Chapter 3 #2
“Yeah. Can I have another one of those beers, please?”
“Coming right up.”
I leaned my elbows on the bar top and waited, but then—
Someone put a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, startled, to find the blond woman standing much too close.
“Yeah, hi there,” she said breezily, as if we were continuing a previous conversation. “Do you mind if I ask your name?”
She was maybe in her early thirties, dressed in a black blazer and skinny jeans, her blue eyes sharp and discerning as they bored into mine. She crossed her arms and stared me down with unmistakable teacher energy, as if she could sniff out teenage mischief like a bloodhound.
She’s onto me. My heart beat even faster and my palms started to sweat. I tried to appear pleasantly confused as I met her piercing stare. “Excuse me?”
She smiled like she could see right through my performance. “I asked your name.”
I cleared my throat and squared my shoulders, trying to match her steely resolve with a smile of my own. “Are you hitting on me?”
The question seemed to bounce right off her.
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” she said, still smiling like I was completely transparent.
“I’m asking your name because I’m pretty certain I already know who you are, and if I’m right, that makes you underage.
” She grimaced in a performative way. “So I’m gonna need to see your ID. ”
My pulse skyrocketed. I know who you are. Underage. I had never seen this woman in my life, so how could she possibly know me?
“I—I already showed my ID. And besides, I’m twenty-one. Promise.”
“Great comeback,” she said dryly. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I’m not trying to embarrass you, Louisa.” My neck prickled at the sound of my name. “But we both know you shouldn’t be in this bar. ID, please.”
Wordlessly, I dug into my back pocket and pulled out the fake. My face burned as I handed it to her.
She looked it over with a frown. “Louisa River,” she read under her breath. She snorted. “Clever.”
I closed my hanging jaw and considered my next move. The woman didn’t seem too angry, but she certainly wasn’t pleased. Was she going to throw me out? Maybe even call the police?
She pocketed my ID and turned back to me. “I’m gonna give you a piece of advice, Louisa. Next time you get a fake, choose a state that sounds reasonable. No one lives in South Dakota.”
I stared at her, bracing for my fate.
“Follow me,” she said, nodding toward the back of the room.
She didn’t even wait to see if I listened, just wove her way toward the back hallway.
I watched her catch the eye of the woman she had been talking to earlier and nod again.
Then she led me into a small office and gestured for me to sit down.
“Explain,” she ordered, leaning against the wall.
Before I could even open my mouth, there was a quick knock at the door and the other woman slipped inside. She was strikingly pretty, with olive skin, dark brown hair, and kind eyes. She glanced at me, then looked at her friend. They seemed to be having a wordless conversation.
“I’ll get some water,” the second woman said, backing out and shutting the door behind her.
The first woman, the blonde, turned to me and sighed. “So.”
“How’d you know who I was?” I asked.
For the first time, the trace of a smile appeared on her face. She pointed at something behind me, and I turned around to find my own senior portrait pinned to a bulletin board. The shock of it left me speechless.
“George talked about you all the time,” the woman said. Her arms were still crossed, but her voice had softened.
The door opened and the second woman reentered. She smiled warmly at me, handed over a glass of water, and settled into an upholstered chair like a therapist preparing for a session with a particularly tender client.
“Well, Louisa?” the blonde prompted from her spot against the wall.
“Are you okay?” the brunette asked.
I looked from one woman to the other. “Am I getting arrested? Is this, like, good-cop-bad-cop or something?”
The blond woman snorted. She gave the brunette a knowing look. “Why does everyone assume I’m the bad one?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you,” the brunette teased.
“No, Louisa, you’re not in trouble, but you do need to explain yourself. What are you doing here?”
I breathed, trying to decide if I believed them.
“You’re safe,” the brunette reassured me. “We’re just concerned. Underage kids don’t often show up to gay bars alone, and if they do, there’s usually a reason.”
I looked between them again, trying to see myself the way they saw me. Did they think I was a runaway? A lost soul? That I had been kicked out of the house?
“It’s nothing like that,” I said. “I just … wanted to see this place.”
There was silence as they appraised me again.
“Drink your water, Louisa,” the blonde said finally.
“Can you stop saying my name? I don’t even know yours.” I paused, and a flare of the anger I’d felt earlier returned. “Should I embarrass you with a big show of asking for your ID?”
The blonde didn’t flinch. She seemed completely unfazed, almost bored by my insolence. But the brunette was suddenly biting down a smile, as if she was distinctly amused by the whole exchange.
The blonde huffed and dragged her hands down her face.
“Okay, this wasn’t supposed to be all weird and dramatic.
Can we try again? Louisa, hi. I’m Hannah, and this is Baker.
We knew your uncle very well, and we don’t want you drinking underage in his bar, especially on an emotional day like today.
” She paused and gave me a softer look. “Baker was right to ask the important question: Are you okay?”
Are you okay. It was such a simple question, but this was the first time anyone—particularly an adult—had taken the time to ask me since I had set foot on Alabama soil. And they weren’t asking for the sake of it. I could tell by their expressions that they wanted to know the real answer.
“Why are you being nice to me?” I asked, trying to steady my voice.
Baker frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t even know me.”
“Do we have to know you to be nice to you?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “You could have just thrown me out of the bar.”
“I still might,” Hannah said, but she was smirking, and I could tell she was trying to put me at ease.
“Listen, forgive me if I’m being presumptuous, but I know you came out recently.
George showed me your Instagram post. Then he up and died, and now you’re in his bar with that starving look in your eyes that every queer person has when they find a queer space for the first time.
So we’re putting two and two together and checking to make sure you’re all right. ”
I met her earnest expression, but all I could say was, “Uncle George had Instagram?”
“God no. He was terrible with his phone. He showed me a really bad screenshot someone else had taken of your post.”
Dad.
“He showed me a few of your pictures over the years,” Hannah went on. “I recognized you at the funeral, too.” She twisted her mouth like she was tasting something sour. “If we can call that spectacle a funeral.”
Outside of my dad, this was the first time I’d heard someone express disdain about Uncle George’s funeral. “You were there?”
Hannah gestured beyond the wall, indicating the bar at large. “We all were.” She and Baker shared a meaningful look, and her tone became sharper. “In the back, of course. But still.”
I read between the lines of what she was saying. For the first time, it occurred to me how many people in the bar had been dressed in black. Had all of them gone to the funeral? Had all of them known Uncle George?
“Can I ask you something?” I asked with my heart pounding.
“Of course,” Baker said softly.
“Was my uncle … was he, like…” I gestured between us the same way I had done with the swoopy-haired bartender.
“Go ahead,” Hannah encouraged. Her expression was both kind and defiant, like she was telling me I could do this.
I took a deep breath. “Was Uncle George gay?”
Hannah and Baker shared a loaded look, one that I couldn’t parse apart. “What makes you ask?”
More frustration came over me. It was predictable that my family had been cagey about this, but now I was here at this gay bar, searching for an answer that seemed obvious, and both the bartender and these women were still dancing around the truth?
“Why won’t anyone give me a straight answer?” I asked, trying to control my shaking voice.
“Straight isn’t exactly our thing,” Hannah said with a wry smile.
She was clearly trying to loosen me up, but I didn’t have the energy to fake a laugh.
She must have seen my frustration spilling over, because she sighed and came over to sit on the desk, a mere foot from me.
“I’m not trying to be evasive. I’m just wondering how much your family has told you. ”
“Nothing,” I said immediately. “My family is obsessed with Uncle George’s football career and nothing else. I just found out the Frisky Cricket exists, like, an hour ago. None of them ever mentioned it.”
“And they never talked to you about George’s personal life?” She paused and asked the next question like she hoped she was mistaken. “George himself never told you?”
I shook my head.
“Jesus,” Hannah said, pinching the bridge of her nose, as Baker clucked her tongue with sympathy. “Louisa, I’m so sorry. That’s inexcusable.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, waiting. I felt small and foolish and embarrassed, the same way I had felt when I first moved to Connecticut and every seventh-grade girl except me was invited to Bree Shatter’s thirteenth birthday party. It was excruciating to be the only person left out.
Hannah looked directly into my eyes. “Yes, George was gay.”
George was gay
George was gay
George was gay