Maya And The Tough Guy (7 page)

She smiled gently, and then turned back to Zoey and Addy, in effect ejecting him from the conversation.
 

“I believe in God,” Zoey said. “I don’t kneel and pray or anything, but I pray a lot during the day. It sounds like cursing to the rest of you, but when I scream out, ‘Dear God, give me fucking patience,’ I actually mean it.”

Maya and Addy laughed. “I’m open to the possibility of a God,” Addy said. “I just don’t think he’s intimately involved in the every day workings of humanity.”

Jayce snapped his fingers. “That. That’s what I believe.”

They all turned to him.
 

“What?” he said. “Addy always says things better than I can. But our brains are like—the same and stuff. Say more smart shit, Addy.”

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “I got you a word-of-the-day calendar a couple years ago, didn’t that help?”

“Apparently not.”

Maya was watching him again. He sobered as his eyes met hers. “I think it doesn’t matter whether God is real or an idea,” he said, “if it gives you hope. Hope’s pretty hard to find in those darker times.”

He was so caught up in her big, heartfelt eyes, he didn’t realize how quiet the table had gotten.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jayce’s bar was in a large building on the corner of a strip of buildings on Main Street. It was a brick, three-story. He lived in an apartment on the second floor and rented out the third floor to an artist for a studio. There was a green awning at the corner over the wood door, which was painted red and chipping.
 

Inside, the floors were plank and the walls were bare brick. Walking in, to the right and back, were four pool tables, a couple of dart boards, and an ancient pinball machine. In the middle of the room was the bar which spanned half the length of the room. Where it ended, a hallway started that led to the bathrooms, office, and the back staircase. The bar itself was built on a brick foundation with a shiny, polished wood top. Tall, wooden bar chairs lined the counter and behind it was a wall of liquor.

There were tables in the large, open part of the room, and booths along the wall. At the far end of the room was a double archway that led into yet another area with a small stage, which had never been used.

Monday, at a quarter to three, Jayce jogged downstairs to find Maya standing in the archway studying the dance floor and stage. Thankfully, she had on better shoes than she’d worn Saturday night. They looked brand new. “Do you have live music sometimes?” she asked without turning to him.
 

He leaned on the end of the bar. She was right on time. He’d scheduled her to open with him, figuring it would be good for her to know the ropes in case he ever needed her to open by herself. “No,” he said.

She turned to face him, frowning. “How come?”

He shrugged. “Got the jukebox. Just never got around to working in live music.”

She glanced back at the stage and then gave herself a shake. “I’ve got a problem,” she said.

“All right.” He stood up straight, broadened his stance, and folded his arms over his chest, because problems generally required a solid, dependable solution.

But his stance must have frightened her, because she shrank back. “Um, it’s my kids. On days that I open, I’ve got a bit of a scheduling conflict. Zoey can get home by five, but the kids get out of school at three. The bus usually drops them off at three-thirty. I’m having them dropped off here, today, but if that’s a problem, then I need to work something else out.”

He went cold. His skin turned clammy. Kids. His Achilles’ heel. Particularly her kids. Her kids scared the shit out of him, and he was fairly certain they didn’t like him in the least. “Uh, no. No problem. I mean—where did you want to put them?”

She hugged her waist, and her shoulders hunched inward. “Put them? Um, I don’t know. Where would be good for you?”

He looked around. “I guess they could sit at the bar. Or maybe at a table or something.”

“I’d rather they not be out here. I was hoping maybe your office?”

“Oh, yeah,” he laughed. “Yeah, that’s a better idea. Or they could watch television upstairs.”

“Upstairs?”

“Yeah. My apartment. They could crash there for a while.”

She bit her bottom lip, but this time she wasn’t doing it out of nervousness. Maybe she was holding back laughter. “They could crash? In your apartment? My five- and eight-year-old?”

“Sure,” he said, realizing his mistake. “I mean, I don’t know what Sophie’s beer preference is, but there’s Miller and Bud up there right now.”

“I think she’s a Coors girl.”

He sucked in a breath. She was letting him joke with her. “Damn. Well, maybe she can do shots instead.”

“Kindergarten can be a bitch sometimes.”

He grinned and moved toward her. “Kindergarten?”

“Yeah.” She stepped back and so he stopped approaching.

“She probably can’t read yet.”

“Not yet.”

“That’s okay, ‘cause I got a lot of picture books. Well, they’re actually magazines. Maybe Matthew can read the articles to her. They have really good articles.”

“And pictures.”

“Really, really good pictures.”

She giggled. “You’re terrible.”

He wanted to touch her. Anywhere. Everywhere. He was standing too close, and he could smell her, fresh and clean and female. “Maybe the office will be better.”

“No alcoholic beverages or porn mags in there?” she asked, with a skeptical arch of her brow.

“I’ll stock it with chocolate milk and Dr. Seuss. I might have to clear my internet browser history. And there’s a calendar that’ll have to go.”

“Okay,” she said, through low giggles. “Well thank you so much. I’ll try to work something out, I know this isn’t your responsibility.”

“Don’t worry about it. Please.”

She nodded and rubbed her hand up and down her bare arm, looking everywhere but at him.

“Maya, honey, look at me.”

She reluctantly lifted her eyes.
 

“This--this scared kitten bit of yours? You can’t do that here, okay?”

She withdrew even more and looked away.

“It’s for your own good. Maybe you don’t feel confident, but you’re gonna have to fake it. This week will be good practice, because we don’t have the big crowds like on the weekends. You need to practice making eye contact, smiling, and defending your space.”

“Defending my space?”

“Yeah. Watch.” He took one step forward and she shrank away. “That. That right there. It has to stop. If I get in your space and you don’t want me there, then I’m the one who should leave. You—you just retreat and make yourself smaller. It’s not good, honey.”

She blinked. Then frowned. “I guess I didn’t really realize I was doing that.”

He nodded, took another step toward her, and stopped when she retreated again.
 

“Oh, God,” she said, on a laugh. “Wow, that’s just ingrained. I’ll have to pay better attention. Thanks for pointing it out.”

They studied each other. He wondered if he should say more. If he should help her more. But time was wasting and he had bar responsibilities to show her before they opened. So he stepped back and led her through the opening routine.
 

A few customers filtered in shortly after three. It wouldn’t pick up until close to six. But at three-thirty, the door opened, and in walked two, very short people. They had on brightly colored coats and scarves wrapped around their faces so that only their eyes were visible. They wore backpacks and sneakers.
 

Jayce froze when he saw them. Their cold, evil eyes landed on him and he was sure he could see them imagining his slow and tortuous death.

“Babies!” Maya called. She ran to them and hugged them. She unwrapped their faces and kissed them.
 

They were a little less scary with the scarves off. Especially the little one; she was almost cute. Jayce frowned at them.
 

Maya held their hands and brought them to the end of the bar. “Guys, Jayce is gonna let you sit in his office, okay? You can watch cartoons on YouTube and have your snacks in there. Say thank you.”

“Thank you, Jayce!” Sophie said, with a bright smile. Suddenly he wondered how it was he’d ever felt scared of her.

“Thanks,” Matthew snarled so that Jayce was more scared than ever.

“Uh, sure. No problem.”

Maya took them back to the office, and Jayce let out the breath he’d been holding.

“Kids make you nervous?” This from Buck, a bar regular, an old geezer who lived for drink. He never got drunk in the bar, though. He just came, sipped for a few hours, and left.
 

“Little bit,” Jayce replied, while refilling his whiskey tumbler.
 

“Ain’t nothin’ to ‘em. You just talk to them like regular people. Give them candy once in a while.”

“Candy?”

“Yeah,” Buck said, with the confidence of an expert. “You keep some candy in your pockets, sneak ‘em a piece once in a while when Mom’s not looking…they’ll be your best friends.”

Jayce frowned in thought. “Makes sense. How do you know about this stuff?”

“I was a mailman for twenty years. Used to keep dog biscuits in my pockets so I could settle down the barkers and biters.”

Jayce chuckled and wiped down his bar.

Maya came back out and busied herself checking on customers and wiping down tables. She was caught up with a table full of college students when Jayce felt a tug on his jeans. He looked down and then jumped back when he saw Sophie standing there. He glanced at Maya and then back to Sophie. “Uh, hey, kid,” he said.

“Mister Jayce, I accidentally spilled chocolate milk on your ‘puter.” She pronounced it ‘pooter,’ so it took him a moment to figure out what she was talking about.

“My computer?”

She nodded, her green eyes wide, like her mom’s. “I’m really sorry, Mister Jayce.”

He figured as long as she called him Mister Jayce in that cute voice of hers, he probably wouldn’t care that much about anything else. “All right, let’s go see,” he said.
 

She took his hand and he followed her back to the office. There was chocolate milk all in the wireless keyboard. “Hmm,” he said, not sure how to handle the situation.

“You can’t yell at us ‘cause you’re not our dad,” Matthew said. He was kicked back in a chair playing games on Jayce’s iPhone, which Jayce didn’t recall giving to him.

He knew what game the boy was playing, too. “Hey, bud, I don’t know if your mom would want you playing that—”

“She doesn’t care. She lets me play zombie killing games all the time.”

Jayce hesitated, but he really didn’t know. “Um. Okay. Sophie, just wait here. I’ll go get paper towels.”

“Do you have any more chocolate milk?” she asked.

He let out a nervous laugh. “I’ve got Kahlua and half-and-half.”

“Okay!” She bounced up and down, her little ponytail bobbing.
 

Maya came in, then, breathless. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Jayce said. “Just—”

“Okay, go on, Jayce, I got this. I’m sorry they bothered you. Matthew, that’s not yours.” She snatched the phone out of this hands and returned it to the desk. Bugs Bunny was playing on the computer. She turned up the volume on that and sat Sophie in a chair before hurrying back to the kitchen for paper towels.

Jayce returned to the bar and briefly considered the possibility that some people weren’t meant to have kids, and that he was one of those people. When Maya came back out, she apologized up and down. “I swear, I’ll buy you a new keyboard first thing tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about it, Maya, I’ll pick one up.”

“I can’t even imagine what she was doing drinking so close to the computer.”

“It’s really not a problem.”

Maya huffed. It seemed as though she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. And then she hurried off to serve more drinks, wearing her frustration on her face and in all her actions. It was better than the fear she usually wore.
 

#

Zoey burst in a little before five. She came right at him, right up to the bar. He had to force his feet to stand firm. An ancient, survival instinct had him wanting to back away. “What?” he asked.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she shrieked.
 

“Uh—“

“Kids in a bar? Why are her kids hanging out in your shitty bar?”

“Do you not like it here? Because that’s the second time in a month that you’ve called my bar shitty.”

“It’s no place for children!”

Jayce glanced over at Maya. She was at a corner table chatting with a couple of women. “Zoey, what the fuck do you want?”

“I want you to exert a little empathy and put yourself in her shoes. Her kids are in school all day. If she works here from three to midnight, she’s never going to see them. And also, this bar is no place for children.”

He gritted his teeth and lowered his voice. “Zoey, I’d do anything for her, you damn well know that. It didn’t occur to me, okay? She asked for full-time hours and I’m trying to give them to her. You don’t have to treat me like I’m this asshole making her life hell. Just help me out. I’m happy to schedule her for five from now on, I just didn’t know until today.”

Zoey actually softened with contrition. She closed her eyes and appeared to be counting backwards from ten…he could hear the countdown faintly as she exhaled. Then she opened her eyes again. “Yeah. You’re right. I’m apologize for passing judgment on you without hearing you out first.”

Jayce pressed his lips together to keep from smiling. The woman had been making a major effort, lately, to control her unreasonable temper. She still had outbursts, they were just more short-lived and usually followed by apologies.

All the tension seemed to drain from Zoey’s shoulders. “A five o’clock schedule would be better for her. She could pick her kids up from school, so they don’t have to ride the bus. And she could get a couple of hours with them.”

He nodded, managing to choke back his amusement at her. “Okay. I’ll fix that for next week. Anything else?”

“Yeah. I was gonna yell at you about this, too, but I realize how unreasonable that would be. There’s a support group on Monday nights. Maya was going to start going, but—”