JOSIE
The bartender greets the young man in a coat who walks to the opposite side of the bar counter from me. She must know him.
“Hey, Rika. How are you?” he asks.
So, her name is Rika. Is he a boyfriend? A friend? Birds of a feather, for sure.
He takes off his coat, folds it over the back of the bar stool, and takes a seat at the counter. He orders a whiskey on the rocks. I know I’m staring, and he catches me, gives a tiny one-second smile, then drops his eyes to his phone.
With nothing better to do, I pick up my phone too and reread the messages from my friends who have been texting me since I left.
Then I go to my personal social media accounts, though I’m checking them less frequently—I don’t need a reminder that people are still living it up and chasing their dreams while I live with my grandma in my childhood bedroom and work at a diner.
If I were home in Pittsburgh, I could go to a rave or a concert, stop by my friends’ for their rock band practice, drop by Mario’s studio, and chat with his buddies about the new exhibits and jam sessions.
But I’m in Burnville.
I loudly suck on the ice left in my drink when the bartender taps her brightly painted fingernails on the counter in front of me.
“Another one?” She motions to my empty glass.
“Sure,” I blurt out.
It’s the first time in a month that I’ve had two drinks in less than an hour. Here, that is. Back in Pittsburgh, that was what got me in trouble. I should stop, but I suddenly want to be around people.
The third drink in my hand is empty pretty soon, though when I check the time, it’s been two hours since I came here. The bar is clearing out. It’s Monday. There are only a few people left at the bar counter, and the main area lights go dim.
The bartender says something to the handsome man, who cocks his head, studying her, then slides her a fifty and, without waiting for change, gets off his chair and puts on his coat.
Even the way he puts it on—with a Louis Vuitton scarf around his neck, not wrapped, like the modern trend, but overlapped on his chest—screams “style.”
“Thanks, Rika,” he says as he walks to the door.
“See you, Connor,” she replies.
As he passes me on the way out, his eyes lock with mine, and I hold his gaze, wondering what his deal is. He’s definitely not on the market for dating. Not in this town. I should ask the bartender, Rika.
I’m tipsy. Very tipsy. And bored. I should go home, but I really don’t want to. Somehow, being here completely distracts me from what has been happening in the last few days. The hit-and-run seems distant, like it didn’t happen. Even the country music on the jukebox doesn’t bother me much.
Rika wipes her hands on a towel, fixes her hair, and takes a knowing look around.
“Missy, you are cut off,” she says to an older woman with a drug-weathered face and perm-fried hair who is loudly conversing with the man next to her.
“I’m getting another drink,” the woman insists. “You are not closing, sugar, not until midnight.”
“I said you are cut off,” Rika says indifferently and slaps the check on the counter in front of the woman.
Ballsy, for sure. The locals don’t like being bossed around, not in their regular bar, not by a girl decades younger than them.
“Listen here, honey.” The woman leans on the counter, about to argue, when Rika raises her palms in front of her.
“Teddy said if there’s a problem to call him,” Rika says.
“So, you call him!” the woman snaps. “I’ve known Teddy for years. He and I go waaaay back and—”
“Not my problem. I’m not serving you anymore. Take it up with Teddy.”
“I’m gonna get your ass fired in a second!”
“Good luck,” Rika says calmly and steps back.
That woman is a riot. I’ve seen her drive off several times in a state that would be hazardous to walk in. She’s in the wrong, but driving while seeing things triple is something many locals have been doing all their lives.
The woman leaves the money plus change in coins—that means no tips—and stumbles out of the bar, leaving the rest of us in complete silence.
“Okay,” Rika murmurs, “enough with this crap.”
She kills the jukebox and pulls up her phone. In a moment, jazz-like music fills the air, and she cranks it up, her head bobbing a little to the sharp rhythm of a saxophone and tuba.
“Who’s playing?” I ask, trying to coax her to step closer.
She beams at me. “You like it?”
“It’s cool, yes.”
“‘Early To Bed’ by Morphine.”
She sticks her phone into the back pocket of her jeans, walks over, and leans on her elbows on the counter in front of me. “The guys invented a tritar,” she says like it’s a secret.
“What’s that?”
“A guitar with two regular strings and one bass string. Just listen-listen-listen.”
She sticks her forefinger in the air, lowers her head, and closes her eyes, nodding with a smile to the rhythm.
She’s cool. Definitely, positively, refreshingly cool. If I were to make one friend in this town, I’d make friends with her.
“I’m Josie, by the way. From Pittsburgh,” I say.
She keeps nodding to the music, then opens her eyes and smiles at me. “Rika. From Costa Rica.”
“Really?” I thought she said Florida.
She blurts out a laugh. “No. Not really. Though my dad has Costa Rican roots.”
“Huh. Is he from here?”
“No. And he can go fuck himself.”
Oh-kay. I chuckle drunkenly. I’ve never met my father and don’t remember my mother. I wish I did.
“Why Burnville?” I ask.
She shrugs, all serious again, though still swinging her hips to the music. “Why not?”
“But, I mean, you must’ve picked this place for something, right? Not random?”
“An opportunity came up, and voila!”
This sounds like she might have some baggage, though it can’t possibly be as bad as mine. I can call my being in Burnville an “opportunity,” though that would be wrong. It’s an emergency, really. A screwup, sort of. An unlucky chain of events, to sum it up.
My phone lights up with a text message. I want to ignore it.
It’s probably one of my buddies partying it up in the city who decided to touch base, reminding me what I’m missing.
Or it could be Grandma, having another episode, like when she fell two weeks ago and hurt her ankle and texted me because she couldn’t get up. Mind you, she never asks for help.
My head buzzing with tequila, I tap my foot to the music. Rika wipes the bar counter as she ducks her head to the harsh notes of the tuba.
My phone dings again.
Reluctantly, I pick it up, and my buzz goes out the window.
Unknown: Hello again.
Unknown: We still need to talk.