Eric, a balding, stout man in his 60s, wears sweater vests year-round, only ever orders water or soda and leaves $20 tips on the sticky bar top. Generosity or attempts at buying my attention, I don’t give his motivations a second thought.
At the notorious downtown TriBeCa dive bar where I work, he has his favorites: Sochi, with her raven-black curly hair and caramel eyes; Mallory, a long-time bar legend in her mid-30s who recently returned after a new boob job; Brittany from Jersey, with the navel piercing and a tattoo sleeve.
“You want Eric at your shift,” veterans tell us. “He leaves great tips and will spread the word about you. You’ll get bigger crowds, which means more money.”
I never think to ask how that word is spread.
During our 4 a.m. cab rides home after work, the other girls and I complain about Eric’s handsy hugs and his demanding requests for us to pose for photos. Our boss, Tom, loves his presence and doesn’t seem to mind his behavior; after all, his enthusiasm, patronage, and services are good for business.
With a thick camera strap slung around his neck, Eric appears to know everyone. Other men notice the air of importance with which he carries himself. They engage in jovial conversations, bandying about opinions on the Mets’ season and criticisms of the mayor. But the regulars give each other knowing looks—almost pitying expressions that suggest they sense something is off. They recognize the unspoken dynamics at play, but they’re unwilling to risk disrupting the delicate balance of power between our roles as decorative service ornaments and their positions as paying customers.
At some point, one of my Thursday night regulars leans in and says, “I didn’t know you had a tattoo there,” pointing to my upper back between my shoulder blades. With a sly grin, he adds, “I saw this photo of you.” My heart sinks as he pulls up a website populated with images of me and other female bartenders, half undressed and half drunk, plastered across forums where men share the locations and work schedules of their favorites — who they casually refer to as “barmaids.”
I only recall posing for a few of them.
“You’re the one from Texas, right?” he continues, smirking as if he’s stumbled upon a juicy secret.
Not long after, I start dating a Friday night patron named James. He asks for my opinions and listens attentively, sharing a laugh over our mutual appreciation for dark humor. He recites poetry, and we talk about our travel dreams. One night, over coffee at the diner around the corner, James reveals that Eric accosted him at the bar earlier that week.
“Just so you know,” Eric warned him, “I saw her go into the bathroom with Dave. Be careful. She’s a manipulative whore. She’ll act like she’s into you just for your money.” James’ expression hardens when he recounts this interaction, but he assures me he knows it’s bullshit.
Isn’t that the point, I think? You come into a bar that only hires young women, leaving hundreds of bills along abandoned drinks, compelling them to pose for photos so you can share them next to captions musing about their private lives. I don’t even know who Dave is, but it shouldn’t matter.
Soon after, my photos stopped appearing on the website. No one asks about me in the posts. My shift numbers begin to decline. James moves on to someone else.
During my last week working at the bar, the moment Eric walks in, camera in hand and a wide grin on his face, I can feel the tension rise. He sweeps Sochi off her feet in an aggressive embrace, walks right past me without a glance, and introduces himself to the new girl, Natalie, who I’m training.
I don’t quit because of Eric. Or James. I don’t quit because I finally land a lucrative writing gig or a more stable, higher-paying day job. I just stop showing up. It’s a phase in my life where boredom consumes me, and I’m always chasing after something that promises to make me feel more alive. No longer am I Molly the Bartender from Texas. Now, I’m Molly, unemployed once more and even more aggravated.
The following week, a text from Sochi flashes on my phone: “Hey, wanna swing by the bar later? Eric left you an envelope.”
When I arrive, I find her leaning outside against the brick wall, taking slow drags from a cigarette. “We miss you,” she says, her voice tinged with sincerity before she turns and walks back inside, leaving me with a strange sense of finality. I never see her again.
Back at my apartment, I open the manila envelope. There are dozens of images — moments I can barely recall. Some show me laughing, my hair tousled and my face flushed, while others depict me in more vulnerable states and lost in the moment. The faces of familiar patrons surround me, each photo telling a story I didn’t know I was part of. Why did he want me to have these?
Among these images, there’s an unsettling feeling, like I’m being watched, reducing me to a collection of memories for others to consume. It’s invasive and unsettling.
Eventually, the new not-yet-my-boyfriend I’m seeing stumbles upon the stack of photos. He picks them up and flips through them, a scornful expression crossing his face. “You look like a whore,” he says callously, a hint of something darker lacing his voice.
“Oh, right, isn’t that creepy?” I shoot back, trying to brush it off. “I meant to throw these away.”
Yet I keep one. Just one. In it, I’m cupping a mug of beer set on the bar top, my eyes fixed right into the camera, dead and unblinking. My shiny yellow-blonde hair cascades down my shoulders, framing a face that feels both familiar and foreign. My upper right arm bears a prominent bruise that I don’t recall acquiring.
I can’t quite articulate why I hold on to this one, but something about it resonates with me. In that photo, I’m not smiling, not performing for the camera or anyone else. I’m simply looking, staring back from the other side of the lens.
So many photos from my young adulthood exist only within the confines of their frames, entire weeks lost to black holes of alcohol and drug-induced memory loss. This single photo serves as both a reminder and a reckoning, a glimpse into the parts of myself I often try to forget. Also, I look really pretty.
Three years later, with my daughter on my lap, I scroll through my phone, swiftly deleting or cropping any photos where my face or body don’t meet my standards. I struggle to reconcile the present-day version of myself in these images with who I still feel like—the lost girl moving between apartments and changing jobs every six months, perpetually restless and panicked.
I spent so much of my teens and early 20s consumed with how others perceive me. But in this collection are images of me with my children, images of me in new motherhood. I sift through the possibilities of which ones to print for our new entrance hallway — a gallery wall of family photographs that will reflect the life I want to build.
“You look beautiful, mommy,” she says and she taps her tiny finger on my phone.
In this photo, I’m not performing. I’m not smiling in the conventional sense, but my eyes are alive, sparkling with a warmth still new to me. In it, I’m looking at my child.
“OK,” I say, a smile creeping onto my lips despite myself. “We’ll keep it.”
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