Chapter 2 #4
There was another ringing silence. Then:
“The university?!” Aunt Shannon shrieked, leaning across the table. There was a gleam of greed in her eyes; she clearly considered the university to be a completely different ball game than some poor sap.
“How much are they offering?” Grandpa asked with eyes as sharp as a hunter’s.
“Is it more than Quinn and Charlie are getting?” Uncle Keith added.
“Otis, you must fix the paperwork!” Grandma said shrilly.
“Will everyone please calm down—” Dad interjected.
I barely heard any of them. My brain was stuck on Otis Penny’s words:
George hoped Louisa would follow through …
George hoped …
Uncle George had thought about me. Uncle George had hoped for me. Had he loved me more than I realized? A lump settled in my throat as I pictured him in his final days, taking pains to think of me, to leave me a piece of his life …
But why had he left it to me? If he wanted me to have the money, couldn’t he have just designated a fund like he had for my cousins?
“Excuse me,” I interrupted, and for the first time, everyone stopped and acknowledged me. “Mr. Penny, could you please explain a little more? What is this bar? Where is it?”
Mr. Penny gave me a small smile, almost like he’d been waiting for me to ask.
“Miss Wade, you have inherited George’s full ownership stake in a bar called the Frisky Cricket, down on the south side of Rustin, off Route 29.
Been in business about twenty years now, mortgage paid off, no debts to speak of.
Couple of years in the red, but decent sales over the last few.
It’s under the radar, but George seemed to prefer it that way.
” He paused as if a thought had just occurred to him.
“Damn good Moscow Mules, if you ask me.”
“We’re not asking you, Otis,” Grandpa snapped.
“Okay,” I said, taking this in. I knew Uncle George had owned a lot of real estate, but I’d never heard him or anyone else in the family mention a bar. “So is this like a sports bar, or a nightclub, or…?”
There was a sudden shift around the table.
A moment ago, everyone had been pouncing for information; now they went suspiciously quiet.
Aunt Shannon glanced at the ceiling, Grandma rubbed her fingers against her throat, and Grandpa’s neck turned a mottled shade of purple.
Dad touched my leg as if to steady me for something, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
Mr. Penny scanned the table. He seemed to be waiting for something, but the silence hung so heavy that I could hear Uncle Keith’s knuckles crack. When no one bothered to answer me, Mr. Penny let out a long, weary sigh.
“Miss Wade.” He leaned forward and looked straight into my eyes. “I have to assume these fine folks”—he gestured airily at my family members in a way that meant he did not consider them fine at all—“have had their hearing compromised, so I’ll be the one to tell you.”
I waited. Something deep in my bones started to rattle.
“The Frisky Cricket is a gay bar,” Mr. Penny said matter-of-factly.
I stared into his yellowing eyes and had the strange sensation that I was falling through space with nothing to keep me tethered.
a gay bar
a gay bar
a gay bar
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t process. Uncle George had left me a gay bar? A gay bar he had owned for twenty years? Why the hell had he owned a gay bar? Unless—
A rush of heat swept through my entire body. No way, I thought. I would have known. Someone would have told me.
“It’s a bar that happens to serve some gays,” Grandpa said forcefully, “and George only bought that land to diversify his portfolio. He was a visionary that way, always knew you had to be strategic about buying up low-value properties on the Monopoly board—”
“Dad,” I said quietly, turning to him. “Did Uncle George—was he—?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Grandpa shouted, rising from his seat. “You will not be inheriting this bar! I’ll be damned if you even set foot in it!”
White-hot fire raged against my sternum.
I forgot about my tuition money, my desire to rescue Dad, my plan to hold quietly to my true self until I left town tomorrow.
My emotions were boiling over and I was so, so tired of this fucking family.
“Why not?” I challenged, my heart pounding in my ears.
“Because it serves some gays? Is that what you’re having a conniption about? ”
“DO NOT SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT, YOUNG LADY—”
“I’m gay!” I yelled, smacking my hands on the table.
“I am a proud, terrified, raging homosexual, and I have spent the last twenty-four hours waiting for you to acknowledge that, and now I’m finding out that Uncle George was the only person to honor this part of me by designating this specific gift, and you’re all sitting here throwing a fit because you don’t want me to have it?
Is that because you’re greedy, or because you’re a bunch of ignorant homophobes, or both? ”
“Enough!”
It was my grandmother who shouted this time. She had gotten to her feet, her skinny, arthritic fingers twitching against her pantsuit. Her fierce green eyes—my eyes—glinted across the table.
“You will not speak to us like that, Louisa Jean,” she said, quivering with fury.
The sharp silence pressed everywhere. Grandma and Grandpa and I stood on opposite sides of the table. Everyone else sat frozen. My heart was still hammering and my skin felt hot to the touch.
“Tell me,” I demanded, my own voice surprising me.
Grandma blinked rapidly. “Tell you what?”
“Was Uncle George gay?”
Grandma set her jaw, those glinting eyes fixed on me. Next to her, Grandpa’s chest heaved with rage.
“Louisa,” Dad said under his breath.
“No, Dad, someone needs to answer me.” I looked between my grandparents, then across the table at Aunt Shannon, who flushed and looked away. When a full thirty seconds had passed and nothing had been said, I backed my chair away from the table and squeezed my fists at my sides.
“Louisa,” Dad whispered again.
“I’m out of here,” I said, trying in vain to control my trembling hands. “I’m done.” I turned to Mr. Penny. “Thank you for being the only person decent enough to tell me the truth.”
Mr. Penny inclined his head. He seemed entirely disgusted by the situation. “I’ll be on my way, then,” he said to the table at large. “Thank you for this … meeting of the minds. It went as well as I expected.”
He rose to his feet, sorted his papers into his old-fashioned leather briefcase, and left the room without further ado. I sent one final glare to my grandparents, then to my dad, before I followed him.
“Mr. Penny! Wait!” I yelled, chasing him down the driveway. He turned around with an expression of mild surprise as I drew to a stop in front of him. “The Frisky Cricket—you’ve been there, right? Moscow Mules? Can you take me?”
Otis Penny blinked. Then he laughed a quiet chuckle that startled me in its resonance.
“Sweetheart, no. I’m sorry about your family, but my work here is done.
I’m not about to drive a teenage client to a bar.
That’s a case study in liability.” He laughed at his own joke, then looked around like there might be other lawyers present to appreciate it.
“Mr. Penny, please. I have to see this bar.”
“Have you heard of Google Maps?” Chuckling again, he spun on his heel and stepped out to the street.
I deliberated for a moment, gripping my hair as I stood sweating in the evening heat.
There was no way I was going back into that house, even if I had been given strict orders to stick around and clean up.
No, I had to go to the Frisky Cricket. Uncle George had left it to me for a reason, and I felt a visceral, primal pull to find out what that reason was.
Emma and Candor, said a voice in my head. Shit. I was supposed to go to the field party with them tonight. Could I convince them to crash the Frisky Cricket instead?
No, my inner voice said, you want—need—to do this by yourself. And besides, they’re with their new best friend right now.
I pulled out my phone. I felt guilty blowing them off, but in my defense, I hadn’t known all this was going to happen when I had agreed to the field party.
Maybe I could take them to breakfast tomorrow and tell them about it.
That way I could still see them before I left, and maybe twelve hours would be enough to turn everything I learned tonight into a funny story.
Me: So sorry y’all, something came up and I can’t make it. Brunch tomorrow to fill you in? My treat?
I darted into the foyer and stole Dad’s keys off the credenza.
Uncle George’s emerald urn was back on the top shelf of the display cabinet, but this time, I wasn’t repulsed by the sight; if anything, it felt like the spirit of Uncle George was urging me on.
I turned off my phone location settings, backed the truck out of the driveway, and sped off into the night without a second thought.
Uncle George had left me a gift. I had no choice but to open it.