Chang was extremely busy, not only was it a Friday, but halfway through the night Justin told Chang that Brandy had to go early. "A male customer a.s.saulted her and she had to go to the emergency room to check if her wrist was broken."
"Oh my G.o.d, did the police catch the guy or anything?"
"I guess he left right after dropping a bunch of money. Just be careful tonight, that"s some weird s.h.i.t, we occasionally get the overly handsy drunk, but we"ve never had one of our own a.s.saulted before. " Justin sighed at the craziness of it all and moved on. They all had to help pick up the slack, and divided Brandy"s booths to go on without her.
Chang was a little alarmed at but as the night continued the same as it had before and yesterday her worries fell away. Before she knew it the crowd had started to fade away on the dance floor and only about a half a dozen booths were filled. Chang casually asked Andre what time it was as she waited for him to make a couple of c.o.c.ktails for one of her booths.
"It"s now.. 1:15" He said as he checked the little clock he had under his counter. "About time for last call, those will be the last drinks of the evening for that table, no more after this."
Chang thanked them and served them. The small party of bachelorettes were already lit, Chang saw the state they were in and and they were going to be closing soon, she asked one of the ladies if she"d like her to call them an Uber or Lyft1.
"Ah, what a sweetheart!" "Thank you as soon as we finish these last few drinks, yes please!" " You"re so thoughtful!" A couple of the still semi-coherent girls started bombarding her with their grat.i.tude.
"No worries, no big deal. Would do the same for anyone." Chang shook it off and continued on. After the ladies left though she noticed they left her a 100 dollar bill, with the words "Thank you" written on them. It made Chang feel warm inside, she had just done as she would for any person, as her parents taught her, still their steep gratuity touched her heart.
She wiped the booth, which was the last one needing to be cleaned and when she looked up to see what to do next, that they were pretty much done. Andre had taken care of the bar, and was heading to help Eric, who was cleaning up the kitchen. Justin was wiping the floor with the giant squeegee mop. Chang went up to Justin to ask if there was anything else she could do to help.
"Looks like we"re all good here, you can clock out and go home. I"m going to go to my boyfriend"s tonight, been feeling extra "hungry" today, if you catch my drift." He gave her two nudges and two winks in reference to an old comedic skit they had watched together.
Chang rolled her eyes. "I got it, have a good night, I"ll see you tomorrow." She gave him a hug and left. Even though she had over 100 dollars in tips Chang decided to walk home instead of taking a cab, or ride home. She would send the majority to her mother who had frequent hospital visits due to poor health. Even though her mother would always tell Chang not to worry that it was just the old headaches she"d always been plagued with. The last thing that she wanted was to be a burden on her hardworking daughter. Chang nonetheless still sent money to her mother often, she wanted to make sure her mother wanted for nothing. She wanted nothing more than to be back home, but she couldn"t, not yet still..
As Chang was walking home, she was so lost in her thoughts that she didn"t notice a couple of men starting to tail her from a distance. As they noticed she was alone and there was no one near, as soon as she came near an alleyway they rushed up on her.
Chang was so startled she didn"t have a chance to cry out before a meaty hand was clamped firmly over her mouth. She dropped her bag of her clothes from earlier as she struggled against the two men trying to drag her into the alleyway. She tried to fight with everything she had, but she was no match for a man"s strenth, let alone two, and so they were able to muscle her into the darkness.