Stepping inside this bar was like stepping into perpetual nighttime. The windows were heavily tinted and on a gray day like this it looked like it was after ten o’clock at night. The maroon colored walls were barely lit with sconces giving off a sultry glow. The carpet was a well-worn red and black pattern and the bar was a dark wooden block with mirrors and a few dozen bottles lined along it.
All I wanted was an ice-cold beer. I was hot from carrying this box and humiliation tended to get a person’s body temperature up. Plus, I was in heels. A cold one sounded perfect.
The place wasn’t crowded at this time of day. There was a couple seated off to my right sitting dangerously close but with sour looks on their faces. My bet was they were living out the words to Third Rate Romance.
There were some men who looked like they had been putting in some time at the nearby construction site. They all wore dirty blue jeans, heavy boots with thick soles and dark tans that in this light made their skin look like the surface of a rawhide bone.
A very handsome drink of water was sitting by himself in the booth directly in front of me. He wore a nice suit and his blond hair was cut military style as if he was on shore leave. He was very good looking but paying absolutely no attention to me.
Besides, romance was the last thing on my mind. What kind of dude would want anything to do with an out of work secretary? Still, Mr. Business was easy on the eyes.
I walked up to the bar, set down my box of tricks on one seat and hopped up onto the one next to it. The bartender came down from the end of the bar where he was doing a crossword puzzle.
“What can I get you?” he asked. His voice was very low yet his features were cute and boyish. He was soft all over and his eyes were slightly close together. But when he smiled he had dimples plus a full head of dark wavy hair. Dimples and thick hair were worth their weight in gold in my opinion.
“Just a Bud Light.” I mumbled taking a deep breath. The place smelled like stale cigarettes and as much as I hated to admit it I loved that smell. It reminded me of when my college friends took me out on my twenty-first birthday to the same place we had been going since we got our fake ID’s three years earlier. It was just a dumpy place like this but it was fun.
“Bud Light. Coming right up.”
I looked up at the television that was playing with the sound down. There was nothing happening there. I watched the bartender get my beer from a can and pour it into an hourglass shaped glass.
When he set it in front of me I realized I only had about fifteen dollars to get me through the night. I took out my wallet and decided to call for reinforcements.
My friend Diamond Everett would be by shortly. I had been through so much life with Diamond that I couldn’t imagine anything big happening without her being close by. But before I dialed her number on my cell phone I felt the strongest sensation to check out Mr. Business again but didn’t dare do it. A guy like him knew how hot he was. If I had to gouge out my eyes I wouldn’t look in his direction.
When I did he was looking at me. I smiled and felt my cheeks flush.
“That’ll be three dollars.”
I snapped out of it and thought three dollars was acceptable. Reaching into my purse in the banker box I tried not to pay any attention to the form that was just sitting there staring at me. Just then there was a flash of lightning and within seconds a clap of thunder. I was out of the rain but there was something else in the air. I could feel it. Electricity. And it was coming straight from the booth to my right.
JOSHUA
Note to my future protégé: It was fate. That is all I have to say. Fate was smiling on me yet again. Joshua Hewitt was a name the Universe knew and loved and it proved to me a hundred times a day.
There was a time when I might have wondered when my good fortune was going to run out. But everyday fate brought me into situations that were for my benefit. There was no doubt in my mind that my luck was never going to change.
See, because I am grateful. I am grateful. When you have luck like mine you have to have to be grateful and nurture it.
Like I tried to tell Molly Farnsworth last week when I broke up with her. She had become very lucky being around me. She’d had her face in the newspaper and on the tabloids. Modeling offers were coming in because girls like Molly always want to be models.
Don’t get me wrong. She was beautiful with long black hair and high cheekbones that cameras love. Her body was smooth and flat and easily manipulated. The cameras loved that, too. It was no secret when we first met that she had dreams of being on the cover of any trashy female magazine that boasted slimming diets and ways to please your man in bed.
But Molly started to assume that the luck I threw her way was really her own. She didn’t realize it was just the residual effect of being around me. See, that doesn’t work. It’s like stealing, really. If I let her get away with stealing my gifts from the Universe, well, the Universe would stop sending them to me. I couldn’t have that.
I had to send her packing.
That was an ugly scene right out of some chick-flick. I tried to be decent about it but my gut told me that Molly was going to show her true colors when that luck was taken away from her and boy did she.
This is another note to my future protégé: Handle women gently until they show they don’t deserve it.
We had met while I was handling some business in Montreal, Canada. My jet had to be refueled and as I was waiting as fog had rolled in. See, an average guy would have been cursing and angry that the fog would delay him from what he wanted to do. I knew that the Universe was telling me I needed to stay in Montreal for a little while longer.
It was like that woman who showed you the world when you were first becoming a man. She didn’t just flop it all out there in front of you. You got a little peek first. She would give you a view of some lace down her top or a glimpse at her thick thigh from the slit in her skirt. She made you curious. She made you want to see more.
So, when I got back into the main part of town, the sun was starting to go down and I found myself a quiet little place. Not much different from Liona’s here minus the alcohol. I was hungry. Most dives off the beaten track had the best food. And I knew if I went to the trendy, star-studded places then someone would recognize me, the press would show up and the Universe wouldn’t be able to give me anything with all that human pollution around.
No, there had to be a little quiet place around and that was at The Dixie Kitchen.