Live Wire

Lainey POV The last customer finally left thirty minutes past closing. It was Opal. She had been on the same stool since four o'clock, on her third ice water, and she left a five-dollar bill under the glass and told me I had done a lovely job. I locked the door behind her and started on the tables. I couldn't stop smiling. My feet hurt, my hair smelled like beer, and I had a wet spot on my jeans from a pitcher that had gotten away from me around nine. I felt better than I had since the move. It had been amazing. I had loved every minute of it. I loved the noise, and the rhythm, and the way a whole room of people had needed something from me that I knew how to give. "You can head out if you want," Beck said from behind the register. "I'll clean up." "Are you kidding? Not a chance. I'm helping." I smiled at him over a stack of chairs. He stared at me for a second. He looked like he wasn't sure what to do with that. Then he put his head down and went back to counting. It took us about twenty minutes. I wiped the tables and put the chairs up. He did the taps and the floor. We didn't talk much, and I didn't need to. When we were done, the bar was clean and stocked and ready for tomorrow, and it was the nicest quiet I had stood in for a long time. I got my jacket and my keys off the hook in the back. "Well," I said. "Goodnight. Thank you for…" He held out a folded stack of bills. I looked at it. I looked at him. "What is this?" "Your tips." I laughed. "There's no way." "You did good tonight." He was smiling. It was a real one this time, small, and tired around the edges. It did something to my knees. I took the money. It was thick. There had to be a few hundred dollars in my hand, easy. I had worked Saturday nights near campus that hadn't paid this well. "Shouldn't we split it or something?" I started to thumb through the bills. "You were back here all night too. Let me just count it, and…" "No." He put his hand over mine. It was only to stop me counting. His palm covered my whole hand, with the money in it, and it was so warm. It was warmer than a hand should be. Something went up my arm from where he was touching me, quick and bright, like I had brushed against a live wire. He pulled back fast, like he had felt it too. My heart was racing. I stared at my own hand. "Um," he said. "No. I own the place. It doesn't feel right, taking that. You keep it." He put both of his hands in his pockets. "I'll see you tomorrow?" It took me a second to hear the question in it. The trial run was over. I had the job. "Okay," I said. "Thank you. And yes. Tomorrow." I backed toward the door. "Thanks again for the opportunity." "Lainey." I stopped. "Get home safe." I walked home with the pepper spray in my fist and my thumb on the trigger. I didn't need it. The night had turned cool, and I was glad of the jacket. There were no streetlights past Main Street, only the moon and the dark line of the woods along the road. I should have been scared. I wasn't. I kept having the strangest feeling that I wasn't out there by myself, and it didn't frighten me at all. It felt like being walked home. I took the porch steps two at a time. I had so much to tell him. I wanted to tell him about the shaker I made out of two glasses, and Opal and her ice water, and that the owner's own mother had sat me down in a booth. I wanted to put the money in his hand and watch his face. I hoped he was still awake. "Travis?" Of course he wasn't. He was on the couch with the lamp still on, flat on his back, with one arm hanging off the side. There were bottles on the box we were using for a table. There were more on the floor. One had tipped over and left a dark patch on the rug. I stood there for a while with my night still all over me. Then I let it go, in one long breath. I set the money on the arm of the couch and started picking up bottles. I wasn't quiet about it. I gathered them by the necks, three and four to a hand, and they clinked and knocked together all the way to the kitchen. I dropped the empties into the bin one at a time, and every one of them rang. It didn't matter. He didn't wake up. He never did. Some of them weren't empty. I stood at the sink and tipped them over, one after another, and watched the beer run out, flat and gold, and circle the drain. I hung there with my elbows on the edge of the counter and my head down. Twenty minutes ago I had been walking on air. I could still feel a warm place on the back of my hand, and I didn't want to think about that either. He was starting on Monday. He would have somewhere to be, and a uniform to put on, and a reason to get up. He had been so happy about it. That man was still in there. I saw it in him this week. The last of it gurgled down and was gone. Please, I thought. Please let it get better after Monday.