And as she watched she thought... I should go, what could it hurt?... and then... I shouldn’t go, Sam’d just think I want to get started up again.
The phone rang... and she admitted that she was excited.
Maybe it was Sam, getting a last pitch in about tonight.
See you there in about an hour? he’d say.
And she’d say what she really felt... all right, Sam. I’ll be there. And maybe I’ll even say let’s try it again. But this time you’d better realize how much my brother means to me. No more treating him like some kind of criminal. He’s had his problems... but he isn’t hard-core. He’s basically a nice guy. And I know he can stop his drinking. I know it.
“Hello,” she said, trying to keep any hint of excitement from her voice.
“It’s me,” Sally Frazier said.
“I thought you had a date.”
“I do. The eunuch’s in the men’s room right now. Probably trying to find his pee-pee.”
Amy laughed. “God, you’re terrible.”
“I know I am. But I’ve got the night planned out pretty well and maybe the eunuch will come around.”
“Oh?” Amy said, knowing she was about to be set up for a joke.
“Yes. I brought an anatomy chart along. I’m going to give the eunuch a little chalk talk.”
“I’m sure he’ll enjoy it.”
“What I’m really calling about, kiddo, is you.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“I really think you should come tonight and see Sam. One of us has to have a decent relationship. And at least Sam knows how to unzip his pants by himself.”
“I’m going to surprise you.”
“You are? And say yes?”
“I’ll be there a little later.” That’s the way she’d been leaning, so she might as well commit to it.
“That’s fantastic, Amy. You’re doing the right thing. You really are.”
I hope so, Amy thought. I sure hope so.
2
Three miles west of Amy’s house, in a small bar located on the highway leading to Dubuque, Richie McGuire ordered his third scotch in less than an hour.
“Gonna ride the tiger tonight, eh, my friend?” the bartender said.
Richie grinned. “Yeah, and he better not buck me off, either.”
The bartender fixed him a new drink and set it down in front of him. The place was busy with a Friday night crowd. It was the considered opinion of the bartender that Friday nights were different from any other night in the bar business. There was a certain desperation, even violence, to Friday night crowds. They were frantically trying to put the workweek behind them, grimly trying to forget that they were spending their lives in jobs that meant nothing to them, working for bosses they despised. So drinking became not so much a pleasure as a purgative. Now, just before seven o’clock, you could feel it already. Mousy little men fancied themselves bar studs, and swaggered around appropriately; spouses, wives and husbands alike, phoned home with lies for their mates (“Be home by eight, I promise”); and the brawlers were getting that first glint of rage in their eyes. Oh, yeah, Friday night was a very special night, especially if you were a bartender and had to oversee the playground full of drunken kiddies.
“How you think the Hawks’re gonna do this year?” the bartender asked Richie with genuine interest.
Richie was the only thing resembling a celebrity in the entire town of Crystal Falls. He’d Been There. Maybe not for long, maybe not at the very top, but nonetheless he’d Been There, and his opinion was valued greatly.
“Their line’s gonna give them some problems.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. They’ve never really replaced Becker and Anderson.”
“They were good.”
“They,” Richie said, with no fear of contradiction, “were great.”
Somebody down the bar called for another round. The second bartender was already busy.
“Guess I better get that,” the bartender said, and then took a swipe at the bar top with his beer rag. “The line, huh? I’ll have to remember that.” He’d be quoting it for a long time to customers inclined to talk about football. That’s what Richie McGuire told me, he’d say. Right, Richie McGuire. Straight from the horse’s mouth. The bartender would even overlook the fact that Richie still had a tab in the bottom of the cash register drawer for $203.43, past due going on a year now.
Richie knew he had to be careful. Was knocking them back way too soon.
He was thinking about Darcy and how much he needed the country club job. It wasn’t anywhere near the best-paying gig he’d ever had, but the idea of moving among the town’s elite made him feel good about himself. He had the fantasy that someday one of the really rich country club members was going to pluck him up and make him a star again. Not in sports, obviously, but in business. Hire him for some really important job. Then Richie’d be up there again. Nice clothes, nice car, the respect of everybody in town. It’d be like hearing Saturday afternoon football cheers again.
He should never have started playing around with Darcy. Must’ve been out of his mind.
Who was going to hire him if they found out he was screwing around with the fifteen-year-old daughter of an important club member? He’d be DOA, that story ever got around.
She was reckless as hell, Darcy was. It almost seemed as if she wanted to get in as much trouble as possible, and pull somebody else in with her.
He had to smile. She didn’t even have a real license to drive her sweet little sports car around. Hell, she was too young to have a driver’s license. Had a learner’s permit was all. But she didn’t care. If she got caught, so what? Yeah, he had to smile. He’d been a lot like that when he was her age.
He hadn’t actually been to bed with her. That was the only thing in his favor.
He’d played around, necked some, a few harmless little feels, but no actual going to bed.
And there wasn’t going to be any, either. Next time she contacted him, he was going to end it.
Next time she—
A curious quiet came over the bar then. At first, lost in his own thoughts, Richie wasn’t aware of it. He was thinking about how good he looked in his tennis whites. That was a funny thing for a guy to think about himself, but it was true. When he was in his tennis whites, he felt special. No mistaking him for a workingman or a low-level businessman or anything like that. The whites marked him as special, apart from the crowd.
Then he became aware of the silence, and he looked up and saw the bartender’s odd expression and heard the bartender say, “You better not be in here, miss. Legal age is twenty-one.”
And he knew instantly whom the bartender was talking to.
The little bitch had come in here looking for him.
He spun around on his barstool and looked at her.
Another micromini, this one buff blue, and a sheer blue blouse. And no bra. She had her hair fixed in an elegant tangle on top of her head. She looked both young and fresh, and old and cunning.
The guys were all smiling a lot. The gals were all frowning. Here they’d been the center of attention — bar like this, the guys inevitably outnumbered the gals — and now she’d taken all the spotlight for herself.
“Wondered if you wanted to go for a ride, Richie.”
The guys, excited, thinking about how much they’d like to go for a ride with her, started poking each other and grinning even wider.
All Richie could think about, now that he was forlornly drunk, was how she was going to screw up his country club gig. He must’ve been out of his mind to ever get involved with her.
Without even thinking about it, he crossed the room to her.