Honesty is the best policy.

It was one thing to blow the guy fixing her car, but this was too far, she declined his offer and went back to work.

After spending the next twenty minutes serving drinks Claire had almost forgot all about it so it took the announcer a couple of attempts at saying her name before it registered that she was up.
Once again finding someone to cover her duty on the bar, she quickly trotted over to the stage. Finally her moment had come, she was going to perform in front of an audience. For the next few minutes she sang her heart out and even tried to throw a few dance moves in, the crowded bar seemed to be enjoying her performance so she wasn’t the worst they had seen, but she felt like other people had done better. All too quickly the song came to an end and after some applause she returned to work.
At the end of the night they declared the winner of the karaoke contest was a young girl, Claire was crestfallen until the announcer said that she had come second and that there was a $50 prize for her.