Janet and Connie had chosen another booth, but the bar was a long one and the mirror behind it, too, so I had no problem setting up reflective watch. I nursed a beer, and did my best not to go over to the jukebox and shoot it-surely there was a limit to how much Toby Keith a reasonable person can endure.
Again Janet wore a silk blouse, a cream-color one, with a strand of June Cleaver pearls. Her buddy Connie was fetchingly slutty (or did I already have my “beer goggles” on?) in a black-leather motorcycle jacket, red rhinestone-studded Marilyn t-shirt, jeans she wouldn’t have to remove when she next went to the gynecologist, and colorful cowboy boots.
Janet seemed embarrassed as Connie leaned forward, eyes and teeth gleaming, saying, “Spill! What happened to Rick?”
“I told you last night I didn’t want to talk about it…” Now Janet sat forward. “Why, what have you heard?”
Connie’s grin was unkind. “He’s telling his friends he fell down the stairs.”
“So, he, uh, didn’t…go to the police or anything?”
Connie’s eyebrows hiked. “Oh, now you have to tell me!”
Janet shook her head, then froze in mid-shake, and said, “Excuse me, Con…”
“Why? What…?”
And something unnerving happened.
Janet’s eyes caught mine in the mirror.
Quickly I looked away, and said something inane to the brunette bartender, who complied by saying something equally inane.
I heard Connie yelling, good-naturedly, “You are definitely not excused! Janet-you come back here and dish, or else! ”
I felt the finger tap my shoulder.
I winced, then swung easily around on the bar stool and glanced at her as casually as I could.
“Oh hi,” I said.
“Oh hi?” Her smile went up a little more on one side than the other, creating a nice dimpled effect. “I guess I owe you a drink.”
“You don’t. Really.”
“I do. Really.”
The stool next to me was vacant; it would be. She took it. We looked at each other in the mirror again, this time on purpose.
She said, “Why do I think you’re checking up on me?”
“Why do you?”
For several long seconds she studied me in the mirror, then she said to my reflection, “Well…I imagined I saw you in a booth at Denny’s this morning.”
“Some imagination you have.”
Her eyes were smiling, too. “ Wasn’t it you?”
“That was me. But I wasn’t looking for you.”
She raised one eyebrow. “You were just there for that delicious Grand Slam breakfast, right?…And now you’re here, Guardian Angel, seeing if Rick’s had the good sense to…”
“Take a hint?”
Her smile went up on both sides, this time, and ushered in some laughter. Shaking her head, she said, “I really do owe you one…Have a drink with us.”
I didn’t want to join her and Connie, and give the other librarian a closer look at me. But I was cornered. Turning Janet down would have been suspicious. Or so I told myself.
Whatever the case, I was soon sitting on Janet’s side of the booth as she and bubbly Connie chitchatted, both of them nicely at ease around me, Janet revealing a new self-confidence.
Connie licked some beer foam from her upper lip and, just the tiniest bit drunk, said, “That little prick Rick? He’s been a bully since grade school. But he always gets away with it, ’cause his family has money.”
“Fuck him,” I said. “His family hasn’t given me any money.”
They both laughed at my naughty talk.
Making reluctant eye contact with Connie, I joined in on the chitchat. “You’re from here?”
“Born and raised, and too dumb and untalented to get out.” She smirked at Janet, good-naturedly. “What’s your excuse?”
Janet shrugged and said, “Destiny. Which is to say, answering an ad.”
Connie, suddenly quite serious, locked eyes with me. “This little girl’s gonna be head librarian one of these days. Just you wait and see.”
“Really,” I said, and narrowed my eyes and nodded.
Amused, Janet said, “Don’t pretend to be impressed-doesn’t suit you…And, so, Jack-what is it you do?”
“I’m in sales and service,” I said.
Janet, apparently the designated driver, was drinking a Diet Coke. “What kind of sales and service?”
“Veterinary medicine.”
“That sounds…interesting.”
I smiled a little. “No it doesn’t.”
Connie, frowning, asked, “Do you sell vets that stuff they use to put animals to sleep?”
“Afraid so,” I said.
Connie made a face. “Dirty job but…”
“I’m sure,” Janet says, “he sells plenty of things that make the animals feel better.”
“I try,” I said.
Janet and Connie exchanged looks. Connie’s smile at her friend told me I’d passed the test-for at least one night. Saturday at Sneaky Pete’s, the options were limited.
Janet gave Connie a glance that I didn’t at first understand, until Connie straightened herself, her breasts distorting Marilyn Monroe’s image but not in a bad way, and said, “You know…I see a guy over there who’s just cute enough to interest me, and drunk enough to think likewise…”
She got up and out of the booth less graceful than a ballet dancer, but more fun to watch.
Janet gave me a sideways look. “Now you’ll think that’s how I spend my weekends.”
“What is?”
“You know. Picking guys up.”
I offered half a smile. “Have I been?”
Her hands were draped around the Coke glass like it was the Silver Chalice. “It’s just…I never had anybody do anything so… sweet for me, before.”
“Sweet like pound the piss out of your boyfriend?”
I expected a laugh, but what I got was: “Exactly…I’m not really the type to, I don’t know…hit the bars on a Saturday night.”
“I know.”
Her eyebrows tensed with curiosity. “You do?”
“Today was your day off, right?”
Mildly surprised, Janet said, “Right.”
I shrugged. “You cleaned all morning, did laundry all afternoon, and then you listened to music or maybe read, a while. You fell asleep and were almost late to go out with your girlfriend.”
Astonished, she said, “My God-are you psychic?”
“No.” I toasted her with my beer glass. “I’m shadowing you.”
That got a smile and a laugh out of her. The truth will do that.
She was shaking her head. “I’m just not good at this. The game. The ritual. The small talk’s all so…”
“Small,” I said.
“I guess…I’ve always been kind of shy, frankly. A loner.”
“Me, I’m a people person.”
Another smile. “Oh, yeah, I can see that,” she said.
“You often…gravitate toward people like Rick?”
