The air in Gracie's apartments was stale. The windows had been shut for months and the curtains drawn the whole time she’d been away. It wasn’t the only reason that her apartment felt unwelcoming.
She'd never really decorated the place. There were no knick-knacks on the shelves and no photos on the wall, although she'd been living there for nearly two years. It was sterile, not really anyone's idea of a home.
And to cap it all off, there was no food in the fridge
Just down the block, there was a small bar that she knew served food every day, at any hour. Going to Happy Mike's was much more appealing than staying here and airing out the apartment.
When she arrived at Happy Mike’s, the place was deserted. Gracie took a seat at the bar and opened the folder that Klarov had given her. Reading it through intently, she focused on memorizing every detail of her assignment. As she worked, she sipped a beer, nursing it slowly.
As it got later in the afternoon, the bar began to fill up. A large group of hipsters came in, almost all of them heavily tattooed and with the sides of their heads shaved. They chatted loudly, breaking Gracie's concentration for a few minutes as she watched them. A waiter pushed all of the tables at the front of the bar together for the large group. They sat down, settling down to speak more quietly in a steady thrum of conversation that was less distracting for Gracie.
Eventually, happy that she knew pretty much everything she would need to start work at Attitude magazine on Monday morning, she set the folder aside and ordered a meal.
Despite all the waiters being busy with the large party of new arrivals, her order was taken smoothly and arrived minutes later. Unfortunately, there was no cutlery.
Gracie looked up and down the bar, but the bartender had gone to help take orders from the hipsters. She stared down at her mac and cheese, longingly.
"Excuse me," she said, turning in her seat as a server walked behind her but he walked right past without stopping. A few seconds later a younger, female server, rushed by.
“Hey, can I get -” Gracie began in a rush.
“Sorry, I’ll be right with you,” she said, not looking at Gracie.
Gracie looked around in frustration. Now all the servers had disappeared!
“Hey,” a man sitting a few chairs down the bar nodded at her, “Do you need a knife and fork?”
“I’d be fine with just a fork,” Gracie said, turning her back on the man as she thought she heard the kitchen door swing open. She had been mistaken, there was still no sign of a server.
"Well," the man said wryly, "Let's aim for more than fine. How about a fork, knife, and even a spoon?”
Grace turned back sharply, her eyes narrowing. Was that some kind of shitty innuendo?
The man grimaced and leaned over the bar. "I mean, uh, the bartender keeps clean cutlery back here."
His arm hooked under the bar and groped around for a few seconds before he sat back. In his hand was a pint glass and about four sets of cutlery, each set wrapped up neatly in a paper napkin
“Neat trick,” Gracie said as the man offered her the pint glass with a flourish. She took a single bundle of cutlery out. “Thanks.”
“No problem. I’m guessing you haven’t been here on a Sunday before.”
Gracie was already attacking her mac and cheese. She had to pause, swallow and then look at the man carefully. She hadn’t come here to make conversation. Her instincts screamed at the idea of giving away any personal information about herself, even something as harmless as this.
The guy smiled, his large blue eyes could, in a certain light, Gracie supposed, be described as attractive.
“Uh, no.” Gracie put another loaded forkful of food in her mouth before he could ask another question.
“Those guys over there,” he jerked his thumb towards the group of hipsters. “They’ve been coming in here every Sunday for the last month. There’s an axe throwing place a block over and they like to come here afterward.”
“A what throwing place?”
“Axe,” he said with a grin. It was, Gracie noted dispassionately, a rather cute grin. The kind of boyish grin that other, less world-weary women, might call adorable. But Gracie had seen enough about how relationships fell apart: she knew that adorable smiles were no indication of character.
She leaned back in her seat with a confused frown. “So what? They’re farmers?”
The man burst out laughing. “That would make more sense. No, it’s sort of like going out to play darts with your friends, but they use axes.”
“Sounds dangerous.”