“What can I get you?” the bartender asked as he slapped the paper cocktail napkin in front of Isabel.
“A greyhound, please,” she answered while rifling through her purse for her cigarettes. “Actually, could you make that a double?”
“No problem,” the bartender said. But he looked as if it were.
“Where’s Stu, anyway? Tuesday’s not his night off.”
“Yeah, well, it is tonight.” The bartender talked as he surveyed his cage of bottles. He tentatively picked one out, looked at the label and slid it back into its dusty cell. “He’s sick.”
“Is it too late to change my mind and order a gin and tonic?” She knew it wasn’t, as the bartender was looking up “greyhound” in his bartender’s guide.
“Nope,” he said, looking relieved. “That I can do.”
Isabel took a long drag of her cigarette. “What’s your name?”
“Alex.”
“I’m Isabel.”
“This is on the house,” he said as he delivered the drink. “For going easy on me with the order.”
“Not necessary but thank you.” Because she had an audience she decided to sip not gulp her drink. “Slow night, huh.”
“Kind of. I’m not complaining, though. I’m not used to bartending, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Isabel smiled. “I knew it.”
“How’d you crack the code?” he asked.
“Well—” she fiddled with the swizzle stick poking out of her drink “—first of all you aren’t studying a quartered-up section of the want ads. You must not have heard it’s required reading for all barkeeps.”
Alex laughed.
“Whoa! You’ve got Kennedy teeth,” she said.
“Kennedy teeth?”
“It’s like you have more in there than the rest of us. It’s really quite amazing. Open up, let me see them again.”
Alex clamped his mouth shut.
“Come on,” Isabel mock begged. “One quick peek.”
Careful to cover his teeth with his lips, Alex shook his head and said, “Good Kennedy or bad Kennedy?”
Isabel laughed. “What’s good Kennedy and what’s bad Kennedy?”
“You know: JFK Jr. or Chappaquiddick?”
“Uh-uh. I’m not falling into that trap….” Isabel took another sip of her drink.
“What trap?”
“If I say JFK Jr., you’d get a big head and then I’d have to spend the rest of the night breaking your spirit…”
“Yeah, ‘cause my spirit is flying so high here behind the bar…”
“…and if I said Chappaquiddick I’d have to spend the rest of the night hearing a laundry list of things that make you a swell guy…”
“It’d be a short list since my only competition would be an adulterer who let his date drown…”
“…so I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”
“And to think this all started because my dad’s a dentist….”
“Aha! So you do have an unfair advantage over the rest of us, dentally speaking, I mean.”
“You saw right through me.”
There was a brief pause in the banter.
“What do you do normally? I mean,” she laughed and corrected herself, “what do you normally do?”
Isabel knew she was flirting, but she was sinking into her comfortable buzz and didn’t care.
“I wait tables. How come I’ve never seen you here before? You I would have noticed.”
“I don’t eat here. I just come for liquid nourishment.”
“Always this late?”
“I just got off work. So, yeah. Always this late.”
“We’re both night owls, then.”
“Guess so.”
“Excuse me.” Alex left to serve a couple who should not have been served. Isabel watched him put napkins in front of them.
The drink was settling her stomach, filling it with warmth.
“Sorry about that,” he said as he leaned back against the space of mahogany in front of Isabel. “Duty calls.”
“Let me ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“Seriously.”
Alex forced his smile into a frown. “Go ahead.”
“How do you like your job?”
“You mean tonight? Bartending? Or serving?”
“Serving.”
“It’s fine, I suppose,” he answered, and gave the question more thought. “I like the fact that I have complete control over my life. I don’t have to answer to anyone, really. I can make my own hours, more or less. Like I have the days to myself, I can do what I want, and then I can come in, serve and make a killing with tips. I think it helps that I’m not always going to be doing this.”
“Why? What are you going to be doing? Could I get a refill while you answer?”
“Sure.” He cleared away her empty glass. “Another double?”
She paused as she decided whether the look he gave her was judgmental or just inquisitive. She decided it was inquisitive and she nodded.
“I’m going to open my own place.”
“Wow. That’s cool.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“I’m not thinking anything.”
“Yes, you are. You’re thinking ‘Just what San Francisco needs, another restaurant.’ Don’t worry—I’m used to it. And I agree with you.”
“I wasn’t thinking that.”
“Yes, you were. But that’s okay. Because my place is going to be different.”
“Seriously, I wasn’t even thinking that.”
He leaned into her as he replaced her drink. “So…what were you thinking, then? That you wanted to go out to dinner with me? Saturday night?”
Isabel smiled as she gulped.
“That’s what you were thinking, wasn’t it?”
Isabel felt emboldened by the booze. “You hit the nail on the head.”
“Meet here? Eight?”
“Right again.”
Alex smiled as he went to check on the couple a few seats away from Isabel.
“Case, he’s so amazing,” Isabel said as she spread out the blanket for their picnic.
“There’s a rock in the middle, pull the blanket your way,” Casey said. “Good. Okay. Back to Mr. Amazing. What’s so amazing about him?”
“He’s so there. You know? He’s a little intense, but after my last two fiascos I think I can handle intense. He’s a great listener. He’s a hold-doors-open, walk-me-to-the-front-door, call-the-next-day kinda guy.”
“Wow. I’m impressed. Michael hasn’t held a door open for me since…come to think of it I don’t think he’s ever held the door open for me. Wait! That’s not true. I carried lumber in from Home Depot. He held the door for me then. And they say chivalry’s dead.” Casey lifted the foil on one of the sandwiches and handed it to Isabel. “That’s yours. Pass me mine.”
“I think he might be the one, Casey.” Isabel held her friend’s sandwich hostage so she could command her full attention.
“Right now I’m the one…who’s about to have a hypoglycemic attack if I don’t get some food in my stomach.” She grabbed her sandwich, peeled the foil back and took a huge bite.
“How on earth did you ever get Michael to marry you with eating habits like yours? Look at you. I didn’t think your mouth could hold that much food. Then again you do have quite a big mouth, missy.”
“My big mouth is exactly what Michael likes the best about me, if you know what I mean,” Casey chortled in between bites.
“Speaking of which,” she continued, “how’s the sex with the one?”
Isabel took a dainty bite of her sandwich and looked away.
“Oh, no.” Casey was watching her. “That bad, huh?”
“I think…it’s just…well, I think we’re both so nervous,” Isabel said. “It’s kind of like when you get a haircut and you don’t like the way they’ve blown it dry at the salon? You know the cut’s good, it’ll look fine, you just need to work on the styling at home.”
“Cut the bullshit. It’s either good or bad. And I’m guessing from this salon simile that it’s bad.”
“The jury’s out. And for the record, I disagree. It’s not just black or white, good or bad. There’s plenty of gray-area sex out there. You just don’t realize it because you and Mr. Macho have such raging hormones.”
“Don’t underestimate raging hormones. Raging hormones are what keep me from becoming a single mother. If I leave you with nothing else, know this—if the sex ain’t good, he ain’t the one. Trust me. The sex’s gotta be good if he’s going to go the distance. By the way, does The One have a name or should I just hold up my index finger every time I refer to him?”
“Alex. His name’s Alex.”