34. Death and Love
34
Death and Love
The Lucie Poem
Add 1/2 ounce blue curacao syrup to a hurricane glass filled with ice. Fill halfway with lemonade, and top with club soda. Stir. Garnish with a pick of fresh blueberries.
DANNY
M y heart was lodged somewhere in my stomach when I found Barb in the tiny office off the hallway to the restrooms. She sat in front of the ancient computer, a web page about the Taj Mahal pulled up. I hated to ruin her mood, but I couldn’t put it off any longer. It was only a few weeks before she planned to leave on her world cruise. “Hey, Barb, can we talk?”
She turned her head to look at me. “Who died?”
I smoothed my tie. “Oh, um, nobody. I had some appointments at a few banks.”
“Yeah? You finally buying that place in the suburbs?”
“No. Not exactly. Mind if I sit down?”
She tipped her chin at the rickety chair I used whenever I worked on the books or ordered supplies. I sank into it and waited while she maneuvered her chair to face me.
“I can’t think of a good way to tell you, so I’m just going to say it. I can’t buy the bar.”
Her eyes widened, but I rushed on. “Leo’s dream kitchen came on the market, and I told him he should buy it. He’s finally going to start that catering business he’s always wanted.”
“Good for him!” She beamed.
“But that means I don’t have the cash to buy the bar. No one I know has that kind of money available, and every bank I talked to turned me down. It seems that a bartender who never went to college, who never took a business class, isn’t a good risk.”
Her smile dimmed. Then she nodded. “We’ll figure it out. I can finance you. Pay me what you can now as a down payment, and we can work out a schedule for the rest.”
The white dome on the screen was impossibly beautiful. And expensive looking. “World cruises don’t come cheap. And neither do the renovations I want to make to the bar. Plus, I’ll be supporting a kid soon. What would you do if I paid late or not at all one month? This is your retirement we’re talking about. It wouldn’t feel right if you took that risk. Besides, you have another buyer.”
She sighed. “Tad wants to turn this place into a hipster hangout. Our regulars can’t afford thirty-dollar martinis with caviar-stuffed olives. They want a beer and a burger in a place they can bring their kids.”
“Maybe Tad’s right. Maybe the smarter business decision is to fancy up the place. Find a new clientele.” She tried to interrupt me, but I plowed on. “Regardless, you should let him buy it. Because I…I can’t.”
My throat clogged, and pressure built behind my eyelids. I was letting everyone down—Barb, Norm, Nico, and all our regulars. All the folks from the neighborhood who came here for a drink they could pronounce and food that was more filling than fancy. Lucie would hate having her nemesis own the bar she loved. Every time she came home, she’d have to look at Tad’s smug face as she passed the door to a bar she used to love but now couldn’t afford.
But most of all, I was letting down myself.
I loved working at Barb’s, but there was no way I could work for Tad, even if he’d let someone like me in the door. And if I quit my job at the bar, I’d have to move out of my apartment. Taking care of our baby would be more complicated if I didn’t live downstairs from her. But what else could I do? I couldn’t force Leo to give up his dream for the sake of mine, and I couldn’t ask Barb to give up her dream either.
She patted my hand. “It’ll be okay. Let’s give it a week. Maybe a solution will come to us by then.”
That was Barb, always an optimist. But I didn’t believe in manifesting or attracting positive energy. I’d gained what I had through hard work. Even that wouldn’t save this situation.
I gave her a tight smile. “I’m going to put my jacket and tie in my locker, then start my shift.”
“I believe in us, Danny. We’ll get through this.”
I wished I could believe it too.
I ’d just flipped off the blender when a throat cleared behind me. “Excuse me.”
I held up a finger. “One sec.” I poured out the frozen margaritas for the Monday-night bunco club and garnished them with lime wheels.
Turning, I said, “I’ve got to drop off this tray, but I’ll be right…”
My words died when I saw the last person I’d ever expected to walk into this bar again—Lucie’s mother. She wore a pink cardigan and matching blouse over a black skirt and heels. She looked like she’d gotten lost on her way to the theater district.
“Mrs. Knox. Hi.” I bobbled the tray but kept most of the drinks in their glasses.
“Do you have a minute to talk? After you take care of that?” She nodded at my tray.
“Um, sure. Yeah.” I carried the drinks out to the ladies’ table while my mind spun. What was Lucie’s mother doing here? Was Lucie all right? I hadn’t seen her in a couple of days, though I’d heard the occasional scrape of her office chair against my ceiling.
When I returned to my post behind the bar, Mrs. Knox sat on a barstool, carefully not touching the bar top. I passed a damp rag over it and washed my hands. “What can I get you?”
“Do you have wine?”
I lifted a bottle. “This is what Lucie drinks. Or what she used to drink. It’s not terrible. Want to try it?”
“Thank you.”
I checked that the glass was clean, then poured the wine and set it in front of her. “Is Lucie okay?”
“I think so. She called me, and I’m on my way to see her. But first I wanted to talk to you.” She sipped the wine. “Lucie drinks this?”
“Yeah, when she’s not choking back scotch. But I started a mocktail menu, and she likes those now. Well, she did.” I’d picked up one of the laminated menus as if to hand it to her, but I set it back down. Lucie didn’t come here anymore. Because I’d fucked everything up.
Placing two fingers on the menu, Mrs. Knox slid it toward herself and scanned it. “The Lucie Poem? Is that a reference to Wordsworth’s Lucy poems?” She raised her eyebrows in a way that reminded me of Lucie.
“Yeah.” I scrubbed at a sticky spot on the bar.
“You know those poems are all about death, right?”
“And love,” I insisted. “Anyway, Lucie’s popular around here. And the mocktails…I made them for her.”
She cleared her throat and pushed away the glass of wine. “I came here to apologize for my behavior—mine and my husband’s—at Lucie’s birthday party. Lucie had led us to believe…or we wanted to believe… We didn’t think you two were serious about a relationship. Clearly, we were wrong.”
“Oh.” My face went hot. “We’re not anymore. Except as, you know, co-parents. She doesn’t want more.”
“Doesn’t she?” She tipped her head exactly the way Lucie did when she asked a hard question. “Let me tell you something about my daughter. Her father is a very driven man. Driven not only to succeed but also to do what is right. Lucie picked that up at an early age. She’s always had a clear view of right and wrong and strives to stay on the side of right.”
“Sure.” I set down the rag. “That’s why she’s a journalist. So she can explore issues, figure out her view of events, and tell the story. Writing about that gun rights rally with a neutral viewpoint really pissed her off.”
“Exactly. It irks her father too. He thought she should have gone into academia. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She had opinions about what academia had done to me.”
“Oh, right. They kicked you out because you, um, you got pregnant.”
“What Lucie didn’t understand was that, although that university closed the door on me, it wasn’t my only option. I decided to leave my academic career to raise her and support Marvin’s career.”
“And what a career it’s been,” I said. “I bet he couldn’t have done it without you.”
She chuckled. “He can’t find matching socks without me, much less win a Pulitzer.”
Damn, I liked her. I’d been so nervous meeting Lucie’s parents at the party that I hadn’t been able to see how alike they were. I’d been too focused on my hurt feelings. But now I realized that some of what I loved about Lucie—her humor, her intelligence, her idealism—came from her parents.
“Lucie’s like her father,” Mrs. Knox said. “She needs someone to support her so she can be her best self.”
The warm feeling evaporated. “She’s done pretty damn well on her own for the past twenty or so years. She supports herself just fine.”
“No, no.” She reached across the bar to put a hand over mine. “That’s not what I mean. Of course our Lucie is independent. Stubborn. Driven to champion her causes. But she’s also afraid of doing the wrong thing. Of being wrong. Of messing up.”
“She won’t,” I insisted. “She’ll do motherhood the same way she does everything else, by throwing her whole self into it and trying her best.”
“You know she’ll be a wonderful mother. So do I. But sometimes Lucie can’t see past her fear. Fear that she won’t be enough. Fear that she’ll fail.”
I slipped my hand out from under hers. “What can I do? She didn’t want me.”
“Is that what she said?”
“I proposed. She turned me down.” I reached down to the speed rail and turned each bottle so the labels faced me.
“For Lucie, marriage and a baby mean losing part of oneself. Giving up one’s dreams. That’s not how I saw my experience, but it’s the story she created.”
I froze with my hand on the bottle of Jack Daniels. I’d come in hot with the ring, the engagement photos, the house in the suburbs. It was what I wanted, not what she wanted. She’d have had to file off a huge chunk of herself to fit into the space I offered. How could I have asked her to do that when I loved every part of her just the way she was?
“Have you told her this?” I asked.
She traced the rim of her wineglass. “We don’t talk as much as I’d like.”
I stood up straight. “So what do I do to support her in the way she needs?”
She smiled. “I think you already know. Tell her how extraordinary, how talented and capable she is. Show her she’s worthy by meeting her where she is.”
I scratched my neck. “But…but I’m just a bartender. My plans to buy the bar fell through. Am I what she needs? Maybe I should stay out of her way.”
“Did Lucie say she only liked you because you were buying the bar?”
“No, but…but she deserves so much more.”
“Don’t you think it’s up to her to decide what she deserves? What she wants?”
“She already decided.” I stared down at my sneakers. “It wasn’t me.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. I think her decision was more about herself than about you. Be there for her, okay? Even if she says she doesn’t need anything. Knowing you’re there will be a comfort to her.”
Would it? Hanging around waiting for the woman I loved to need me wasn’t what I’d imagined when I’d thought about fatherhood and my future. But when the woman I loved was Lucie Knox, I couldn’t imagine living my life in any other way.