Out Of Time

The Labor

The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months in Tahiti.  Sam would work at the Cruise Bar, Monday through Friday between 10 and 3.  Occasionally, she'd have to work the weekends but only when there was a holiday.  She'd bring Clarice to work all the time and all the locals just adored her.  While everyone still worked on the farm, Mary-Beth made extra ends meat by writing romance books.  They were a big hit.  A few of the others worked the occasional odd job in the villages or in town.  The farm expanded little by little and soon they were making deliveries to villages damn near everywhere and to a few local towns.

Sometimes Sam would see Mr. Monroe and Mr. Châtenay at Cruise Bar, although Châtenay visited often for he was quite the drinker.  Arthur would bring her lunch every day that she worked and he'd bring Clarice home with him afterwards so she could have her midday nap.  Sometimes Sam would still have her panic attacks on occasion but they lessened in frequency and length.  One time, however, she had one at work and Clint had no idea what to do.  Luckily, Arthur had been there to help her through it.  When Clint asked what happened, Sam and Arthur explained that she had PTSD.  Sam hoped this knowledge wouldn't get her fired but it didn't.

Sam made friends with the other employees Scott, Tanetoa, and Varua.  At first, Tanetoa and Varua were skeptical about a woman working at a bar but after a while, Sam seemed to grow on them.  Because of them, her grip on the Tahitian language progressed rather well and by the time the harvesting season in April began, she was practically fluent in it.  She still had to work hard on her French, though.  Some of the other gang members had learned the language as well.  Unfortunately, Arthur was piss poor at both.  Sam and Clint developed a game where they'd list off things they missed from the future in alphabetical order.  On one particular day in May, they were going through the alphabet game and Clarice was perched on Sam's shoulder, as usual.

"Baseball games," Clint said as he was washing some glasses.

"Carolers," Sam replied while pouring beer from the tap.

Clint arched a brow at her.  "Carolers?  Really?"

Sam nodded with a grin.  "Mmhmm.  Your turn."

"Okay.  Um...Dino from The Flintstones."

Sam barked with laughter as she served the beer to a patron.  "Okay, let's see...evolution believers."

"Nice!"  Clint rinsed off a glass and started drying it.  "The Flintstones."

Sam snorted.  "The Great Gatsby."

"Helium balloons."

Someone ordered a Screwdriver and Sam started putting ice in a high ball glass.  "Ice cream," she said.

"We have ice cream here," Clint said with a smirk.  "You lose."

"Shit," Sam laughed, squeezing orange juice using a manual juicer.  "I knew that, too.  I guess I had a brain fart."

"What's a brain fart?" Varua asked her.

"Just a...malfunction in my brain.  Not a real one, though."

Varua chuckled as he served someone a cocktail.  "You and Clint say the strangest things."

Sam finished squeezing the juice, poured vodka into the glass, put a orange slice on the rim and handed it to her customer.  Sam cut up another orange and handed a small wedge to Clarice.  She went around the other side of the gazebo bar to check on other customers when she felt an achy pain in her back.  She hissed and started rubbing her back.  Varua heard her and turned around after giving someone a Rum & Cola.

"You okay, Sam?" Varua asked her.

Sam placed a hand on her swollen belly and nodded.  "Yeah, just...my back is hurting again, that's all."