The Last Thing He Told Me

“Yeah, my grandfather was the original proprietor,” he says. “He wanted a place to play cards with his buddies.”

He motions to the one velvet booth in the corner, a RESERVED sign on it. There are several black-and-white photographs above it—including a great one of a group of guys, sitting in that booth.

“He spent fifty years behind the bar before I took it over from him.”

“Wow,” I say. “That’s incredible. What about your father?”

“What about him?” he says.

And I clock it—how uncomfortable he looks at the mention of his father.

“I was just wondering why you guys ski

pped a generation…” I say. “He wasn’t interested?”

His face relaxes, my question apparently innocuous enough for him.

“No, not really his thing. This place was my mother’s father’s, and she was definitely not interested…” He shrugs. “And I wanted the gig. My wife, or ex-wife now, had just found out she was pregnant with our twins, so my days as a student needed to be over.”

I force a laugh, trying not to react to the fact that he has kids. Plural. I try to figure out how to press on that, to wrap this conversation around to his wife, to the wedding. To where I need it to go. To Kate.

“Maybe that’s why you look familiar,” I say. “This is going to sound crazy, but I think we met a long time ago.”

He tilts his head, smiles. “Did we?”

“No, I mean… I think I was here, at the bar, back when I was in college.”

“So… it’s The Never Dry that looks familiar?”

“I guess that’s more accurate, yeah.” I say. “I was in town with a girlfriend for the hot sauce competition. She was photographing it for a local paper…”

I figure as much truth as I can muster is a good thing.

“And I’m pretty sure we came in here that weekend. This place doesn’t look like a lot of other bars around Austin.”

“It’s certainly possible… the festival isn’t held too far from here.” He turns and pulls a bottle of Shonky Sauce Co. Purple Hot Sauce off his shelf. “This was one of 2019’s winners. I use it to make a pretty feisty Bloody Mary…”

“That sounds like a commitment,” I say.

“It’s not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure,” he says.

He laughs and I brace myself for what I’m about to do.

“If I’m remembering this place correctly, the bartender working here that night was a total sweetheart. She gave us all sorts of tips for places to eat. I remember her. Long dark hair. She looked a lot like you, actually.”

“That’s some memory you have,” he says.

“I might be getting a little help.”

I point toward the shelf of silver-framed photographs. I point toward one in which Kate is staring back at me.

“Maybe it was her,” I say.

He follows my eyes toward the photograph of Kate and shakes his head. “No, not possible,” he says.

He starts wiping down the bar, completely tightening up. And this is when I should drop it—this is when I would drop it—if I didn’t need his help to get to it, who Kate Smith is.

“Weird. I could have sworn it was her. Are you guys related?” I say.