Take a Chance on Me

“Kid, you’re late.”  Siwons,s half smile let Tia know that she wasn’t fired, at least not yet anyway.

“I’m only a few seconds late, besides, in a lot of locations it would be called fashionably late.”

“Not at the Diamond club.  Tables six and seven haven’t been helped yet.  Beware, they look like potential muffins.”

“Aren’t they all?”  She said over her shoulder as she tied her apron around her slim waist.  ‘Muffin’ meant player, and to Tia a player was the exact type of man that left her at the altar over a year ago.  She still felt the embarrassment, the humiliation, the degradation, and most of all, the shame for not realizing her fiancé was cheating.  Soon after the horrible nuptial nightmare, Tia applied for the waitress position at the diamond night club where she could be constantly reminded of the kind of guy she never wanted to become involved with again – Muffins.

Siwon and Tia had become fast friends right from the start.  Siwon was married to a nice girl and they had a newborn.  He had a lot of insightful wisdom that Tia soaked it up like a sponge.  Together, they had a lot of fun coming up with the many different types of muffins to suit the types of men that frequented the night club.  There were the fruit muffins, kind of sweet but still only after one thing.  The corn muffins, who told corny jokes as come-on’s, the nut muffins, just plain nuts, and the bran muffins, who were simply too old to be trolling for young women.

Occasionally, she’d run into an actual fruitcake.

She made her way over to the first table where two men sat in their casual suit jackets with crew neck tee shirts underneath.  Miami Vice was years ago yet this look never seemed to go out of style.  They were staring out in the crowd of dancers as if they were looking for someone in particular.

“Hi there, what can I get you?”  She asked in her usual polite voice raised enough to be heard over the music.

Both of their heads turned at the same time and smiles lit up their faces.  Tia knew immediately that these were typical male customers.  They would no doubt try to pick up on her, and when she ‘gracefully’ let them down they would move on to other potential conquests.  They would eventually find a girl who was willing to dance, and if they were lucky, they’d get lucky.  It made Tia sick, and that sick feeling was exactly what she thought she needed to avoid getting into another relationship disaster.

“Well, aren’t you just the prettiest thing.”  The one on the left said, letting his eyes wander her body.

“Man, she’s hotter than any girl here.”  The other one said to his friend, but with his eyes on Tia.

Yep, muffins. “I can hear you, you know.  You two should be careful, you might dehydrate from all that drooling.  Say, I have an idea, why don’t I get you something to drink?”  She kept her casual smile as she issued the sarcasm.

“Ho