Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
RUSTY
I t's only nine a.m. Monday morning when I pull into Patty's, the bar that lies directly in between Sugar Maple and Mullet Ridge — named after the fish, not the hairstyle.
Mullet Ridge is ten miles west of Sugar Maple, and it's more than ten times bigger. It has the kind of amenities Sugar Maple lacks, including an ice rink, a Triple-A baseball team, restaurants, some big box stores, and the emergency room Tripp, Duke, and I spent more than a little time in while growing up.
My visits weren't like theirs, though.
I slam the door to my truck and those memories at the same time. My boots crunch against the dirt and rocks of the unpaved parking lot as I walk up to the bar.
The sign on the building says "Donegal's Tavern" in a Celtic-inspired serif font the designer in me loves but the troubled teen in me still hates. My dad didn't frequent Donegal's — he favored bars that didn't take his keys or cut him off quite so proactively — but I picked him up here a handful of times as a teen, including the last time …
I spent so much time picking up my dad from bars, and I spent even more time praying he wouldn't be there at all.
He was always there.
Sugar Maple is a dry town, so Arlo Fielding all but lived in Mullet Ridge. My senior year, he caused an accident that killed my little sister and paralyzed Patty and Sean's dad from the waist down. Arlo was thrown from the car but came out unharmed.
My mom was already a shell of a woman after twenty years of Arlo's crap, but that shell became paper thin. Arlo entered court-ordered rehab, and once he proved himself, Tag Carville gave him a job working on the farm and running a fruit stand. Arlo always hated Tag. Thought he was uppity just because he turned his family farm into one of the biggest in the country. But he wasn't too proud to take his money.
I loved Tag, but I wasn't too proud to take his money, either.
The truth is, Tag left me a chunk of change in his will. Enough to pay off my student loan debts, buy a house and a new truck, and put the rest in a hefty rainy day fund for my mom, if she ever works up the nerve to leave Arlo.
I’ll pray for that rainy day for the rest of my life.
My boots crunch on the gravel, pulling my gaze down. In so many ways, I'm still the scared kid Tag let into his workshop. I'm still the hurt kid he took to the ER when Arlo's rage got too heated, and I had to distract him from my mom and sister. I'm still the violently angry seventeen year-old who found his dad at this very bar on the day of his sister's funeral and who snapped . Hard.
Even then, Tag somehow believed in me.
I didn't. Still don't.
And that's why I'm here. At Patty's.
I open the door to the bar and the world instantly darkens. Like so many taverns, this place is all low, warm lights and dark wood. The chairs are all up on the tables, as they won't open for lunch till noon. By then, the smell of corned beef will overpower the smell of alcohol.
I hate the smell of alcohol. Cheap beer, expensive wine, and everything in between.
It all reeks.
Ash doesn't drink because it affects her ADHD meds, and I find that I appreciate her ADHD even more because of it.
Despicable, right? Sometimes I'm so selfish, it makes me sick.
Sean comes from the back with a box over his shoulder and gives me a nod.
"Patty's in the lounge," he says.
"Thanks, man," I say, though the piano coming from the other room is a dead giveaway. I'm here twice a week, and it's always for the same reason. I walk through the swinging lounge doors.
The bar may be a dive, but it's a popular spot for live music. Some big names come through, largely due to Patty, and those weekends draw a big crowd. Patty downplays it, but it's an "if you know, you know" situation that the few of us who know keep quiet about.
Music fills the large lounge with a warm, rich tone. The acoustics in here are almost worthy of the pianist.
Patty's fingers fly across the piano, playing a song that's familiar but that I can't quite place. I approach the piano and Patty nods, meeting my eyes in spite of the stupidly complicated finger movements.
"I've heard this before. What is it?"
"Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue ," Patty says. I cock my head to the side. "It's in the United Airlines safety video."
"It sounds complicated."
Patty shrugs. "My fingers are out of practice. "
"I don't think even the music snobs at the New England Conservatory of Music would think so."
"You gotta stop with that nonsense," Patty says. "I dropped out."
"After two years and a rec — " Patty's fingers slip, and the dissonance stops me quicker than my friend's icy look. "Sorry," I say.
The music resumes, but it's louder now. Harsher, but still beautiful. "What's new?"
"I'm fake dating Ash," I say.
"How did that happen?"
"Her ex came into town, and he's a manipulative piece of crap."
"So you posed as her fake boyfriend … why exactly?"
"To protect her, I guess? She asked if you're hot, by the way."
Patty smirks. "What'd you say?"
"I told her I'd introduce you two sometime."
"You don't want that."
"In fairness, she thinks you're a girl."
His thick eyebrows flatten. "Tell me you put her out of her misery."
"She's not miserable thinking of me talking to another girl. She couldn't care less."
"Then she wouldn't have asked if I was hot."
"Believe me, you don't know Ash like I do," I say.
"And you don't know women like I do. If she asked, she cares," Patty says over the sound of the notes.
His words are like a hand strumming the first chords of my favorite song. They fill me with anticipation and excitement, both of which are dangerous. "Don't give me false hope, man. She probably wanted to set me up. She's always trying to set me up."
He shakes his head, and his scruffy brown hair falls into his face. Patty is disheveled enough to look like a rough-and-tough bartender type but with a classical music background that only scratches the surface of what makes him complex. In a white T-shirt and jeans — his uniform of choice — he looks part bouncer, part distracted artist.
He resumes playing, and if it were anyone else, I'd wonder if he was disappointed or judging me. But Patty, Sean, and me? We were forged in the same fire … with dramatically different results. Pat's six years older than me, and every kid from Mullet Ridge and Sugar Maple grew up watching his star rise, no matter how abruptly it fell. I'm past the hero worship stage I had as a kid, though, and in the last several years since he moved back home, he's become like a big brother. I trust him as much as I do Tripp or Duke. Unlike them, though, he has a way of worming info out of me without opening his mouth.
The song has alternated between blazingly fast and a more relaxed pace, raucous and something almost — but not quite — calm. Now, it's all power and speed. Octaves and flying fingers that I can't follow no matter how raptly I watch. He pounds on the piano in octaves as he slows down, and it's playful and somehow moving at the same time.
Then he slams his hands down in one final note. It's so abrupt and powerful that it hits me in the middle of my chest.
Patty gets up from the bench and claps a hand on my shoulder.
"Let's go punch some stuff."