23. Boone
BOONE
The door was heavier than I expected.
I stood outside the bar for ten minutes before I pulled the handle.
My truck was parked at the curb with the engine off and the keys still in my pocket.
The street was empty except for a guy walking his dog two blocks down.
The bar's neon sign hung crooked above the door, dark in the afternoon light.
I didn't know if Carly would ever come back here while I was around.
I knew she probably wouldn't want to see me.
I pulled the door open anyway.
Dee was behind the bar when I walked in. She was wiping down glasses with a rag, her movements deliberate and slow. She didn't smile. She didn't frown. She just watched me cross the floor like she was deciding something.
"We're not open yet," she said.
I stopped a few feet from the bar. My throat was dry, my hands were sweating, and I felt like an idiot standing there with nothing to say. "I'm looking for Carly."
Dee set the glass down. She folded the rag once, then twice, and laid it flat on the bar. She took her time. Her expression didn't change. "No."
"I need to see her."
"No." The word came out flat a second time, no room for argument. "You don't need anything from her."
My chest tightened, frustration crawling up my spine. I wanted to tell her she was wrong, that I did need to see Carly, that I'd been outside this bar three times already and hadn't gone in because I was a coward. But Dee's stare was sharp, and I kept my mouth shut.
"I just want to talk to her," I said.
Dee crossed her arms. She leaned back against the counter behind her, one hip cocked, and studied me like I was something that had crawled in off the street. "You want a lot of things, Boone Hargrove. Doesn't mean you get them."
God, I hated this. I hated standing here asking for permission like I was some kid trying to get into a show. I hated that she was right. I hated that Carly had every reason to tell me to go to hell and that Dee knew it.
"What do I have to do?" I asked.
Dee's eyebrows went up. She didn't answer right away, just kept looking at me like she was testing whether I'd crack. Finally, she nodded toward the far corner of the room. "You see that?"
I followed her gaze. The corner was a wreck. The baseboard had pulled away from the wall, the floorboards were warped where water had gotten under them, and the drywall above it was stained yellow and sagging. It looked like the kind of job that needed a contractor, not a favor.
"Yeah," I said. "I see it."
"Fix it."
I turned back to her. "What?"
"Fix it." Dee gestured at the corner again, her voice even. "With your own hands. No crew. No money. You do the work."
I blinked. "You want me to fix your bar?"
"I want you to prove you're not just here to make yourself feel better." She straightened up, her arms still crossed. "You come back when she's away, you do the work, and you don't ask me when you'll see her. She doesn't know you're here, and she's not going to."
My stomach dropped. "She doesn't know?"
"No."
"When do I get to see her?"
"Maybe never," Dee said. She picked up another glass and started wiping it down, her tone casual like she was talking about the weather. "Maybe you do the work and I still tell you no. Maybe you quit after one day and prove me right about you."
I stared at her. My pulse was hammering in my throat, my jaw was tight, and every instinct I had told me to walk out.
This wasn't a negotiation. It was a test I might not pass.
But this bar was where Carly had sung, where she'd been safe before I ruined everything, and if doing the work was what it took to prove something to Dee or to myself, I wasn't leaving.
"When do I start?" I asked.
Dee looked at me over the rim of the glass. She didn't smile, but something in her expression shifted. "Now."
I followed her to the back room. It smelled like mildew and old wood, the kind of smell that got into your clothes and didn't come out.
She handed me a crowbar, a hammer, and a box of nails that looked like they'd been sitting in the corner since the eighties.
No power tools. No instructions. Just the tools and a look that said she didn't think I'd last an hour.
"Pull up the bad boards first," she said. "Then you can figure out the rest."
I took the crowbar. It was cold and heavier than I expected, the handle worn smooth from use. Dee walked back to the bar without another word, leaving me standing there in the corner with a job I didn't know how to do.
I knelt down and wedged the crowbar under the first board.
It didn't budge.
I tried again, putting my weight into it this time, and the board cracked in half instead of coming up clean. Splinters dug into my palm where I'd been gripping the wood, and I swore under my breath. This was going to take forever.
I kept going.
By the time I got the first board up, my hands were shaking and my back was starting to ache.
The second board came up easier, but the nails were rusted and bent, and I had to pry each one out separately.
The third board split down the middle just like the first. I stacked the pieces against the wall and started on the fourth.
Dee didn't come back to check on me.
The bar stayed quiet except for the sound of the crowbar scraping against the floor and the occasional crack of wood breaking where it shouldn't. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know if I was making it better or worse. I just kept pulling up boards because it was the only thing I could do.
An hour in, I stopped to wipe the sweat off my face. My hands were blistered, my shoulders were burning, and the pile of broken boards next to me looked like something a hurricane had spit out. The corner didn't look any better than it had when I started. If anything, it looked worse.
I thought about Carly.
I thought about the way she'd looked at me the last time I saw her, like she didn't recognize me anymore.
I thought about the notebook I'd finally opened, the one I should have opened years ago, and all the songs she'd written that I'd never asked about.
I thought about her walking out of the house and the divorce papers I wasn't fighting because fighting felt like one more way to make it about me.
I picked up the crowbar and kept working.
By the time Dee came back, I'd cleared most of the damaged boards. My hands were a mess, my shirt was soaked through, and I was pretty sure I'd made the subfloor worse by cracking two of the joists. Dee stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, looking at the pile of broken wood and then at me.
"You're terrible at this," she said.
"Yeah."
"You coming back tomorrow?"
I looked at her. My throat was tight, my chest hurt, and I didn't know if she'd ever let me see Carly or if I was just going to spend however long it took tearing apart her bar for nothing. But I nodded.
"Yeah," I said.
Dee stared at me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she turned and walked back to the front of the bar without another word.
I stayed in the corner and kept working.
The sun was starting to go down by the time I left.
My truck was still at the curb where I'd parked it, and my hands were so torn up I could barely grip the steering wheel.
I didn't know if Carly had come back while I was inside.
I didn't know if Dee would tell her I'd been there.
I didn't know anything except that I'd be back tomorrow.
I drove home with the windows down and my hands aching.
The next morning, I was back.
Dee unlocked the door when I knocked, her face as blank as it had been the day before.
She didn't say anything, just stepped aside and let me in.
The bar smelled like coffee and old wood, and the corner where I'd been working looked even worse in the daylight.
I could see every mistake I'd made, every cracked board and bent nail.
Dee handed me a tape measure and a pencil. "Measure twice," she said. "Cut once. Or don't cut at all, since you'll probably do it wrong."
I took the tape measure.
She walked away, and I got back to work.
The new boards didn't fit right. I cut the first one too short, the second one too long, and the third one splintered when I tried to nail it down.
I pulled them all back up and started over.
My hands were bleeding again, the blisters from yesterday open and raw, but I didn't stop.
I didn't complain. I just kept measuring and cutting and nailing until the boards were close enough to flat that I could move on to the baseboard.
Dee brought me a glass of water around noon. She set it on the floor next to me and walked away without a word.
I drank it and kept working.
By mid-afternoon, I'd gotten three boards down and the baseboard halfway back up.
It still looked like hell. The seams didn't line up, the nails were crooked, and there was a gap between the baseboard and the wall that I didn't know how to fix.
But it was something. It was more than I'd had yesterday.
A woman came in through the front door, her keys jingling as she walked to the bar. I froze, my heart jumping into my throat, but it wasn't Carly. Just someone I didn't recognize, someone Dee greeted with a nod and a smile.
I went back to work.
The bar filled up slowly as the afternoon turned into evening.
I could hear voices from the front room, laughter and the clink of glasses, but I stayed in the corner with my head down and my hands moving.
Nobody came back to check on me. Nobody asked what I was doing.
I was just there, fixing the thing I'd been told to fix, and that was all.
Dee appeared in the doorway around six. She looked at the corner, then at me, and shook her head.
"That's enough for today," she said.
I stood up, my knees stiff and my back screaming. "Is she here?"
"No."
"Is she coming?"
Dee's expression didn't change. "Go home, Boone."
I wanted to argue. I wanted to ask her how long this was going to take, when I'd get to see Carly, if I was wasting my time. But I didn't. I just nodded, picked up my jacket, and walked out the back door.
The next day, I was back again.
Dee let me in without a word. I went straight to the corner and got to work, my hands already aching before I even picked up the hammer. The baseboard still didn't fit right, the floorboards were uneven, and I was pretty sure I'd cracked another joist trying to level them out. But I kept going.
I didn't see Carly. I didn't hear her voice. I didn't know if she knew I was here or if Dee was keeping it from her like she'd said she would. All I knew was that I was here, doing the work, and I wasn't leaving.
I measured the next board, marked it with the pencil, and cut it with the saw Dee had left for me. It was crooked, but I nailed it down anyway.