The Woman At The Bar

The brass clock above Barrel House Lou’s had stopped at 8:17, but Vivian Cross knew it was nearly nine by the way Lou’s television muttered through the crowd noise and the Thursday crowd began to thin.

She sat on her stool beneath the cracked mirror, one gloved hand curled around a bourbon she had not touched. The red vinyl had split beneath her, exposing a ridge of yellow foam that pressed against her thigh. For thirty-nine years, it had been hers. Lou knew it. The regulars knew it. Even the dust seemed to settle around it with a sense of ownership.

Tonight, on her ninetieth birthday, she wanted only to finish the drink and leave before anyone tried to sing.

That had become harder in recent years. Birthdays invited pity, and pity made people careless. They touched her elbow. They raised their voices. They asked whether she remembered some man named Frank or Harold or Bill, as if ninety had turned her mind into a public drawer anyone could rummage through.

Lou had already brought out a grocery-store cake with HAPPY BIRTHDAY, VIVIAN written in blue icing. It sat untouched at the end of the bar, its frosting sweating beneath the fluorescent lights.

“You’re going to let that cake die alone?” Lou called.

Vivian lifted her glass. “It has company.”

Lou snorted and turned back toward the sink. The old ice machine clattered. A jukebox coughed out three notes of a country song before swallowing them. Beyond the windows, rain dragged silver lines down the darkness of the parking lot.

Vivian reached into her handbag and checked the small envelope tucked inside. She had carried it every Thursday for eleven years, though she had never opened it. The paper had softened at the corners. Her thumb found the seal, then moved away.

Nothing was supposed to happen tonight. That was the point of Thursdays.

She had come here after the police stopped searching the water. She had come when the Cross family lawyers arrived with their polished shoes and their questions. She had come after the inheritance was settled, after the newspapers lost interest, after strangers stopped lowering their voices when she entered a room.

Every Thursday, she sat on the same stool and waited for the night to remain itself.

The front door opened.

Cold rain came in first, followed by an elderly man in a dark coat. He paused beneath the beer sign, one hand braced against the doorframe. Water shone on his shoulders. His hair was white, thin at the temples, and combed straight back from a narrow forehead.

Vivian looked away.

A birthday could make a person superstitious. Ninety was an age at which coincidence began to dress itself as prophecy.

The man crossed the room slowly. His shoes left wet marks on the concrete. A pair of men at the pool table glanced up, then returned to their game. Lou reached for a clean glass.

“Kitchen’s closed,” Lou said.

“I’m not hungry.”

His voice was roughened by age, but something beneath it struck Vivian with such force that her fingers tightened around the bourbon.

The man stopped beside her.

The stool on her other side had been empty since 1987. Lou kept it clear without admitting why. No one sat there unless the bar was packed, and even then Vivian’s stare usually moved them along.

The stranger pulled it out.

The metal legs scraped the floor.

Vivian turned her head. “That seat’s taken.”

The man lowered himself carefully. “I can see that.”

Lou set a glass in front of him. “What’ll it be?”

“Water.”

“Water costs less if you drink it outside.”

The man looked at Vivian. Not at her dress, though she had chosen the black silk with the pearl buttons for the occasion. Not at the diamond on her left hand, which she had worn on every Thursday since the ring had become evidence and then merely jewelry. He looked directly into her eyes.

“Water,” he repeated.

Lou shrugged and filled the glass.

Vivian felt the room contract around the two of them. The television continued its argument with itself. Ice struck glass. Someone laughed too loudly near the bathrooms.

She took a sip of bourbon. It had gone warm.

The man’s hands were spotted and veined. His left thumb moved over the edge of the water glass in a slow, absent circle.

Her husband had done that when he was thinking.

No. Men did things with their thumbs. Men had hands. Men grew old.

She studied his face in the mirror instead of looking at him directly. The reflection distorted him beneath a stain in the glass, stretching one cheek and narrowing the other. His jaw was thinner than she remembered. His nose had a slight bend near the bridge. There was a pale mark along his right temple.

Her husband had had that mark.

Vivian set down her glass.

“What brings you to Lou’s?” she asked.

The man kept his eyes on the water. “A long drive.”

“From where?”

“North.”

“North is a direction, not a place.”

“It was enough of a place for me.”

Lou glanced over. “You two know each other?”

“No,” Vivian said.

“Yes,” the man said.

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