They’re hiring for jobs in a gray-walled cube, with people wearing business casual for tedious meetings, working over a computer all day. I’m not going back to that.” She’d go back to the Met before chaining herself to a cube again.
“Why not, Eve?” her mother said gently. “You’d have a steady salary, regular hours, some security.”
Her parents grew up in what was euphemistically described as extreme poverty. She understood her parents’ drive for secure, stable lives for their children, knew where it came from. Benefits would be nice, but she was young and healthy, for now. “Mom, there is no security. Two years ago Lancaster Life laid off five percent of their work force, and the economy was better then.”
“I’m sure Lee would protect you if that were to happen again.”
“Lee would fire his own mother if the board of directors told him to.”
True or not, this sharp statement earned her a quelling look from her father. “It can’t hurt to talk to him.”
This was true. He might need a location for a holiday party, or even think of Eye Candy for team gatherings, but she wouldn’t deceive her father into thinking she was going for a job interview when she really intended to market her business to a member of the SCC board. When Eye Candy opened two months ago, Eve’s efforts to help the East Side’s most vulnerable workers became the weak spot in her parents’ persistent determination to shift her from provocative to respectable. She played this card without hesitation.
“If I shut down Eye Candy now, I’m out five years of savings. My credit will need a decade to recover, and who would hire the people I currently employ?”
“With a proper job you’d be able to offer internships to SCC clients,” he said.
“Maybe, Dad. Maybe if I’m in a management role, maybe one a year, probably unpaid, and they’d probably go to college students. Right now I employ people who support some, if not all, of their extended families on what I pay them.”
“Eve, we never dreamed you’d make as much as you have out of working as a cocktail waitress,” her mother started.
She committed one of the Webber cardinal sins and interrupted a parent. “I dreamed it, Mom. Ten years ago. My concept, my business, my building, my employees, funneling money into our neighborhood, all of it something I made real. We need small businesses on the East Side.”