“chet’s a candidate for one of the apostles, all right,” I say sarcastically.
“Give Sarah some time,” Rainey advises me, ignoring my last remark.
“She’ll come home. I’ll try to find out tomorrow where she is and make sure she’s okay.”
Her voice is a little too soothing. I think Rainey already knows, but Sarah has sworn her to secrecy. Yet I don’t have the slightest proof. Like Dan, I see conspiracies everywhere.
“I’d appreciate that,” I say dryly.
“What about starting tonight?”
“If I can,” Rainey says after a pause.
“I’ve got a meeting up there in a few minutes, so I’ll ask around a little.”
For a moment I want to tell her not to bother. I am embarrassed. I have never had a moment’s trouble from Sarah. She is my greatest success. I feel I have failed Rosa. If she were alive, Sarah would be home now.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Rainey promises, “unless I run across some information. It’s possible she may call me.”
I hang up, feeling more depressed than I have since my wife died. I take out a beer and walk out in the backyard to let Woogie do his business. I should take him for a walk, but I don’t feel like it. When I come back in, I put away the groceries but realize I don’t feel like eating and decide to go out. The house is driving me crazy. I’d like areal drink. I put food in Woogie’s bowl and check his water. He gives me a sad look as if to say. Is this all the attention I get? I reach down and pet him, but I can’t stay here a moment longer.
I decide on Kings amp; Queens, a club on the south side that, despite its name, is definitely not a hangout for homosexuals Like a dog returning to his old haunts, I set the Blazer on a familiar course down College Avenue while I brood on my daughter’s actions. I shouldn’t have slapped her, but she shouldn’t have run off. Have I kept too tight a rein on her? I don’t think so. She dates whomever she wants, has a 1 a.m. curfew on weekends, spends her money from her part-time job on the week end at a video store however she pleases. Spoiled like most kids (we pretend to divide the chores but neither of us really cleans the house), she nevertheless makes do without a car and doesn’t demand money for clothes.
The fact is, I don’t have a thing to complain about. She knows that we’re at the lower end of middle class and I am still paying loans off from my belated law school debt. She wants to go out-of-state to college, but it will depend on scholarship money. Why am I worried about college? At the rate she’s going, she will end up as a janitor at Christian Life. Surely Rainey is exaggerating.
The antithesis of everything good! Since when does trying to find out the truth make a person corrupt? Give me a break, Sarah. Yet is that what I am really doing?
Or is it the way she says am I just trying to win?
What Sarah won’t realize is that our system of justice is set up that way. It’s supposed to be adversarial. From the battle in court with all its lawyers and procedural rules the truth is supposed to emerge. Do I want the truth or do I merely want Shane Norman to lose his luster in my daughter’s eyes? The truth is, it wouldn’t break my heart at all to find out Norman killed his sonin-law. I feel a hardness somewhere inside me from all of this I can’t seem to break down.
Kings amp; Queens does not cater to your yuppie lawyer and “bond daddies,” but over the years has attracted a loyal, albeit eclectic, clientele because of its total commitment to a delicate mix of crossover country music and golden oldies that range from Willie Nelson to Vicki Can. Throw in the cheapest hard-liquor prices in the county, a modest cover to discourage a crowd that is too young and rowdy, and you have a nice environment in which to pick up a woman something I have done on occasion in the not-too-distant past. Granted, it has been a couple of years, but Kings amp; Queens is like the drinking water: unless something busts loose, you can count on it.
Inside, I am not disappointed. Some things never change. The smoke and noise level I would recognize anywhere. The crowd looks a little younger, probably because I am a couple of years older. Over the din of conversation I can make out an old Dave and Sugar hit.
I make my way to the bar, which is dotted with a few empty spots, and grab a stool next to a couple of women who look like schoolteachers who have vowed never to teach junior high kids again. The decor of Kings amp; Queens, unchanged since I started coming here after Rosa died, won’t win awards for originality, but still commands my attention. Royalty and their families are everywhere. What we don’t have, we love. Unhappy or not, they (Diana, Charles, Fergie, Andrew, Elizabeth, and Philip) stare down from every wall at their Arkansas admirers in what I decide is perpetual amazement that their most un royal deeds attract such ardent attention from the most republican of their former subjects.
I order a bourbon and Coke, not caring it will be the house brand. For some reason, cheaper bourbon mixes the best or maybe just seems the sweetest, which apparently is all I require in the way of taste.
“Why get fancy?” the older of the two presumptive teachers asks when she hears my order. She gives me a smile that says she isn’t saving the seat for anybody.
Why indeed, I think, giving her the once-over. No ring (this could be girls’ night out), frosted short hair;
she is wearing a long-sleeved green turtleneck and dress jeans. Either she went home to change or is the play ground supervisor. Yet maybe teachers dress more casually these days.
“No sense trying to fool anybody, is there?” I respond, pleased I don’t have to think of something clever to break the ice. Her younger partner is prettier, but given her lock jawed expression, she won’t be running for president of my fan club any time soon.
For the next thirty minutes I compete head to head with Lockjaw for her friend’s attention (Jennifer spelled with a “J,” she says with a practiced smirk, no doubt having used that line more than once but still getting a grin out of me she has no idea how easy-to-please I am tonight). Finally Lockjaw gives up and calls it a night, pissed, but obviously not for the first time. Men spoil everything, her parting glance says. If I had known, I would have brought a friend. Preferably some body with rabies.
Jennifer, who turns out to be an accountant for a wholesale food club, and I seat ourselves at a table and share some nachos and cheese dip while we trade selected poignant vignettes from our pasts. She donated one of her kidneys to a twin sister who died from cancer anyway; I tell her about Rosa. Realizing she has topped me (I would have been glad to donate a breast), she lets me talk, which is progressively easier to do as the bourbon slides down. I tell her about a former divorce client who served her husband rat muffins for breakfast; on the dance floor I regale her with the continuing saga of Jason and his spiritual development classes. Steadily drinking dos Equis (our table is beginning to resemble a missile silo with multiple warheads), she laughs appreciatively.
In my arms, slow-dancing to “Bridge over Troubled Water,” Jennifer feels nice, her body warm and as user friendly as buttered toast. I used to be pretty good at this once. I am almost six feet tall, with only a slight paunch, and most days I can look myself in the mirror without wincing until I put in my contacts. Then I can see the warts. True, the bald spot on the back of my head looks, according to Dan, like spreading tree blight (what are friends for?), but Jennifer, with her slightly pug nose and weak chin, doesn’t appear on the verge of launching a campaign for mrs. America. Actually, compared to what else is out on the dance floor we stack up fairly well. The hard-body competition is agreeably thin, if you throw out a couple of women who could be hookers judging by their makeup and out-of-season sundresses that reveal more than repair work. Jennifer’s body, pressed against mine, is, if not overly firm, not of the Jell-0 variety either. Up close and personal, she looks around my age. Staying away, for once, from the subject of Sarah (usually, by this time I have whipped out my wallet and showed off her senior class picture), I work into the conversation that I have never been through a divorce, a fact that surely must be alluring to a single female patron of Kings amp; Queens.