Sawyer
EIGHTEEN HOURS BEFORE…
Slouched over a book in the dim light of Saratoga Springs’ swankiest hotel bar, I try not to listen to the couples quarrel behind me.
The woman’s hushed pleas reek of shame as she grovels to the bearded shark across the would-be cozy two-top. His voice? Raised. Angry. No care for privacy or for humiliating his wife of three years (I can’t help but notice details).
I’ve never seen this couple before tonight, but I feel as though I know them intimately. The woman carries on with her pleas, begging for forgiveness after stealing a kiss with her boss at last year’s holiday party—the victim of a bad sitcom.
You can tell by the husband’s muted anger that this isn’t their first time discussing the issue.
Which means this quarrel, this degradation happening within earshot of curious strangers, is for nothing.
A painful drag of the inevitable versus one final blow.
It’s only a matter of time before he decides that once a cheater always a cheater. As if people are incapable of change.
A subtle whiff of perfume announces the bartender before she speaks. Clean musk with a fading floral edge.
“Whatcha readin’, honey?” she asks, voice almost smooth. Almost confident. Pretty.
My eyes raise to a woman who fits the part.
Non-prescription glasses hang low on the bridge of my nose, the plastic piece a little too wide to keep them steady—though I’ve learned that’s part of the charm. Pushing the glasses up, I lift the book to show the cover of The Talented Mr. Ripley.
A chair scrapes at the desolate little two-top as the husband finally gets the nerve to storm from the bar. When the wife follows, I half turn with the impulse to stop her. Nearly beg her to let it go.
He’s the type of man to interpret the book I’m holding as a cautionary tale about a man with an identity crisis. Forging new personalities, the core of who he is tangled in lies until truth fractures.
An English professor might agree, but no one stops to ask themselves if Mr. Ripley got it right. If perhaps, the monotony of life could be cured by a little fucking flexibility.
Embrace the chaos. Forgive; forget; have a beer.
“Mmm and here I was pegging you as a Dickens man.”
I tilt my head. “Are you kidding? Nicholas Nickleby rules my life.”
“Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature.” She gives me a flirtatious wink that has me smiling.
She’s beautiful, in an unassuming way. Four-inch hair the color of apple cider lays flat on her head. Her lips stretch in a toothless grin that wants so badly to be youthful but is too sad, too tainted with a hundred tinder dates gone wrong.
Pity. I bet she’s kind, obviously smart.
If she’s a mother, she’s a good one, albeit lonely.
Piles of gifts on Christmas morning with endearing pet names written on every package: lovebug, babybear, treasure.
A hundred mouth-blown balloons on birthdays that she carefully tapes to the ceiling by strings knowing lovebug/babybear will pull them down with the irresistible urge to slap the inflatable piece of rubber.
Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature.
As with all important things in life, this takes time.
I glance down at the gin and tonic I shouldn’t have ordered. My time has yet to come.
We flirt for another minute before my phone buzzes on the counter, interrupting her mid-sentence. I wait for her to finish before holding up a finger and reading the text that comes across the screen.
Twenty minutes. Hurry.
Someone snaps loudly at the end of the bar, sinking the lips of my new friend, Sherry. She pats the counter. “Let me know if you need anything.”
I pick up my drink, rattle the ice, and take what I’m going to call a small sip. Then listen to the drunk slurring an order at Sherry.
She returns to her station for the drink and gives me a can you believe this guy look that has me subtly shaking my head—men.
When she walks him his order, I let my eyes follow, sipping more gin than tonic, the crisp liquid heaven warming the back of my throat. I should’ve ordered water.
I drain the glass before clanking it on the counter. I tell myself I’m only drinking because I’m nervous about the meeting. But that isn’t a problem for now. That’s a problem for… I click the side button on my phone… eighteen minutes.
Time to get to work.
I lean over The Talented Mr. Ripley—hand to my forehead, elbow on the counter—and tilt just enough to get a good look at the guy. He’s young. All smooth skin and a blemish-free face. His brown comb-over shows no hint of gray.
The charcoal Zegna suit jacket thrown on the stool next to him tells me he likes quality but isn’t flashy. For a kid under thirty, that means old money. My favorite kind.
I pull out my wallet and slip two hundred dollar bills in the cover of The Talented Mr. Ripley, then abandon my glass to venture down the bar, book tucked beneath my arm. I sit two stools away from the kid and search his wrist.
“You got the time?”
Bloodshot eyes find me and blink, the kid’s head turning slowly, his brain running on a delay.
He raises his right wrist to his face and reveals a Patek watch.
Luxury but minimalist. Definitely old-money taste.
It’s useless to know that he’s left-handed, but I catalogue that too out of habit. “7:44.”
Sixteen minutes left.
Not two minutes pass before his glass is empty, and he’s snapping his fingers once again. Though it isn’t quite as loud, his rhythm sloppy.
A progressively irritated Sherry comes over with her arms stiff at her sides. “Another?”
“Macallan 25, splash of water on the side,” he mutters with his gaze on a bowl of piss nuts.
She takes his glass and goes to walk off but pauses as I stretch my hand across the bartop. “Could I get the same, sweetheart?”
The thin layer of blush on each of Sherry’s cheeks grows, presumably at the petname, but it’s her lips I watch closely. Both corners twitch, not quite a smile but not a sneer. She doesn’t mind.
I like that.
“You got it,” she says to me before walking away.
The kid takes a handful of nuts and smashes his palm to his mouth. He munches on his urine-covered dinner.
Even I don’t eat that shit.
My fingers play a slow tune on the bartop while my mind wanders, the pieces of his life fitting together.
My best guess: twenty-six, fresh out of grad school, back home working for Daddy. And he hates it. So much so that every day at exactly 6:30 PM, he leaves the office, finds a bar—always different, to avoid being a regular—and drinks his way back to his undergrad years.
He has a business degree from an Ivy League, the closest one being … Dartmouth?
“Thanks, Sherry,” I say when she comes back with my drink.
As I take a sip, my eyes close at the velvety richness. The kid has stellar taste.
“You trying to get laid or something?”
His words are so slurred, I almost feel bad for him. Almost get him a glass of water, order an Uber, give him permission to be a scuba instructor (or whatever dream Daddy won’t let him pursue).
But if it weren’t for sad, clueless rich boys, I’d be hiding out in some shady motel selling blow to put dollar tacos in my belly.
You could say we need each other.
“Excuse me?” I raise a brow.
Liquor dribbles down his chin as he slams his glass, ice rattling.
He wipes it away with the back of his hand while something inside me dies.
Drops of gold, discarded as pennies. “You come to a bar with glasses and a book like a fuckin’ nerd, and you’re on a first name basis with the bartender?
You’re too obvious. Have some self respect. ”
His voice carries across the room like his ear drums have numbed. Drunk, stupid, easy. Every shark has noticed him by this point.
An escort slips from a booth and heads this way, smelling blood in the water. When our eyes meet, I give her the slightest shake of my head and watch the disappointment register in the fall of her cheeks. A worthy opponent.
She walks past, no doubt prepared to swoop in the second I’m gone.
I turn my attention back to the kid as he’s pouring the rest of the liquor down his throat. The move reveals cufflinks with a Cornell emblem on them.
Cornell. Not Dartmouth.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” I chuckle weakly and push the book away. “I just got divorced. It’s been a while since I’ve been single.”
“Just get Tinder.” He tries to snap at Sherry, the slip of his thumb too sloppy for sound. “Lose the glasses, and you could do a hell of a lot better than a bartender.”
He whistles as well as he can while I finger the plastic frames of my glasses. When Sherry begrudgingly drops off my new bud’s drink, I raise my glass to toast him. “Any person, any study.”
His nose wrinkles as he stares at me. I wonder if my image is blurry to him. He lightly clinks my glass with his.
“You went to Cornell?”
I knock back the scotch, savoring the oak flavor I wish I had the time to appreciate.
I wipe my lips and squint at him like I didn’t just recite his alma mater’s motto as a toast. “You too?”
“Just graduated with my MBA.” His face brightens with interest that turns the oak on my tongue bitter.
I’ve never understood the camaraderie that comes so easily to these Ivy League kids.
I was a nerdy asshole a moment ago, but because we went to the same school a decade apart, we’re gonna be friends.
I went to Cambridge, but if I saw Oliver Cromwell, I wouldn’t assume we were blood brothers.
“Ah, MBA. Fancy.”
He shrugs modestly. Like I pried that information out of him.
“I’ve got a step brother who finished undergrad a couple years ago. I’ll have to ask if he knows you. What’s your name?”
“Duncan Thomas,” he says, so cocky he doesn’t even question why I didn’t just give him my brother’s name. Because he’s the Duncan Thomas. Son of Mr. Thomas, God of X,Y, or Z.