23
Hotel bars are a rare guilty pleasure for me. The last time I had ducked into one was, of course, right after Bentley and I got caught, and everything changed, but before then, I enjoyed the occasional pop into the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square or the Fairmont Copley. There is something about being somewhat anonymous in an upscale setting that has always felt exciting. When it’s just me, sitting at the bar, sipping a drink, chatting a bit with the bartender or a fellow bar patron, I can be whoever I want to be. After an early morning and my disastrous day of flying and dealing with Heath, followed by preparing a meal for David to eat when he eventually got to the hotel, there was nothing I wanted more than to be whoever I felt like being perched atop a gorgeous barstool at the Ritz-Carlton.
I must have been perusing the cocktail menu for a long time because I soon felt eyes on me from behind the bar. I looked up and saw an older, gray-haired gentleman—my best guess was mid-sixties—drying a rocks glass with a bar towel and smiling gently. “What do you enjoy drinking?” he asked in a way that seemed genuine and almost loving.
Just the way he said it, I felt cared for in a way I hadn’t been in so long. Tam always gave me that sense of home and understanding, but I hadn’t found it in many other places. I knew it was the bartender’s job, and part of working in an upscale place was talking to customers on a personal level—I had done the same thing for years in restaurants—but at that moment, he appeared in front of me like some sort of guardian angel. It overwhelmed me to the point that I fought back tears. I had no idea what had come over me.
“Um, well, this is going to sound really basic,” I said, pushing the menu back toward him.
He smiled again. “I’ve heard everything, Devon.”
Taken aback, I stared at him, searching his face for any recognition. Who is this guy? “How did you know my name is Devon?”
He gestured to my ID badge that was connected to a lanyard that I had tossed onto the bar counter when I sat down. I wore it whenever I did anything on the road for David. His mom had it made early in our arrangement to make me look official—and so fewer people would question a woman delivering a home fry and bacon skillet to a basketball player’s hotel room for when he got off his flight. “Oh yeah. That’s me.” I looked back at the smiling face on the badge and barely recognized her. It felt like a lifetime since I took that picture. Way too much had happened in my life. “I love whiskey sours,” I said, scrunching up my mouth in a bit of embarrassment. The cocktail menu was full of complex concoctions featuring things like green chartreuse, falernum, absinthe, and rums of various degrees of aging and levels of spice. I felt like I was ordering a fuzzy navel at Buckingham Palace or something like that.
“I got you,” he said, deftly grabbing a bottle of Angel’s Envy. It brought me right back to another Ritz, 3,000 miles away, when I drank a whiskey sour with the same exact liquor after Adrienne had walked in on Bentley and me. What had I even been thinking? Adrienne was now an important presence in my life. I hated that I had done that to her.
A few minutes later, the bartender handed me the drink. “I’m Charlie, by the way. I hope this works for you.”
“My mom always said I would be Charlie if I had been a boy,” I said, taking a sip. “Oh, this is really good. There’s something slightly different. What’d you do?” I detected a slight variation from the flavor profile I was used to when I made them myself, even with fresh lemon juice, homemade simple syrup, and good bourbon like this.
“Two things,” he said, holding up two fingers. “Meyer lemon juice, which mellows the acid a bit, and a rich demerara syrup instead of just simple. You looked like you needed something better than what you’re used to.”
Given everything that had happened that day, I couldn’t have imagined a better choice of words. “You are correct, sir.” I took another sip. “Your name’s really Charlie?” I thought back to my mother crowing about sons, about how her son Charlie wouldn’t have ever complained about taking out the trash and why she shouldn’t have to do it after a day of disposing of other people’s garbage. Maybe she was right—I probably should’ve just done it—but I wasn’t so sure a son named Charlie would’ve been so eager to take out the trash, either.
“Yes, Charlie Donelan from Charlestown, Massachusetts. That’s a neighborhood of Boston. Did you detect the accent?”
“You’re from Boston,” I said, not even asking the question. It was a statement. Because I should have just known—this was the guy I needed to talk to that night.
“Yes, I moved here two years ago when my partner Connor passed away. It was time for a change—couldn’t be more different from Boston! Where do you live, Devon?”
“Up until late August, it was Boston. For thirteen years! I’m sure we crossed paths at some point. I worked in a number of restaurants for a while there. Did you bartend? And I’m sorry about your partner.”
“He was sick for a long time,” Charlie replied. “Thank you. Without him, Boston wasn’t Boston for me anymore. I was a bartender for Barbara Lynch, Lydia Shire, Jamie Bissonnette, and many of the greats. Where were you?”
“Gosh, Minx, Bee’s Knees, Cardamom. And then I was a private chef. We definitely overlapped as guests in each other’s establishments, no doubt.” I sighed. “And now I run dining services at a boarding school called Rockwood on St. George’s Island near Portsmouth. Adjacent to New Castle if you know the area.”
“We used to go to Wentworth by the Sea for our anniversary each year,” Charlie said, mixing a Manhattan for an order that a waiter handed him. “Connor liked to play golf by the ocean, and I liked to drink by it.”
“Perfect place to go then.”
“Are you hungry, Devon? Would you like some dinner?” Once again, Charlie wasn’t someone taking my order. There was a concern, an eagerness to take care of me that I couldn’t put my finger on.
“Yes, actually, I’ve been up since four East Coast time. So, that would be like one in the morning LA time.” I yawned as if by suggestion. “I know this is the Ritz, and I’m sure there are amazing things on your menu, but do you, by chance, have a burger?”
“Of course we do,” he replied. “Is there anything you would like on it? Caramelized onion jam? That’s my favorite.”
“That would be lovely.” I thought back to the morning after with Kyle over fifteen years earlier. “Could you add some bacon?”
“I think that would go so well with the jam. I’ll have to try that next time. Coming right up.”
Digging into the juiciest, most flavorful hamburger perhaps of my life, I realized that I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten something that I hadn’t cooked or had at least been part of the production. Those tacos with Tam and Plum, maybe? But this was simple enjoyment of someone else nourishing me, and it tasted great. “Thanks so much, Charlie,” I said, my mouth probably way too full to be talking in a place like the Ritz.
“So, Devon, do you mind me asking what you’re in town for? You’re far from New Hampshire.”
“I work for a player on the Celtics in a very part-time capacity,” I answered. “I typically feed him once a week, and his mom usually joins him for road games, but she has a medical conference she needs to attend. She’s a doctor in Atlanta. So, I occasionally help out on the road.” I realized I had probably said too much; I never knew where the line was when talking to others about David. There was something about Charlie that made me want to spill it all out and tell him every detail about my life and, even more so, for him to tell me what the hell to do about all of it.
“David Anders,” Charlie replied. “I remember some buzz about his mom being at his away games from some commentators, but there was no way Anders was going to give any information about anything to the media,” he said with a laugh. “I’m sure he’s different in private.”
“He is,” I agreed. “He’s a lovely person.” I ate a perfectly crispy French fry and sighed. I was enjoying this food so much; maybe I was just so overtired that I was delirious, but it was good. “Do you watch a lot of basketball? You must, if know about David’s surliness with reporters.”
“I used to go to a lot of Celtics games at the Garden,” he said. “I don’t get to see them much anymore since they are rarely in town, and the tickets are always so expensive when a good team like them comes here.”
“Are you going tomorrow night? Or do you have to work?” I asked, taking the last bite of the burger. It had been huge, and I ate it all.
“No, I’ll probably watch it at a local bar, but I bet I’m one of the only Boston fans there,” he said with a wink.
“Want to go? I can get you a ticket.” David’s mom always reminded me that I should let her know if I had a friend who wanted to see a game, and I rarely took her up on the offer. This would be the time to do it. Charlie was a quality human being.
“Are you sure?”
“You bet. Charlie Donelan, right? I’ll send David’s mom an email right now. It’s late in Atlanta, or else I’d text her.”
“That’s so kind of you, Devon.”
“You have been very good to me tonight, Charlie. I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me.” I examined my empty plate. “And obviously, I needed someone to take care of me. Your ticket will be at Will Call.”
“Can I get you some dessert? Ice cream?”
“How’d you know?”
“A guess. Sounds like I made the right one.”
I was full, but I managed to put a dent in the most gorgeous parfait I could have imagined. The layers of ice cream, sauces, and cookie crumbles were heavenly and complemented each other so well. There were no Heath bar pieces to be seen, and for once, I was grateful. I needed a break from toffee.
“I have a question for you, Charlie,” I said, pushing the half-eaten parfait glass forward. I couldn’t eat another spoonful. “Is fifteen years too late to rekindle a one-night stand?”
“It depends,” he said, taking my glass away and, without me asking, refilling my ice water. “Are the two people involved better suited for each other now than they were then?”
I thought about the two people in 2007 who had started talking in a dinner line, both going for the same slice of watermelon. We were barely adults then, about to embark on big adventures in cities we had never visited, about to meet new people, some of whom would change the direction of our lives. Yet we ended up back in the same place, different people we had been then, but yes, perhaps better suited for each other than we once had been. And I couldn’t help but ponder if, back in 2007, our trips had both been canceled at the last minute that morning when we ate bacon together. Would we have become a couple? And if we had tried to start a relationship based on walks around a pond and hours of talking and listening to Oasis and Counting Crows and Guster in a too-small bed and an initial electric physical chemistry, would it have lasted? Would it have been enough? Did we have a better shot at it now?
“We might be,” I said, sliding my credit card over to him. “You helped me to answer my question.”
Once I reached the hotel lobby, I realized I had left my badge on the bar. I ran back in, and it was gone. I didn’t see Charlie anywhere, but there was a woman still working behind the counter. “Did you see an ID badge? I left it on the bar by accident. It says Devon Paige on it. I can show you my driver’s license if you need it.”
“No worries,” she said, handing it to me. “Charlie told me to make sure you got it. He just left. He stayed an hour after his shift ended tonight. Such a good guy.”
He stayed to talk and take care of me. There weren’t many people in my life who would have done that, certainly not Heath. Kyle would. If I needed him, Kyle would stay.
Frustrated with being in LA with Heath but finally seeing clarity, I went back to my hotel. I had never been so grateful that David’s mom always booked me the two-bedroom suite at the Residence Inn. Heath was snoring loudly from the room with the king bed in it, leaving me with the room appointed with a queen bed. Of course .