Chapter 5
After Wyatt leaves - he came by to drop off a spare key and check that I had everything I needed - I spend the afternoon settling in.
I unpack my small amount of belongings, hanging my clothes in a closet that is still full of Mavis’s things.
It feels kind of strange. Her wardrobe is as eclectic as her decor.
She has vintage Western shirts, flowing bohemian dresses, and a surprising number of sequin items that I can only assume were for theme nights at the bar.
I push them to the side, making room for my pencil skirts and silk blouses, and try not to feel imposter syndrome.
I make a quick grocery list based on what is in the pantry and then realize I have no idea where the grocery store is, so I add ‘find grocery store’ to the list.
By late afternoon, I am restless and frustrated and desperately in need of something productive to do. And that is when I remember the bar’s financial records.
Harlan mentioned that the bar was profitable, and Wyatt confirmed it had been running smoothly, but I am a businesswoman, or I was before my business failed, so I need to see the numbers for myself.
I find the office downstairs, a small room behind the bar, crammed with filing cabinets and a desk that has seen better days. The computer is ancient, running some version of Windows I didn’t know still existed, but it turns on, and that’s what matters.
The financial records are, in a word, a mess.
Not in a bad way, exactly. More in a ‘this system was designed by someone who valued intuition over organization’ way.
There are spreadsheets, but they are labeled things like ‘Money Stuff 2023’ and ‘That Thing Harlan Needed’. There are folders full of receipts, some organized by date, some by vendor, and some apparently just by vibe.
But as I dig deeper, a picture starts to emerge.
The Rusty Spur is definitely profitable. Not wildly so. I mean, it is not a gold mine, but it is solidly and consistently profitable. Revenue has grown steadily, but slowly, over the past decade. Expenses seem reasonable, and the staff is paid fairly.
There is even a small emergency fund that Mavis called the ‘Oh Crap Account’.
More interesting than the numbers, though, are the notes.
Mavis kept notes on everything. She scribbled in margins, stuck Post-its everywhere, and typed in random documents scattered across the desktop.
Notes about customers, such as ‘Earl’s wife is sick, comp his drinks this month’.
There were notes about staff, like, ‘Presley’s birthday is March 15, and she likes carrot cake’.
There were, of course, notes about business, like, ‘Theme night idea: Redneck wedding reception - tacky decorations, bouquet toss, and fake ceremonies’.
I find a document titled, ‘IF I DIE’, and my heart clinches before I even open it.
It’s a letter to me.
Eleanor,
If you are reading this, I am dead, and you are probably confused as heck. I am sorry about that. I was never very good at explaining myself.
I know you do not know me. Your mama and your grandmama made sure of that. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but since I am one now, I feel like that rule no longer applies.
I don’t blame either one of them. We were all such different people who wanted different things, and they thought they were protecting you. Maybe they were.
Here is the thing. I have watched you from a distance your whole life, and I have seen something your mama could not see. You are not happy. You might be successful at times. You are polished, for sure. You are everything she wanted you to be, but you are not happy.
I know because I was you once, trying to be what everybody expected, following rules I did not make, suffocating in a life that looked perfect from the outside.
Then I came here, and I found something different.
I found a place where I could be myself, that messy, loud, and perfect real person.
I found people who love me not because I was proper or refined, but because I showed up and cared.
I’m leaving you the bar because I think you need what I found. And if I don’t leave it to you, well, you just might never find it yourself. It is a chance to figure out who you are when you are not performing for anyone. A place to be graceless and still be loved.
Just give it those six months, honey. That is all I ask. Six months to try something different.
Of course, if you hate it, if you are miserable, you can sell it and go back to your life. But give yourself the chance to find out.
And Eleanor, please be kind to Wyatt. He has been through more than you know, and he is going to be prickly about you at first, I think. But he is the best man I have ever known. And if you let him, he will show you what this place is really about.
I love you, even though we have never met. And I hope you find what you’re looking for.
Your Aunt Mavis
P.S. The secret to my barbecue sauce is a splash of bourbon and a tablespoon of instant coffee. Do not tell anyone. I will haunt you.
I read the letter three times, and then I close it and sit in the cramped office surrounded by her chaotic filing system and let the tears fall for a woman I never met.
* * *
I am still in the office when Wyatt finds me.
It is after ten p.m., and the bar closed for the night because apparently Saturdays are slower than Fridays during festival weekend, when everyone is at the outdoor concerts.
I have been going through files for hours, trying to understand the business, trying to understand Mavis, trying to understand why a woman I never knew believed in me more than I do.
“You’re still here.”
Wyatt leans against the doorframe, his arms crossed. He has changed out of his work clothes into jeans and a soft flannel shirt, and he looks tired in a way that goes deeper than physical exhaustion.
“I found her letter.” I gesture at the computer. “The one she left for me.”
“Oh.” He moves into the room and sits in a worn armchair in the corner. “Yeah. She worked on that for a few weeks. Kept rewriting it, trying to get it right.”
“You knew about it?”
“She read me some parts of it. Wanted to make sure she didn’t sound crazy.” He smiles, just a little. “I told her it sounded exactly like her, which is to say completely crazy, but also completely right.”
I swivel in the desk chair and face him.
“She wrote about you and said you’d be prickly.”
“Oh, did she now?”
“She also said you’re the best man she ever knew.”
“Mavis had low standards.”
“I don’t think she did.” I study him in the dim light of the office. “I think she saw people very clearly. That’s what everybody keeps telling me, anyway.”
He is quiet for a long moment.
“What else did she write?”
“That she thought I wasn’t happy. That she wanted to give me a chance to figure out who I am.” I pause. “Was she right? I mean, could she really tell that from a distance?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.” His eyes meet mine, and there is no judgment in them. “Are you happy? I mean, were you before all this?”
The question catches me off guard. I open my mouth to say yes, of course, I had a successful business and a nice apartment and a perfectly adequate life, but the words will not come out.
“I don’t know,” I admit finally. “I thought I was. Or I thought I was supposed to be, which felt like the same thing.”
“It’s not.”
“No. I’m starting to realize that now.”
He leans forward, his elbows on his knees.
“When I came back from overseas, I thought I knew what my life was supposed to look like. Get a job, settle down, be normal, you know? I couldn’t do it.
Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t focus, couldn’t stop waiting for something bad to happen.
PTSD, among other things.” He shrugs like it is no big deal.
“Mavis found me one night, sitting in my truck outside the bar, having a panic attack. She didn’t ask any questions.
Didn’t try to fix me. Just sat with me until it passed and then offered me a job. ”
“And that helped you?”
“Well, it gave me something to do. Something to focus on besides my own head. The bar needed me. The staff needed me. The customers needed me. It’s real hard to spiral when people are depending on you.”
I think about my empty studio and my dwindling client list, and the growing sense that I was becoming irrelevant.
“I understand that more than you might think.”
“Yeah. I figured you might.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a moment. Outside, I can hear the creek burbling in the distance and the faint sound of music from the festival.
“Tell me about her,” I say suddenly. “About Mavis. I mean, not the legend. Not the saint everyone keeps describing. The real person.”
Wyatt considers the question for a moment.
“Well, she cheated at poker. Badly. Everybody knew it. No one ever called her out because watching her try to be subtle was just way too entertaining.”
I laugh. “Really?”
“She also couldn’t cook to save her life, despite what she told everybody. And that barbecue sauce recipe she’s so proud of? Dolly’s grandmother’s. Mavis just added the bourbon.”
“The letter mentioned the bourbon and the coffee.”
“Oh, the coffee was also her contribution. That was the only good idea she ever had in the kitchen.”
He is almost smiling now, lost in the memory.
“She sang off-key. She argued with the TV during football games. And once she got into a fist fight with a woman who insulted Dolly’s hair.”
“A fist fight?”
“Well, more of a slap fight. Neither of them could throw a punch worth a dang. But it’s the thought that counts.”
I am fully laughing now, and it feels strange and wonderful, like stretching a muscle I forgot I had.
“She sounds like a handful.”
“Oh, she was.” His voice softens. “She was also the kindest, most generous, but stubbornly loving person I’ve ever known. She took in strays. People who didn’t fit in anywhere else, who needed a place to belong. She gave us all a home.”
“And now she’s given it to me.”
“Yep.” He meets my eyes. “Question is, what are you going to do with it?”
I don’t have an answer. Not yet. But sitting here in her cluttered office, surrounded by evidence of a life well lived, I feel something I have not felt in a long time.
I feel curious about what comes next.
Later, after Wyatt has gone home and I have climbed the stairs to my new apartment, I stand in front of the photo wall again. I find the picture of me as a child, gap-toothed and beaming, and trace its edges with my finger.
“I’m here,” I whisper to the empty room. “I don’t know if I’m what you hoped for, but I’m here. I’m gonna try.”
Of course, the apartment doesn’t answer, but I swear I feel something. A presence. A warmth. A sense of being.
I pull Mavis’s letter from my pocket. I printed it out because I cannot leave it trapped in her ancient computer, and read the last line again.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“Me too,” I say to no one.
Then I change into the most casual pajamas I own, which are silk because I am still me after all, and climb into Mavis’s bed with its handmade quilt and fall asleep surrounded by the memories of a woman who loved me before we ever met.
* * *
I have made a decision.
After days of observing, exploring, and reading through Mavis’s chaotic filing system, I have decided that the best way to understand the business is to just participate in it.
Not watch from the sidelines with my mason jar of boxed wine, but actually help.
Roll up my sleeves, as it were, and contribute.
This is, I will later realize, the worst decision I have made since agreeing to let Archie’s mother plan our engagement party. Who has one-hundred doves at an engagement party?
On this particular evening, I walk down the stairs of the apartment in what I thought was appropriate attire. Dark slacks, a tasteful blouse, and sensible flats. And I am filled with optimism.
I have skills. I have experience managing a business. I have years of training in proper social interaction.
How hard can running a bar actually be?
“Absolutely not,” Wyatt says when I announce my intentions.
He is behind the bar, setting up for the evening rush, and he does not even look up from the glasses he is washing.
His dismissal is so casual that it takes me a moment to process it.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
Now he looks up, blue eyes assessing me with something between concern and amusement.
“Tonight is our second busiest night of the week. It’s not the time for training anyone, especially you.”
“Well, I’m not asking to be trained. I’m offering to help.” I straighten my spine, trying to channel my mother’s most authoritative tone. “Besides, I own this place. And I should understand how it operates.”
“You can understand how it operates by watching. Exactly what you’ve been doing. And that’s fine.”
“Well, watching isn’t the same as doing.”
Wyatt sets down the glass he’s holding and braces his hands on the bar.
“Ms. Whitfield. Eleanor.” He says my name like it costs him something. “Have you ever worked in a bar before?”
“Well, no…”
“Have you ever worked in any service industry at all?”
“I run an etiquette school. That’s a service.”
He rolls his eyes.
“Teaching rich kids which fork to use isn’t the same thing as serving drinks to a packed house while live music plays and people are line dancing and someone’s inevitably going to spill beer on someone else’s girlfriend.”
“Well, I understand that, but I am a quick learner and I—”
“You’ll get in the way,” he interrupts. His voice is not unkind. It’s just firm.“You’ll slow us down, confuse the customers, and probably end up getting hurt. No offense.”
“None taken,” I say, even though I take plenty. “But I’m not asking for your permission. I’m informing you of my decision.”
We stare at each other across the bar. It is a battle of wills, and I refuse to be the one who blinks first.
He finally sighs.
“Fine. But you’re shadowing Dolly, and you do exactly what she says. If she says stop, you stop. If she says leave, you leave. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”