Bunches (4 page)

She hasn’t come back. It’s been a
week. I thought for sure the free drinks would bring her back, but they
haven’t. She looked like a deer in the headlights. At first I thought she had
been in before, because there’s something familiar about her - in a good way -
but I’ve now decided I’ve never seen her before. I just know that I need to see
her again.

I should have introduced myself
while I had the chance, but I had a feeling it would be better to let her take
the first step.

I tried to make her feel
comfortable, but there’s only so much a guy can do with a girl who doesn’t know
him. When I was younger and stupider, often my best intentions backfired
hopelessly.

“Hey JJ, we’re low on Guinness,”
says Lila. I turn on my heel and head out back to get more Guinness.

When I come back she still hasn’t
come. The fact that I’m looking around like a lost puppy doesn’t even really
worry me. The bar just feels empty without her.

“JJ, how’s your week going?”
Sylvan asks. Sylvan’s a regular and one of my best friends. He’s a police
officer whose dad used to come in here before him.

He’s a good guy, which I judge by
the amount of times he’s tried to pick up women in the bar. He never has. I
think it’s because he feels sleazy just approaching a girl that way. It’s a
common problem. He just comes to hang out with his buddies, drink, and watch
sports. He’s a good cop. My bar gets more respect when people find out Sylvan
comes in on his nights off.

“Pretty good, man,” I say,
grinning at him. “What about you?”

Sylvan nods. “Can’t complain.
There’ve been a bunch of layoffs this week, but I still have my job and I’ll
drink to that.”

“Let me know if I can get you
anything,” I tell him.

Sylvan lifts his glass
appreciatively to me. The bar doesn’t open until five, but a lot of happy hour
characters come in when it does. My mind wanders. I try to keep it on my work -
this is my bar, after all - but I can’t help it. I want her to come back.

Portland isn’t that big a city.
In fact, most visitors to Portland call it a glorified small town.

Maybe she was just traveling
through, or visiting a friend, and she’s never going to come back. Maybe the
wine incident ruined it. Fucking Mason. My heart beats a little faster at the
thought and I wonder what she’s doing right now. I hope she’s making her way
back to the Remember.

“Hey JJ, how’s your night going?”
a girl asks me. I squint at her. She comes in from time to time with her
friends. She’s a nice girl who likes sitting at the bar. She’s also wearing a
really low cut dress and leaning over. I can see what kind of night she wants
to have.

“Good,” I say, waving to her.
“How about you?”

“Long week,” she says, taking a
sip of her drink. Then she grins. “It’s over now. Finally. Let me know if you
need a break from bartending tonight. I’m sure we can think of some way to
entertain you.”

I smile and nod as her friends
giggle. The second I walk away I stop thinking about it.

I sigh and go to deal with a
glass someone has shattered across the room, and hope my heart won’t be
shattered all over again.

The most important life event
I’ve had in years and I don’t even know her name.

It’s another busy Saturday night.
I like working when it’s busy. I like the movement and the quick interaction. I
like having to keep aware and stay on my feet, and I like mixing the drinks.

It’s especially busy because it’s
the start of the summer. There are more people in town, so we have extra staff
working.

“Hey, we’re heading out,” says
Sylvan when I go to check on him. He’s a burly guy in his mid-twenties, with a
thick waist and powerful legs. He’s intimidating, especially to perps. He has a
rakish grin and a shaved head.

“How does Sylvan manage to stay
single?” wonders one of my waitresses. She’s petite with lots of blond curls.
Guys like her, which gets her better tips.

“I’m sure he just wants to
protect us from danger,” says Lila, her eyes flicking to Sylvan. “He’s so
brave.”

Girls like to approach Sylvan,
but he casually waves them off. One night, when he was especially drunk, he
informed me that he had loved a girl like you wouldn’t believe a few years ago,
and when she left him he just couldn’t get past it. It makes sense to me.
There’s something tragic about him.

I glance around.

”Finally the place is filling
up,” says Lila, bracing her hands on her hips, and from then on we’re busy for
the rest of the night.

Sometimes I check when I swipe a
check or put an order in. Sometimes I don’t. It gets dark outside. We have big
windows so that passersby can see into the place, and through them I see the
sun set and fade.

At the moment there are mostly
guys at the bar, and I’m trying to deal with four things at once. I love it. I
forget about my mom and Anabella.

“Hey, JJ, have you gotten those
two girls yet?” Lila asks me. We have a deal that she gets the guys and I get
the girls. You never know. She tilts her head behind her.

A crash of glasses shatters me
out of my reverie.

I pause for just a second.

Then I turn to see the two girls
Lila is talking about and a familiar feeling tightens my chest. Other things
tighten as well. I take a deep breath.

She looks different, but it’s the
same girl. The first time I saw her, all that registered was this gorgeous girl
who didn’t look like she belonged at my bar.

Don’t get me wrong, I like it
when gorgeous girls are at my bar, it’s good for business, but she was
obviously not your average bar-going girl. She was much more. And now she’s
sitting at the bar again, but this time I know her.

My heart speeds up and I feel
more relaxed than I’ve felt in a week. She did come back. I do know her. She
wasn’t just on a trip or visiting a friend. She’s here for at least the summer.
At least, I hope so.

“What can I get you?” I say to
them. I see her eyes spark, but I don’t think it’s from recognition.

With another girl, I would have
thought she was happy to see me but a little wary. With this girl, I think she
looks tragic. I wait for a second, looking for another spark of recognition,
but she doesn’t seem to recognize me. Well, why would she? We never hung out.
She only saw me from a distance, except for that night, but it was dark, and
she was distraught.

I hope that when she does
remember me, it doesn’t ruin everything.

I smile into her eyes, trying to
reassure her. I’m not sure she even remembers me from last weekend when I
cleaned up the wine, let alone five years ago, but she gives me a small smile.
There’s a spark at the back of those wide eyes.

“Back for more wine?” I tease
gently.

Her friend is a gorgeous girl, at
whom all the other girls are looking, and unlike Nora she knows it. She gives
me a massive smile. They have a third girl with them this time, who squeezes
between the chairs and leans forward.

“I’m Aimee,” she says.

“JJ,” I answer, shaking her hand.
She winks at me. Her friends obviously have no trouble introducing themselves.

“Nice place,” she says, giving it
a once over with her eyes. “Is there going to be live music?”

I nod. “Any time now,” I tell
her. I have to lean over the bar and yell, because it’s already loud. For a
Saturday night it’s already packed. She nods as if that’s what she expected.
Nora has remained quiet. She has watched her friends introduce themselves,
Lizzy the first time they came and now this Aimee girl, but she hasn’t made any
move to give me her name. I don’t want to force her, so I busy myself getting
their drinks.

I glance at her, giving her an
“it’s your turn now” look. She flushes and I can’t help but think how adorable
it is.

She leans forward, pressing her
lips together and averting her eyes. I almost laugh. If it were any other girl
I’d be giving her lots of shit. But not this one.

She sticks out her hand. Her
fingers are glued together like she’s trying to fit them through bars. I still
wait, resting my hands on the bar.

“I’m Nora,” she yells.

“What?” I say, smiling slightly.
I just want to hear her voice again.

Her nose wrinkles and she closes
her eyes briefly. “Nora,” she tries again.

Grinning now, I reach my hand
out. She stares at it and I raise my eyebrows. “Isn’t this what people do?”

She gulps and reaches for my
hand. She pulls away almost immediately and I feel the loss of her touch.

“JJ,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”

I have plenty to do, but as the
night wears on I keep a close eye on them. Once I’m gone to the other end of
the bar, Nora immediately relaxes. I can see it from halfway across the room.
Her shoulders come down and she smiles more easily.

She’s chatting with Lizzy and
Aimee, totally ignoring everything happening around her. I see guys checking
her out, a couple try to catch her eye, but she doesn’t even notice. I bristle
protectively every time.

She’s wrapped up in her friends’
conversation. I see pulls of sadness, but there are also happy sparks. She
laughs completely unaffectedly, throwing her head back and opening her mouth.

She reaches both hands out to the
bar and holds on to keep her balance. Her eyes are bright, even in the dim
lighting. She’s even turned halfway around in her chair to hear her friends
better.

Even when she’s relaxed, she
holds herself like she’s bracing for pain. It’s the kind of hurt where the
person knows how hard she’s fallen and doesn’t want to fall even more. It’s safe
there in the known and the silence.

I’m paying so much attention to
Nora that I nearly collide with Lila.

“Watch it, dude,” she says,
laughing and giving me a playful shove.

“Oh, girlfriend alert,” she says,
looking past me.

That means Jessie’s here,
unannounced and unplanned. The two years I’ve been with Jessie have been great,
but she usually doesn’t come to the bar. We met two years ago at a friend’s
party, at a point when I hadn’t had a girlfriend in a long time and my friends
were starting to think there was something wrong with me. She was interested
and nice, so there it was. I didn’t feel any of the feelings I knew I was
supposed to feel, but she was happy (I could give her that much) and my friends
were relieved to see that I was capable of a real relationship. The fact that I
was terrified of hurting her, of being my father all over again, was something
I had to push to the side.

I’m not my father. I won’t be my
father, and if I keep my distance I will never hurt Jessie or any woman the way
my mom was hurt by him.

I turn around and see Jessie
standing there by herself. She has long brown hair and bright blue eyes and she
looks hot in the white shirt and short skirt she’s wearing. I give her a quick
wave and deliver the two drinks I’ve just made, then go and greet her. Somehow,
I’m not as happy to see her as I usually am.

“Hey,” she says, standing up on
her tiptoes and giving me a kiss. I kiss her back, more conscious than I want
to be that Nora is sitting at the bar.

She puts her hand on my chest and
my heart rate doesn’t speed up.

“How’s it going?” she says,
smiling up at me. She’s petite and attractive in that girl next door sort of
way. She turns her fair share of guys’ heads, too, but that’s not what got me.
I didn’t even notice her. She had to make the first move. Now that I think
about it, that might have been a bad sign.

“Good,” I say, shrugging. “Long
day.”

She nods sympathetically. She
works a regular nine to five, so we don’t see as much of each other as a lot of
couples who have been together for two years, which is just fine with me. If we
spent too much time together she’d be at risk with me, and that’s just not a
chance I’m willing to take.

“How was your day?” I ask her. I
glance at Lila. I know I’m putting a strain on her when I’m standing here
talking to Jessie for so long. But I figure Jessie wants something, or she
wouldn’t be here.

“Good,” Jessie says. “My dad
called. He wants us to come for a weekend.”

Yes, she does.

I avoid seeing her parents,
mostly because they’re good people, too good. I don’t have the same sort of
parents. Her parents are well respected and well connected pillars of the
community. Jessie understands that as much as she ever will, but it’s still
hard for me to be around her mom and dad, who clearly love each other so well.

“I don’t know if I can leave the
bar for the whole weekend,” I say. It’s my most common excuse. Her defenses are
instantly raised; I can almost see her hackles rising. She’s sick of my
excuses.

“Come on,” she complains. She
sticks her lower lip out. “It’s the start of summer and we never go away
together.”

“Because I run a bar,” I tell
her. It’s the same argument over and over again. I know it’s how couples break
up and I don’t want to break up with Jessie, because my friends would be left
to wonder again.