Low Bar

Beck POV Walt hadn't moved. He was still bent over his crossword with his pencil going. When he spoke, he kept it down low, under the hum of the cooler, where only I would hear it. "Well, if you won't find her a job, I could. I'd find that girl something to do." There was nothing in the words. It was all in the way the old man said them, slow and sly, with one eye sliding over to see how I'd take it. I growled. I didn't mean to. It came up out of my chest before I could get my teeth shut on it, short and low and nothing a man's throat should make. Lainey stopped at the door. She turned around. She looked at me, then at Walt, then around the floor, like she expected to find something with four legs under one of the tables. "Was that a dog?" "Pipes," Walt said, without looking up. I cleared my throat. I cleared it again, louder, to cover the first time. "How long did you bartend for?" She let go of the door. "Two years. In college." She came back a couple of steps, careful, like the offer might spook. "I worked my way through school doing it. Well. Through the part of school I finished." "Where?" "A place near campus in Georgia. It was busy. Usually just me and one other girl behind the bar." She tucked her hair behind her ear. "That was five years ago, though. I should be honest about that. I'm rusty. I couldn't tell you what goes in half the things I used to make." "What have you been doing since?" "Front desk at a vet's office." "You like it?" Her whole face changed. It was quick, and she put it away fast, but I saw it. "I loved it," she said. I wanted to ask why she had left. I already knew why. The reason was a red-faced boy who put heavy boxes in her arms. She tucked her hair back again, with her left hand this time. There was no ring on it. He had years worn into her skin, and he had never put a ring on that hand. I filed that away somewhere I had no business keeping it. "It's beer and whiskey here," I said. "Nobody orders anything with a name. If somebody asks you for a cocktail, they're lost." That almost got a smile out of her. "Is it busy?" "It's the only bar in town." "So, yes," she said. "So, yes." She came one step closer. It put her about six feet from me, and her scent got there first. I kept my hands on the broom handle and my eyes above her collar. "It's nights," I said. "Four to close. Midnight most of the week, two on Friday and Saturday. We are closed on Sundays." "Nights are fine." "You got a way home at that hour?" "I'll manage." She said it the same way she had said I always do. It was light and quick, and it closed the subject. I let it stay closed. "Can you lift a case of beer?" "Yes." I believed her. I had watched her take a box of books that should never have been handed to her, and she hadn't dropped it. "You won't be moving kegs," I said. "I can move a keg." "You won't be." Her eyebrows went up a little. She didn't argue. I got the feeling she wasn't used to somebody else calling the heavy thing theirs. "Pay's hourly, plus tips," I said. "People here tip." "Okay." "Come in tomorrow. Four o'clock. Call it a trial run. See if you like it." She blinked. "See if I like it? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?" "You knew about the towel." "That's a low bar." "It's my bar." That time she did smile. It was small and surprised, and it was gone in a second, and it went through me like a shot of the good stuff. "Is there anything I should wear?" "Closed shoes." She looked down at her sandals. Then she looked at the glass I was still standing in, and the color came right back up her throat. "Right," she said. "Closed shoes." She turned to Walt before she went. "And thank you for the casserole. It was delicious. We ate it straight out of the dish on the living room floor." The old man sat up like she had pinned a medal on him. "Well, I'm glad to hear it. Walt Pruitt, by the way. And I'm not only a notary, you know. I do taxes, and most of the legal odds and ends around here. If you need anything at all, my office is in city hall." "I'll remember that." "You do that, darlin'." "Four o'clock," she said to me. "Thank you. Really." She found the door behind her with one hand. "And I'm sorry again about the glasses." "Don't be." Then she was gone. The door swung shut on the daylight, and all that was left of her was a casserole dish and her scent, on every surface in my bar. Walt set down his pencil. "A trial run," he said. "To see if she likes it." "Shut up." "I'm only saying, that's not how you hired me to do your taxes." Four o'clock tomorrow. I had about twenty-six hours to remember how to stand three feet from that woman and act like I didn't want her.