Women Drinking Benedictine (14 page)

“It's got a pool table. The jukebox is in the back,” Claire explains.

“It's on North Street,” Evan says. He is watching the rain with what seems to be determined concentration and I don't bother to tell him that there are over fifteen bars on North Street and they all have pool tables and jukeboxes in the back.

“We were there in February,” Pete looks in the rearview mirror to talk to me. “The night when the undergrads came in and one of them threw up on the dance floor.”

The bar comes to mind instantly—orange lounge chairs that look like they belong in a Florida motel lobby, not a woodpaneled bar in northern Pennsylvania. The student was one of my freshman composition students. I thought it might be awkward the next time I saw her in class, but she came in on Monday bright-eyed and cheerful. I don't think she remembered, or maybe she never even knew, that I was the one who drove her home and put her to bed that night.

Pete pulls into the parking lot and we get out of the car. The rain is lighter, but still falling. The potholes are filling with water. I walk around a puddle. Pete doesn't see it and steps right in it. He curses. His pant legs are already soaked from pushing the car into the gas station. It doesn't make much of a difference. I don't feel like drinking so early, but bar coffee is unheard of in Meadville.

We follow Claire into the bar, but before she gets all the way in she turns around and walks back out. The four of us collide in the doorway.

“Where're you going?” Pete stops her. “What's wrong?”

“There's no one here,” Claire announces. “I'm not wasting my time in a bar without men.”

The bartender is on the customer side of the bar eating a bag of potato chips. She seems unconcerned as to whether or not we stay.

Claire reads her napkin when we get back into the car. “The Sports Page.” She announces the next bar. “I don't know that one,” Pete says.

“Yes you do,” she tells him. Her makeup is still fresh, but her face is hardening with frustration. Perhaps she is already getting anxious about the time we are losing, the time we are wasting.

“Remind me again,” Pete says.

“Downtown. Right next to the tanning place.”

Pete still hesitates, but heads south, which is in the general direction of the library and the town hall. I know why he is confused. For a town the size of Meadville there are too many tanning places. There are just as many tanning places as there are restaurants that serve dinner after six o'clock in the evening. Evan thinks they are a cover for something, I don't know what. Claire insists that the college kids use them, but there are only 1,200 students at our college and I can't believe all of them tan. There just isn't that kind of social pressure to look good up here.

From the outside, the Sports Page looks identical to Otter's. The parking lot is full of potholes filling with water and the same OPEN sign hangs in the window to the right of the door. Only this time, Claire informs us that this place looks like it's going to be good.

“This is what I need,” she says pointing to the half-dozen cars in the parking lot. “There's some action here.”

Most of the people huddled around the bar are men. This is a good thing, it means we can stay. The guys are watching the TV, which is tuned to a beer commercial inside a bar. It looks an awful lot like the one we're in, which makes perfect sense to me.

“Don't act like you're with me,” Claire tells us. “I don't want these guys to think I'm part of a couple.”

We start to walk to one of the back tables, but stop as Claire continues talking.

“Because I'm not,” she says. “Am I?”

“You're not what?” I ask. I don't always understand what she's talking about and have gotten used to asking her to repeat or explain herself.

“Not part of a couple anymore,” Claire says. “Am I, Pete?”

Someone has glued pennies to the wall. When I first saw it, I thought it was just that—pennies stuck on the wall—but Pete told me it's supposed to be a baseball diamond. The spray-painted pennies—the rows of yellow, red, and blue—are the fans sitting in the stands. I still can't see it, but I'm probably looking at it from the wrong angle.

“Am I part of a couple anymore, Pete?” She's staring at him.

“No,” Pete tells her, and then he tells Evan and me that he'll be right back.

“I was just checking,” Claire announces. “Just checking to see if you had changed your mind. You know, you might have slept on your decision and reconsidered. It's no fun being alone in the summer in Meadville.”

“I haven't changed my mind, Claire,” Pete tells her and then leaves the bar.

“Where's he going?” I ask Evan, who only shrugs and looks away. Evan has been unusually quiet the past couple of days. I don't know him well enough to know if these are his regular mood swings or if he's suffering from spring cabin fever. He's not pouting, but you can tell he's not fired up about the day's entertainment. Maybe he thinks the whole thing is stupid or just too small-town. Maybe he is bored. I hope he will tell me if something is wrong, that he will talk to me when he has something to say.

Claire bellies up to the bar next to a man who offers to buy her a drink. Claire raises the glass to thank him, then sips the drink in short swallows.

“Do you want something?” I ask Evan. I reach in my back pocket for my money. I used to carry a purse before I started living in Meadville, but now there is no need for anything except cash. No bar takes credit cards or checks, and makeup, even lipstick, seems unnecessary.

When Pete comes back in, he walks the long way around the pool table so as not to bother Claire. The bartender brings us a round of Rolling Rock longnecks. It's brewed in central Pennsylvania, and every bar in the state keeps a full stock of it.

“What's the score?” Pete asks after we have paid for the beer. I think he is talking about the basketball game. I tell him I haven't been watching and he says he's talking about Claire. “Has she found someone new? Can we go home now?” He smiles and I can tell he's being sarcastic.

“That guy bought her a drink,” I say. I don't want Pete's replacement to be that easy to find. I do not want to go home right away. I rent an apartment half a mile from the college. It's the whole second floor of a large Victorian home. I pay three hundred dollars, including utilities. It would be a steal anywhere else. I don't even tell my out-of-state friends how much I pay because they wouldn't believe it, but I can't explain to them how depressing it gets. Especially on Sundays when my downstairs neighbor has her in-laws over for an early afternoon meal. The husband /son is always late and the wife and his parents fight about whose fault it is that he isn't there. “If you hadn't done this—if you hadn't done that—if you—if you—if you—if you.” It goes on until the son /husband comes tearing down the street on his motorcycle. Within minutes, everyone's laughing and eating and having a good time and I'm upstairs in my apartment surrounded by the echoes of their fight.

Pete gets up and puts some quarters in the jukebox. Evan continues to stare out into space and I'm suddenly irritated at his silence.

“You okay?” I ask him.

He nods, suddenly intent on wiping the condensation off his bottle. He wipes the dampness on the cocktail napkin and drinks without saying anything.

“You seem quiet,” I say. It's true, and hardly worth saying. But I start to wonder if he is mad at me for something. We went out on Friday night. Everything seemed fine. We went to the Chestnut Street Bar for dinner, drove to the other side of town to see what movie was showing. It was
Indiana ]ones and the Temple of Doom
, which was playing a week ago, so we went to Pete's instead and had a few beers with him and Claire. Afterward we went to my apartment and watched the Lakers on cable. Evan doesn't sleep in past eight o'clock, even on weekends, so the next morning he got up and made coffee and left before I woke up. We didn't have sex that night. Neither one of us made a move. But we don't always have sex every time we go out. The relationship is a bit low-key, but I think it's because there's nothing to do in Meadville. We sometimes get bored with each other, but all couples go through that, even in cities where there are plenty of restaurants, and movies that change more than once a month. In places where there are interesting sights, interesting people.

“Okay, folks,” Claire is at our table clapping her hands like a football coach. She has already buttoned her coat. “Let's go.”

“What's wrong with that guy?” Pete asks.

“Which guy?” Claire shakes her hair loose from her coat collar.

“The one who bought you the drink.”

“Ugly.”

“You think he's ugly? I don't think he's ugly at all,” Pete tries to stall. It's still raining. I can hear the drops falling on the roof. I don't feel like leaving either, but it's obvious that Pete's not going to win this fight.

“Real ugly,” Claire says.

“You're not getting picky on us, are you?” Pete asks.

“I'm not getting anything except out of this bar,” Claire says. Evan stands and she locks her arm in his. “You know what I really want?” She is talking to Evan, not to Pete or me. Evan tells her he can't imagine.

“I really want to find someone as cute as you,” she says.

I am surprised by this comment. I have never heard her pay anyone a compliment, not even Pete when they first started going out. Evan has his back to me so I can't see how he's taking the compliment.

We only drink one beer at the third bar. The guys there are people Claire know from Meadville High School and she tells us that they're all married. Pete points out that there might be one or two who are divorced by now. It's been ten years since her graduation. Claire shakes her head. “People get married in this town and they stay married. There's no reason to get divorced. Everyone's got the same problems. Not enough money, too much drinking, and too many kids. Those kinds of things don't change when you get a divorce.”

“What about death? Do you think maybe you could find a widower?” Pete asks her. “Doesn't anybody die in this town?”

“Not before they're supposed to.” Claire is not in the mood for his humor, but I laugh at the joke. Claire hisses at me.

In the fourth bar Pete and I start up a game of pool. Evan and Claire are sitting next to each other, and before I even get a turn, Claire is ready to go. She puts her fingers in her mouth and blows a sharp whistle in our direction.

“Let's go,” she orders and holds the door open. The bartender yells at her, asking her if she grew up in a barn or what. Claire ignores him and glares at Pete and me.

“This is the longest scavenger hunt in the world,” Pete says. He puts his pool cue back on the rack.

I try a shot, but just then Claire whistles again and I don't even make contact with the cue ball. My bladder is full of beer, but there is no time for a bathroom stop.

Evan and Claire are already in the backseat by the time Pete and I get to the car. They are not talking, but I somehow feel that we have taken sides, that Evan is siding with Claire against Pete and me, even though I do not understand what we're fighting about.

Claire calls out the next bar and then goes back to whispering with Evan.

“Who said anything about going to Hunter's?” Pete says. “We never agreed on Hunter's.”

“It's on the list,” Claire says. “Right here on the list.” She tosses the napkin into the front seat. It lands between Pete and me, but neither of us touches it.

“Couldn't we go somewhere closer to town?” Pete asks.

“The guys in there just told me that it's turkey day out there,” Claire says. “That always attracts a crowd. Guys go for that kind of thing.”

“I don't want to get into that mess,” Pete says. “Isn't there another place we could try?” It's obvious that Pete has lost his energy for Claire's boyfriend search. I understand why. Hunter's is seventeen miles east of Meadville in a place called Frenchtown. The “town” part of the name is an exaggeration. There isn't any town out there, just a few deserted houses. The bar is popular enough. Set right between Meadville and Titusville, it's got a reputation for the best barbecue wings in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Turkey competitions are common in this part of the country. At least that's what people tell me. It's a spring competition for the best turkey. Before I went to one, I thought the turkeys would be alive. I imagined the bar crowded with farmers modeling their turkeys the way dog owners show their dogs. I didn't think there'd be tricks or anything. I mean I didn't think the turkeys would lie down or beg or shake anybody's hand, but it did surprise me when I went to one and saw that the turkeys are all dead. And they're huge. Most of them weigh more than dogs—up to and over one hundred pounds. The turkeys are judged mainly for size—biggest is best—but the judges also score and remark on the color and overall feel of the turkey, how much white and dark meat it will yield.

Pete drives northeast, totally the opposite way from Hunter's, and Claire keeps quiet. I turn to look at her a few times to see if she is fuming. Both she and Evan are staring out the window. They're looking out the same window—out across the marsh where two hawks are diving into the tall grasses. Pete stops the car, then makes a 180-degree turn right in the middle of the road. Claire sighs to let him know that she's acknowledging his giving in.

The parking lot of Hunter's is not just full—it's packed. Cars and pickup trucks are double-parked along the side of the one-story red building. The cars are up on the grass and all along the shoulder of the highway. Pete circles twice, but no one's leaving. He goes back the same way we drove in and pulls up behind the long line of cars on the side of the road. Hunter's is a long way ahead.