Hunted at Hooters

"What the hell time do you call this, young lady?" Hank's Southern twang barked at Sarah from across the parking lot. She could feel his disapproving gaze as she stumbled hurriedly from the bus stop, and struggled to tie the apron around her waist.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" She called as she trotted, removing her jacket and exposing her arms to the Texan winter breeze. The Hooters uniform stayed the same no matter the time of year; skin-tight, white tank and bright orange hot pants. She'd had no time for laundry this week, nor time to consider her underwear that morning, so the hot pink frills were somewhat visible around her ample chest which made her an ideal waitress at the famous restaurant.

"That's the third time this week, Sarah. What happened? Where's your car?" Hank took her coat and bag from her so that she could dive straight into the chaos beyond the front door. After he was done glaring at her, that is.

"They, err..." She cleared her throat, embarrassed as she released her ponytail and rapidly fingered through her long, reddish hair in the reflection of the window. "The repo men came and, I... I guess I missed a few payments."

"For God's sake, woman." Hank showed no mercy. "I know your grandfather is sick, and you gotta take care of him. But if you lose this job-"

"I know!" Sarah cut him off, too scared to consider the end of that sentence. "I know, I'm sorry. I promise, I will be on time from now on. Granddaddy is doin' OK. I just got a little behind, that's all. I'll do better, I swear."

"You'd better!" She heard him call from behind her as she swept into the mid-afternoon madness. Like an ocean current, her customers and co-workers pulled her in and filled her senses with orders, reminders and requests. Was she still on for covering Samantha's shift on Thursday? Of course. Would she mind clearing table twelve so Julie could go on break? No problem. Could table three get a refill? And, oh, the men's room needs an 'out of order' sign. She'd be right on it.

Working at Hooters had never been her first choice, but it certainly kept her on her feet. At the age of twenty-one, Sarah had been just a year away from finishing college when Granddaddy had fallen ill. With no parents or siblings to speak of, and after Grandma passed a few years prior, Sarah and Granddaddy were the only two surviving members of the Summers family clan.

So, until he got better (as she kept telling herself he would), Sarah was a Hooters Girl -- a fact she tried her damnedest to keep secret from her Granddaddy's elderly, gossiping neighbours.

The truth was, Sarah had never made a particularly good waitress. She was clumsy, forgetful and a general hot mess at the best of times. The number of menial, low-wage jobs she had been fired from was embarrassing and, she was ashamed to acknowledge, the only thing that kept food on her and Granddaddy's table was, well, the triple D-cup swelling under her shrunken Hooter's top.

"I sincerely hope you thank the lord that he made you pretty." Hank, her boss, would often say after she screwed up again and again. Hank was a good, god-fearing man. But he was also kind of an ass. Still, Sarah bit her tongue and went about working just as hard as she could.

Leaving college early, she had been forced to forfeit her scholarship. If she had any hope of finishing her degree, and getting a job she was actually good at, she not only needed to keep her and Granddaddy afloat -- she needed to be making money.

"Hi there, welcome to Hooters! What can I get for you today?" Sarah put her game face on and spoke brightly as she approached the recently-seated family of four. An older father and three college-aged sons, clearly returned from a recent hunting trip, wearing a mixture of woodland camouflage and florescent orange. As she'd expected, the father spoke for the table.

"Well hello there, darlin'. Ain't you a pretty thing." He spoke from beneath a silver moustache with mutton chops framing his wide face. A few months ago, his greeting would have made Sarah's inner-feminist's blood boil. Now, however, she was growing accustomed to being talked to this way.

A part of the agreement when you become a Hooters Girl, after all, is that the franchise is built on female sex appeal and advances like this are to be taken in good humour. Sarah forced her mouth into the shape of a smile and did a little courtesy, pinching the tips of her hot pants.

"Why thank you, kind Sir." She accepted the compliment as the other girls had taught her to. "And what will y'all be eating today? I can recommend our Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich, made with thinly-sliced rump steak, sautéed onions and a whole heap of provolone." She silently commended herself for remembering her lines from yesterday, although today's special was likely to be different.

The older man laughed loudly, and his boys all exchanged smiles between them. Clearly, Sarah was missing out on the joke.

"We like a good rump, don't we boys?" The man continued to chuckle and Sarah felt a jolt of panic as his hand came to rest on her backside.

"Now then," he leaned forwards, unsnapping a pair of tiny spectacles with his spare hand and placing them on the end of his nose, as though about to read something of far greater importance than what to have for a late lunch. "Is there, er, rump in anything else here... Sarah?" He read her name badge with apparent difficulty where it clung just above her left breast.

"Um... n-no. No sir, I can't think that there is." Sarah wasn't an idiot -- she knew that this type of contact between customers and staff was crossing a line -- but she had no idea what to do or how to react. So she stood, frozen in fear, whilst the older man groped her ass through her tiny shorts and his three adult sons sat and watched closely, as though learning from a master.

"Ah well. I'm more of a breast man anyway. What about you boys?" There was a general murmur of agreement but Sarah was barely listening. She could feel her heart beating in her neck and the sounds of the room her were somehow drowned out by it.

All around them, she saw her colleagues walking past, either not noticing her plight or not caring. She wanted to reach out with a hand, open her mouth and say something. But her arms felt heavy and her jaw seemed wired shut.

"We will take four orders of your biggest, juiciest chicken breasts if you please, Sarah. And, er, don't skimp on the sauce there, OK darlin'?" With her words failing her, Sarah nodded, not even knowing if that was something on the menu, and the man chuckled like a good-natured Santa Claus. "And get this young man a beer! It's his birthday, after all!"

Sarah gasped as he drew back his hand and spanked her hard enough to force her hips into the side of the table, causing the cutlery to jump and clatter. Before anymore could be said, she shuffled away to the sounds of erupting laughter and words of admiration. "Nice, dad."

Not even entirely sure what she had written down on the ticket, she passed it through to the kitchen and took a moment to lean against the bar and breathe.

"I'd better not be catchin' you takin' a break this early, Sarah Summers." Hank's disembodied voice seemed to surround her, like the stalker-ghost-boss from hell. She frowned as she searched for the lumbering old man, far too tall and wide to be this elusive. "Down here." Sarah followed the sound with her eyes and saw him down on the ground, changing out a barrel beneath the bar.

"I'm not Hank, I just need a second." She assured him, trying to shake off the creepy feeling that was clinging to her skin like a coat of spiders. "Table five... they just got a bit handsy, is all. I'm okay."

"Damn right, you're okay." Hank grunted as he worked. He was getting too old for this job, but he wouldn't see any of the women here carrying barrels around like that. He was old-fashioned that way. "That man is a district judge for the Western state of Texas, and those are his three sons. Two of 'em are on their way to be just like their old man. The other, well, he's a special case. Got knocked on his head as a baby, or some such like that. You treat 'em right and you're on your way to a big tip."

"I'm not sure it's just the tip they wanna give me." Sarah spoke under her breath, staring off in their direction, filled with anxiety at the prospect of having to go back over there.

"What was that?" Hank put a hand behind his ear as though to listen better. "Look Sarah, I feel for you. I really do. And your Granddaddy and I, we was good friends growin' up. So you listen to me when I give you this advice. You hearin' me, missy?"

"Yes Hank." Sarah sighed as her boss got to his feet and started pulling experimentally at the beer tap.

"You give those boys anything they ask for, and you do it with a smile. Maybe it'll make 'em wanna come back here and keep spending money. You got it?"

"I got it, Hank." Sarah agreed, at this point, by default. Perhaps Hank could tell because he dismissed her with a wave, muttering to himself about how the women in his day were a lot smarter about 'capitalising their assets'.

As the afternoon turned to early evening the diners began to thin out for a smaller and more elderly crowd. The type of old men with whom it was acceptable, or even cute, to flirt with outrageously. They always came back because they loved the attention. That, after all, was what Hooters was famous for: first class, top heavy customer service.

Table five, however, remained occupied by the judge and his sons, filling half the restaurant with the sounds of their crude conversation and boisterous laughter. As promised, Sarah returned to them frequently with check-ups, refills and dessert menus. None of them tried to touch her again, although her body remained on high-alert.

Whilst the judge, himself, filled out his hunting jacket with a barrel-like chest and protruding beer-belly, his sons were all built with much narrower shoulders and thinner jaws. The youngest, Gerard, was a bespectacled boy with a mop of black hair that made Sarah think of a warped Harry Potter. Young though he looked, today was his birthday which made him the same age as her.

The other two were harder to age, but Sarah took the eldest boy to also be the tallest. Stanley's face seemed gaunt and his eyes were wide and almost frog-like. Being so tall and thin seemed to make him prone to hunching, and he did so with an air of anxiety about him.

The last boy, Mike, seemed most like his father with slightly more muscle tone and hair buzzed close to his scalp. It made Sarah wonder if he might be involved with the military, but she recalled Hank's account that the two older sons were studying law like their father.

In any case, now that she was able to put some names to some faces, and the time had passed by whilst she'd been keeping busy, Sarah was just beginning to allow her anxieties to sink into the background of her mind when she was called upon to get their bill.

"Now Sarah, as you know it is this young man's twenty-first birthday today." The judge clasped his son's shoulder firmly, causing the skinny, snaggle-toothed boy's entire body to shake like a limp rag doll. "What kind of offers does Hooters have for such an occasion?"

"Oh, well..." Sarah should have thought about this before. "Normally we offer 10 free hot wings on your birthday when you download the Hooters app. But I guess I ought'a have told you about that earlier."

"That would have been ideal, sweetheart." The judge laughed, seemingly kindly.

"If y'all don't mind I can talk to my manager and see what we can do?"

As usual, Hank muttered to himself as he went about attempting to use the restaurant's computer system to alter the table's bill. Fortunately, that would occupy all of his attention for the next ten minutes, because it was then that Sarah's phone began to vibrate from within her apron.

Turning the corner, she raced to answer, concerned when she saw who was calling. "Granddaddy, what's wrong?" He would never call her at work unless it was an emergency.

"Sarah, honey, I'm so sorry... the water heater... it's gone busted on us again."

"Again?" Sarah's shoulders slumped. The last time the repairman had been out he'd told her it was the last time he was going to fix it. They needed a replacement, badly. That pile of rust in the closet was getting to be a hazard. "Okay, Granddaddy. Don't worry about it. I'll figure something out."

"I'm sorry, Sarah. I was only tryin' to help. I just feel so useless all the damn time."

"I know. You do help me, Granddaddy. You've kept me sane and safe for all this time. Without you, I wouldn't be the upstanding lady I am today." She tried to cheer him up. "Now get back to bed! You shouldn't be pokin' around in there, in any case."

"Alright Sarah." He sighed, sadly and her heart ached. "See you later."

"That was your Granddaddy?" Sarah looked up at the sound of a female voice. Candice, a thin, older woman, was one of the longest standing waitresses here, and also one of Sarah's closest friends. "How's he doin'?"

"Same as always. No better, no worse." Sarah shrugged with a heavy sigh, slipping her phone back into her apron pocket with an extra weight placed firmly on her shoulders.

"I heard they took the car." Candice gave her a sympathetic look as she passed more used plates than Sarah would ever be able to carry, through the kitchen serving hatch. A rule that only she would be able to get away with breaking, on account of being married to Hank. "You'll get it back." She smiled and touched her arm, reassuringly.

"I don't need a car. What I need is a water heater that actually heats up water!" Sarah ran a hand through her thick hair stressfully, venting her frustrations.

"And I wish I could help you sweetheart, I surely do." Candice assured her and Sarah pouted.

"Oh come on, Candice. I know you've got overtime. Penny's out on maternity next week, she told me so herself!"

"And we could never afford Penny in the first place." Candice held up her hands, defensively. "I'm sorry, Sarah. Like I said, I wish I could help ya. You're a good girl, and you gotta big heart. It's a cryin' shame you had to get all of them responsibilities before you finished college but that's just the way life goes sometimes. We all gotta learn."

Once again, Sarah slumped as she watched the somewhat skeletal woman take off like the bar was on fire and she had the hose. No overtime meant that she was likely going to have to take a second job. And that meant no time to take care of Granddaddy or, God forbid, have a moment of leisure for herself.

By the time Sarah returned to table five with young Gerard's meal taken off the bill, the judge had his wallet out on the table, fat and straining with wads of paper cash. The sight made her stomach hurt, knowing she'd never see her own like that any time soon.

"This is perfect. Thank you kindly for your excellent service tonight, Sarah." The judge said as he placed down a healthy bundle of banknotes, likely containing one hell of a tip.

In the end, maybe Hank was right, Sarah thought probably for the first time ever since having known him. Maybe women these days weren't being smart about what they could do with their so-called assets.

"You know," The judge said, watching her closely as she must have been staring down the cash like a starved wolf. "I might recommend this place to a few buddies of mine. That could be a big help to you and your boss, right Sarah?"

"It surely would, Mister. We'd be awful grateful for the custom."

"Oh please, call me Sir." He said as though that were his first name. "Look, Sarah, I don't mean to be obnoxious here, but would it be fair to say that $100 would go a long way in your pocket tonight?"

"Err..." Sarah felt struck dumb, unsure of what to say. The answer, of course, was yes. But this wasn't filed under her list of usual, acceptable conversations with customers.

"I have these two fifty-dollar bills in my wallet here." He withdrew them without looking to check the amount. "And I just been carrying them around these past couple of days, wondering, gosh, what to get my boy here for his birthday."

"I know what I want, Dad." The boy piped up from beside him, his voice affected by some possible learning disability.

"I know you do, Gerard, I'm getting to it." The man dismissed his interruption. "Would you like to earn an extra hundred tonight, Sarah?"

Somehow this question felt more weighted than the feeling of his hand on her "rump" in the middle of a crowded restaurant. A number of things swirled around her head; all of the sordid suggestions these people might come out with; all of the angry, feminist responses she could spit back at them. The one thing she landed on, however, was her Granddaddy.

"What would I have to do?" She asked in a quiet voice that did not sound quite like her own. The man smiled widely, revealing a line of undoubtedly synthetic, pearly white teeth.

"All you have to do is wait five minutes after we leave, meet us outside, then you come out into the alley and you let my boy here get a look at what Hooters is famous for. What do you say?"

Sarah swallowed hard as she listened to the proposition. Again, her heart began to thump, thump, thump in her ears, and she could feel her lips tingling with adrenaline.

"Do you need some time to think about it?" The judge offered in a much softer voice, as though trying to entice a baby deer to eat out of his hand.

"I, er..." The 'no' was on the tip of her tongue but it did not seem to make it past her lips.

"I'm just gonna go ahead and leave this fifty right here." He placed one down between the numerous table rings. "If you want the other, you come out in five. If not... well, it's been lovely to meet you, Sarah."

He tipped an imaginary hat and slid out of the booth, quickly followed by the three of his sons. And just like that, the family were gone.

Once the ringing of the bell above the door had ceased, Sarah lowered herself into the booth; her mind totally lost, like a stalled car, paralysed with indecision.

Her eyes dropped to the neat pile of money in front of her. Their meal had come to a steep $163, even with the birthday boy's food taken off the ticket. The judge had tipped her the customary 15%, as well as the fifty-dollar bill staring up at her, asking if she dared to double her profit.

She slipped a hand into her apron to retrieve her phone and scrolled through her text messages. The handyman had sent her a quote for what he'd thought they would need... She could get a fifth of the way there for doing practically nothing, she thought to herself as she locked her phone again. That was a full 12-hour shift at Hooters -- for doing practically nothing.

Glancing up at the clock, she realised half her deliberation time was gone already. She had to make a decision about this. And maybe the best way to do that was to not think about it, she realised. Because if she thought about it, she almost definitely would not do it. And if she didn't do it, she'd spend the next few weeks kicking herself.

Just go out there. Do it. Get the money. Come back in. Life goes on as normal.

"My, oh my, aren't you a bold one." The judge seemed surprised to see her in the alleyway where he and Stanley were smoking cigarettes whilst the other two stood with their jacket collars braced against the cold wind.

"I'm not supposed to be on break so I don't have much time." Sarah said in an attempt to speed things up. She wanted to do this like ripping off a band-aid. But it was soon clear that's not how things were going to happen.

"Come now," the judge said. "You're earning more money out here than you are in there anyway. A smart girl like you can see that. Now come, further in, let's make sure we have enough privacy here."