“Are you ready?” Justin inquired after a cursory rap on the bedroom door, dark hair glistening from his shower.
“As I’ll ever be.” Clay stuffed his wallet into his back pocket.
They headed toward a bar in nearby Charleston that Justin swore had the best happy hour in town. Pinks and vivid oranges had just begun to paint the sky with the colors of the approaching sunset, and as they fought their way through the tourist-laden streets, he cranked down his window to allow the heavy smell of history to permeate his senses. It was tough to remain melancholy about his own trials when surrounded by the indisputable evidence that no matter what he had or hadn’t accomplished, time continued to march on.
Murphy’s Irish Pub was nestled between an old-fashioned pharmacy and a private historic home cum bed and breakfast establishment, and Justin explained the arrangement was strategic: the folks at the bed and breakfast recommended Murphy’s for dinner and liquid refreshments; the staff at Murphy’s recommended the pharmacy for analgesics to ward off the next morning’s hangover, and the pharmacist recommended that inebriated patrons book a night at the bed and breakfast to sleep it off.
The atmosphere inside the pub was festive, an interesting mix of traditional Irish camaraderie and southern hospitality. High tables clustered thick as barnacles along the scarred and stained wooden floor, which bore the marks of almost two hundred years of patrons. An angular staircase led to the dining room which occupied the historic building’s second floor.
In one corner, a live band kept the crowd entertained with some rather bawdy Celtic music, and everyone of legal age had a pint or bottle tucked into their suntanned hands. The bar itself was shiny as a new penny from frequent passes of the polishing cloth, and behind it stood three strapping men doing their level best to keep up with the demands of the thirsty crowd.
Justin signaled to the oldest of the trio – Mr. Murphy himself – indicating that he and Clay were going to be taking over one of the tables toward the front of the bar. The man acknowledged him with a lifted chin, and turned to speak with one of the waitresses as he finished pulling a fresh pint. Within minutes a peppy brunette in a green Murphy’s T- shirt and short black skirt appeared to take their order.
“I think it’s been almost as long since I’ve been inside a bar as it has since I’ve been inside a woman,” Justin remarked wryly, after she’d left.
Clay chuckled and slapped the other man on the shoulder. “The night’s young, my friend, and ripe with opportunity.” He cast his gaze around and noted the comfortingly high female to male ratio. For the most part, the women were young, tan, and unencumbered by masculine companions, their body language suggesting that they were here to have a good time.
“If we can’t drum up some female companionship in this crowd, we might as well hang it up.”
Justin cocked an inquiring brow toward Clay. “Speaking of female companionship, you never did tell me what happened with the yellow bikini. I gather you struck out.”
A glib retort trembled on the tip of his tongue, but the truth tasted bitter, so he spit it out instead. “It turned out she has a kid.”
“So she was married?”
“I don’t think so. She wasn’t wearing a ring, and she didn’t give off any matrimonial vibes.”
Their drinks arrived, and after they’d thanked the waitress, Justin lifted his glass. “Okay, I’m sure you get sick of people asking how it is that you do what you do, but I have to know. What in the hell is a matrimonial vibe?”
Clay grinned, taking a pull on his beer. “Behavior is unspoken language,” he explained. “You determine a person’s baseline – or normal – behavior in a given situation. How they deviate from that baseline shows their instinctive reaction to the situation’s stimuli. If she had been married, she most likely would have reacted in one of two ways when I approached her. She would have been dismissive – either politely or aggressively, depending on her personality and the kind of relationship she might have with her husband – or she would have been receptive in a… guiltily excited way. Kind of like a kid offered a second cookie that she knows she’s not supposed to have.” He shrugged. “She was cautious but not strongly dismissive, and she showed no signs of guilt when I finally managed to pique her interest. She acted very much like a single woman who was weighing her options about an unknown man. Eventually, she turned me down on the basis of her obligations to her son, but even if she hadn’t, I probably would have begged off after I’d seen him. It sounds shallow, but I didn’t come here to be around little boys.”
“That’s understandable. But I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about that tonight. Not a kid in sight.”
Clay smiled, looked over the crowd, and homed in on a point of interest. “Now speaking of behavioral language, that pretty little blonde over there is practically oozing nonverbal leakage. She keeps trying to make eye contact with you, and she’s playing with her hair, which is a definite sign of interest.”
Justin looked at the woman, who almost immediately looked away. “You’re full of shit, man.”
“No, no.” Clay took another swig of beer. “Trust me on this, Justin. It’s what I do for a living. You see how she’s laughing a little louder than the other women at the table?”
Justin rolled his eyes before cutting them toward the blonde. “Yeah. So what? Maybe she’s just obnoxious.”
“No. She’s only become louder in the past few minutes. Ever since she looked over here and saw you. She’s trying to draw your attention away from the others by making herself stand out. Sort of like a male peacock lifts his feathers to make
