Chapter 10 Evie
TEN
EVIE
“Who brings their grandmother to the bar?” A woman in a leopard print shirt thought she was whispering to the woman in the denim dress as we walked by.
As a kid, my parents used to go to the Last Chance.
I never thought I’d be back in town, let alone having a drink at their former local haunt.
In some ways it was exactly how I’d imagined it—everyone in town drinking and having fun, but it was ten times divier than I could have ever dreamed possible.
“I think my feet are sticking to the ground.” I peeled my Converse from the floor.
A man with white hair stood up from his seat at the end of the bar. He nudged his friend sitting next to him on his shoulder. The second man looked at us, stood, and took off his hat.
“Janie.” The man in the mechanic’s shirt gestured to his chair.
“Thank you, Bob. This is my granddaughter, Evie.”
“Jenny’s daughter?” Bob’s eyes were slightly clouded but looked kind. “My wife used to babysit your mom.” Bob extended his hand and I shook it. “I’m Bob and this is Glen.”
Glen shook my hand and then raised his to get the bartender’s attention. “Beer? Wine?” he asked.
“Beer,” we both said at the same time.
GJ had convinced me to go out for a drink to celebrate learning how to ski and to thank me for helping to clean Nick’s suite. All I’d wanted to do was curl up in bed, but GJ had insisted. I left a note for Nick on his bed and told GJ that I would come out for one drink.
While GJ chit-chatted with Bob and Glen, I scanned the busy bar.
Since we’d arrived, at least twenty people had followed.
The music was loud, but the voices were louder.
The staccato of the balls hitting each other on the pool table punctuated the din.
Toward the back of the room there was a big, long table.
I squinted and could make out several very big men, most of them wearing a Bobcat logo somewhere on their body.
The man at the head of the table was looking the other way, but I recognized his profile. He turned before I could look away.
The room went silent. At least it did in my world. Nick’s eyes pierced through the dimly lit, seedy bar. He raised his hand in a wave and I returned it.
“Have they initiated the young buck yet?” GJ asked the bartender, a woman named Mary.
“Not yet.” She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe they’re still doing that. Although, I have to say I’m curious about the new one.” She jerked her chin toward the table full of hockey players.
Initiation? This was news to me. “What’s going on, GJ?” I asked.
GJ handed me a frosty pint filled with the local Chance Rapids Kolsch. It was surprisingly good.
“Mary,” she raised her glass to the bartender, who was already pouring drinks for someone else, “called to tell me that the new Bobcat was here.”
Nick. He was the new Bobcat.
My brow knitted. I was thoroughly confused. “Why would she call you, and what exactly is going to happen to Nick?”
GJ sipped her beer before replying. “It’s a small town, Evie. Everyone knows everyone’s business. Mary thought that I might like to know that our VIP guest was on the docket for fifty-buck amateur night.”
“Fifty buck what?”
With a sigh, GJ set down her drink. “The Bobcats have this stupid initiation that they do to all the players. It started sometime in the eighties, long after Clarence was a player.” This wasn’t the first time that GJ’s eyes got that faraway look when she brought up her first boyfriend.
“What is it?” I asked.
Mary wiped the bar in front of us. “Those boys over there are going to make your guest enter the amateur striptease show. He won’t be able to leave the stage until he gets fifty bucks from the crowd.”
“Really? That seems very…”
“Inappropriate? Immature? All of the above?” GJ shook her head. “I thought that this might happen, that’s why I brought you here tonight.” She palmed a fifty-dollar bill into my hand.
“What?” I looked at the banknote like I’d never seen a fifty before. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“You’re going to save him from all of those, what do the kids call them these days. Hungry, no, ravished, no…” She tapped her lip and then pointed to the group of women who had started to congregate in front of the stage, a slightly raised platform with a dusty drum kit and a brass pole.
“Thirsty,” I answered GJ. “Why do I have to do it? Maybe Nick likes that kind of attention.” Jealousy burned in my guts. But Nick wasn’t mine. I had no claim over the man. I tried to give the fifty back to GJ. “You’ll have to do it.”
She and Mary guffawed. GJ leaned in and cupped her hand over my ear. “Trust your grandmother. The only person in here that Nick wants is you.” She closed my hand around the money.
My cheeks burned as red as the spotlight that lit up the stage.
The stylish woman that I’d met at the G-Spot, Charlotte, walked into the bar with a group of women. She scanned the room and then waved at me to come over.
“It’s Charlotte,” I said to GJ and waved back at the raven-haired woman.
“Go, have a seat with them. I’ll catch up with Mary, Bob, and Glen.
Have fun, dear.” GJ planted her bony palm between my shoulder blades and shoved me toward the table of women.
I’d been in Chance Rapids for two months, and that time had been so busy, filled with work and trying to figure out my next move in life, that I hadn’t put any effort into meeting people closer to my own age.
After weaving through the crowd, I smiled at Charlotte. “Hi,” I said.
Charlotte stood and put her hand on my shoulder.
“Everyone, this is Evie. Evie, that is Lauren, my sister, Emma, she runs the flower shop in town, Serena, she’s my sister-in-law, Megan, she’s trouble, and Henri, she’s the newest transplant to town.
” She pointed to all of the women around the table.
Her family resemblance to Lauren was uncanny.
Serena looked vaguely familiar, but that could’ve been because she looked like a supermodel.
I’d seen Emma through the window of the flower shop, and the other two I’d never seen before.
I would remember Henri, she was wearing a black leather jacket and Doc Martens.
“Hi, Evie,” the women chimed together.
I waved and sat next to Charlotte.
“Evie is GJ’s granddaughter. She’s in town helping her run the place over the holidays.”
Charlotte was technically right, I was helping GJ over the holidays, but after New Year’s Eve, if she decided she didn’t need me anymore, I had nowhere to go.
I doubted that would happen, but it still weighed heavily on my mind that I might need to find a place to live in the coldest month of the year.
“I love that inn.” Emma smiled. “Your grandmother’s window boxes are the classiest in town.”
There was a relaxed energy between the women, nothing competitive.
It was refreshing and I wondered if I had just found myself my first new friends in Chance Rapids.
They were all beautiful, seemed kind, and while they shared a pitcher of beer, asked me lots of questions and even invited me to the hot springs.
Charlotte sat to my right, and Henri sat to my left.
She was with a guy named Jack and had come to Chance Rapids last year to write a story on small towns at Christmas.
She laughed as she told me how her plan to make the town look bad was foiled by falling in love with it, along with a mountain man named Jack Lumber.
“His name is Lumber comma Jack?” I couldn’t stop my brows from rising. “Who was his dad, Bunyan comma Paul?”
The women broke out in a fit of laughter. “His dad’s name is Bob. They have a farm outside of town. Last year their alpacas stole the show in the parade.”
“How did the alpacas steal the show?” I asked.
Henri laughed. “There was an avalanche the day of the parade and the reindeer couldn’t make it from Windswan. They taped some antlers onto the alpacas and tried to pass them off as reindeer. The town loved it and so did the alpacas. Everyone has been asking if they will be back this year.
“And?” I was intrigued.
When my dad was still in the picture we had lived on a farm.
That’s where my love of horses and riding had started.
We couldn’t keep the farm after he left, and I was jostled between Florida and whatever state my mom had decided to shack up in.
She bopped around from man to man and state to state, never staying in one place long enough for me to put down any roots.
My dad had a new family in Florida and his new wife tolerated me, but that didn’t feel like home either.
Living in Room 222 on Oak Street had been the closest thing to a home I’d experienced in years. I wondered if Henri knew how lucky she was to have a family here. Not only did she have a family, but they lived on a farm.
“My dream.” I hadn’t realized that I’d said it out loud.
“Excuse me?” Henri tilted her head.
“I mean, it’s my dream to have horses. One day…” I sighed.
Charlotte smiled. “There are some really cute properties on the outskirts of town. If you’re not in the market to buy, I could probably hook you up with a rental.”
Charlotte’s ring could probably buy an entire house. I wondered if she knew that she was talking to someone who was barely making ends meet. “Maybe someday. That might be out of the budget at the moment.”
She handed me a business card. “It might not be so far out of your reach. As a matter of fact, I think that the Lumbers might have accommodation for someone in exchange for help with their livestock. And, they have horses that need to be ridden.”
I ran my fingertip across Charlotte’s embossed card. Could this really happen for me? Could I find a place to live my country dream and still help GJ out with the inn? My heart raced as the possibilities swirled in my mind. “Thank you, Charlotte.” I tucked the card into my handbag.
“I’ll talk to my in-laws.” Henri leaned against me. I’m sure Jack would be happy to get some of that work off his plate.