She walked through the doorway, and every man in the place looked at her: the painted red smile, the blue skirt swishing around perfect legs. She didn’t seem to notice, walked right up to the bar, and pulled herself onto a stool.
“I’ll have a scotch, double, on ice,” she said.
Rick set aside the rag he’d been using to wipe down the surface and leaned in front of her. “You look like you’re celebrating something.”
“That’s right. You going to help me out or just keep leering?”
Smiling, he found a tumbler and poured her a double and extra.
“I have to ask,” Rick said, returning to the bar in front of her, enjoying the way every other man in Murray’s looked at him with envy. “What’s the celebration?”
“You do have to ask, don’t you? I’m just not sure I should tell you.”
“It’s not often I see a lady come in here all alone in a mood to celebrate.”
Murray’s was a working-class place, a dive by the standards of East Colfax; the neighborhood was going downhill as businesses and residents fled downtown, leaving behind everyone who didn’t have anyplace to go. Rick had seen this sort of thing happen enough; he recognized the signs. Murray wasn’t losing money, but he didn’t have anything extra to put into the place. The varnish on the hardwood floor was scuffed off, the furniture was a decade old. Cheap beer and liquor were the norm, and he still had war bond posters up a year and a half after V-J Day. Or maybe he liked the Betty Grable pinups he’d stuck on top of some of them too much to take any of it down.
Blushing, the woman ducked her gaze, which told him something about her. The shrug she gave him was a lot shyer than the brash way she’d walked in here.
“I got a job,” she said.
“Congratulations.”
“You’re not going to tell me that a nice girl like me should find herself a good man, get married, and settle down and make my mother proud?”
; “Nope.”
“Good.” She smiled and bit her lip.
A newcomer in a clean suit came up to the bar, set down his hat, and tossed a couple of bills on the polished wood. Rick nodded at the woman and went to take the order. Business was steady after that, and Rick served second and third rounds to men who’d come in after work and stuck around. New patrons arrived for after-dinner nightcaps. Rick worked through it all, drawing beers and pouring liquor, smiling politely when the older men called him “son” and “kid.”
He didn’t need the job. He just liked being around people now and then. He’d worked at bars before—bars, saloons, taverns—here and there, for almost two hundred years.
He expected the woman to finish quickly and march right out again, but she sipped the drink as if savoring the moment, wanting to spend time with the crowd. Avoiding solitude. Rick understood.
When a thin, flushed man who’d had maybe one drink too many sidled up to the bar and crept toward her like a cat on the prowl, Rick wasn’t surprised. He waited, watching for her signals. She might have been here to celebrate, but she might have been looking for more, and he wouldn’t interfere. But the man spoke—asking to buy her another drink—and the woman shook her head. When he pleaded, she tilted her body, turning her back to him. Then he put a hand on her shoulder and another under the bar, on her leg. She shoved.
Rick stood before them both. They hesitated midaction, blinking back at him.
“Sir, you really need to be going, don’t you?” Rick said.
“This isn’t any of your business,” the drunk said.
“If the lady wants to be left alone, you should leave her alone.” He caught the man’s gaze and twisted, just a bit. Put the warning in his voice, used a certain subtle tone, so that there was power in the words. If the man’s gaze clouded over, most onlookers would attribute it to the liquor.
The man pointed and opened his mouth as if to speak, but Rick put a little more focus in his gaze and the drunk blinked, confused.
“Go on, now,” Rick said.
The man nodded weakly, crushed his hat on his head, and stumbled to the door.
The woman watched him go, then turned back to Rick, her smile wondering. “That was amazing. How’d you do that?”
“You work behind the bar long enough, you develop a way with people.”
“You’ve been bartending a long time, then.”