Page 24 of The Player in New Zealand
Sometimes our eyes locked, and I had to shake it off and remind myself to look away. Having Tane behind the bar with me made his presence more real. Instead of snatches of laughter from the back, he was right here with me, and I’d hear bits of conversation or the tail end of a joke he’d make with a customer as I’d catch sight of him.
Even his laughter felt different to me. More like pure Tane, even if I had no idea how I knew what that would sound like.
But he was there, all afternoon and till the end of my shift.
Sober.
* * *
After the successof the gin fizz, Nina had encouraged me to come up with some more suggestions and we had scheduled a tasting for seventeen days from the night of the drink special, a Tuesday. I was pretty pleased with myself.
My bank account balance was low, but Nina gave me some cash in advance when I told her my ideas. On a Sunday morning, I woke up way earlier than normal and walked from my hostel to the farmers market.
The supermarkets had produce I had never seen before, or at least varieties of things that were familiar but different. Golden kiwis, with bright yellow flesh instead of green, and huge golden mangoes—everything here was golden, apparently.
But the farmers market brought on even more treats. I used my own money to splurge on stroopwafels and Chinese jianbing pancakes, wolfing them down as I huddled against the wind. But I was also after anything I could use in a cocktail. Fruits and herbs went into my bag. I had no clue what many of them were, but I wrote down what the market vendors told me and bookmarked things for later.
Now I had three of the staff sitting in front of me, Nina and two of the other bartenders, Marissa and Alec. Tane sat a few seats down, eating breakfast he’d picked up from the takeaway place around the corner and fiddling with his phone.
“We’ve got four new drinks to try out,” I said, gesturing to the chilled glasses in front of me. “I’ll pour you a bit of each, but don’t finish it if you don’t want to. Some of us have to work, unfortunately.” Myself included.
I grabbed the first chilled shaker from the cooler and added ice to the premixed drink. “This first one is a feijoa margarita.” I’d found the small green fruits in the frozen foods section of the grocery store—they were out of season now—and I’d added the puree to the classic margarita recipe. The flavor was unlike anything I’d ever tasted before—a little sweet, a little citrusy. Perfect to go with tequila.
“This is a good idea. People get sick of feijoas in the winter,” Alec commented.
I mixed the next drink up while my taste-testers chatted and sipped. We sampled a kiwi cooler with slices of golden kiwis floating in the glass and a manuka honey lemon martini.
“And this one,” I said, pulling out five clean highball glasses and dividing the shaker contents between them, “has Tane’s name on it.” I slid the fifth glass down the bar.
He looked up at his name, and his eyebrows drew together as he took in the cocktail. “I’m not going to taste it, Claire.”
I struggled to tamp down a grin and I tipped my chin up at the drink. “It’s a non-alc gin. I call it a Golden Non-Rickey.” Thick cubes of golden mango floated in the liquid. It was my favorite of the drinks, primarily because of the mango. The juices had overflowed as I’d diced and peeled, dripping down my forearms. It was nothing like any mango I’d ever tasted before, big and golden and juicy. An entire mango had disappeared into my mouth before I’d even made the first cocktail.
Tane was still staring at the drink.
“Look,” I said, “I know you’re probably more of a beer guy, but you liked the gin fizz I made and I thought it would be fun for you to try something else. I can make you a regular ole G and T if you want with this fake gin. And”—I turned, looking at Nina—“I can make it a real Golden Rickey if you’d prefer.”
I had made the nonalcoholic version for everyone else, too, and they sipped the drink attentively.
“Huh,” Alec said. “I don’t think I could tell it’s nonalcoholic in a taste test.”
We talked about the gin and I pulled up the website on my phone and brought out the bottle. My eyes kept finding Tane’s in excitement. I wanted to watch him drink it. I wanted to see his surprise, or even... pleasure at enjoying this drink. I knew he didn’t normally do mixed drinks, but after the nonalcoholic beers were such a letdown, I wanted to give Tane a better choice.
After all, he was doing the hard work. I was kind of... proud? It felt weird, especially after how we’d first met, but I wanted Tane to succeed, even more so when I saw how happy it made Nina.
But maybe a cocktail just wasn’t enough.
He stirred with the cardboard straw, sniffed, and took an experimental sip. His face didn’t show much reaction, but he went in for a second sip before Nina distracted me with more questions.
When I looked up again, Tane was gone, and my stomach sank. The glass sat empty on the bar. What did that mean? Did he enjoy it, or was he upset about it? No one else seemed to notice that he’d left.
Tasting officially over, Marissa and Alec got behind the bar with me and Alec lined up a row of shot glasses.
“What are you doing?” Nina asked.
“Tasting it straight. And we can’t get drunk,” Alec explained.
“Shots! Shots! Shots!” Marissa whooped while Nina just shook her head at our antics and went back to the office.
