Four Good

1

Even better up close

“Ready for another, Sheila?”

My neighbor, who’s a regular here at Rusty’s where I tend bar, shakes her head. “You know I never have more than two.”

I nod absently as I clear away her empty glass. “You’re right. I’m just asking out of habit, I guess.”

Sheila frowns, emphasizing the feathery lines around her lips. “You do seem a little distracted tonight, Christine.”

Her words take a moment to register because, out of the corner of my eye, I notice two other customers taking the empty seats in my section of the bar. “What? Oh, I guess I am. Sorry.”

“Is everything okay?” she asks.

I shrug one shoulder. “Sure.”

Sheila scans the area and then lowers her voice to ask, “How’s the new manager?”

“She’s good. She’s fine. Barrett’s still in a few times a week too. More often now that he’s starting to plan the expansion.”

“I remember when this place was nothing but a hole in the wall,” she says. “Hard to believe it now.”

“I know, right? I’ll be right back, Sheila.” I slide down to take care of the newly arrived couple, who both ask for their usuals. After serving them and pouring refills for another pair of customers, I return to my neighbor.

“I guess I’ll be heading out,” she says. “Trixie might start eating the sofa if I’m late.”

“You don’t want that vet bill again,” I say with a laugh.

“No, I do not. Want me to take Roscoe out when I walk Trixie?” she asks.

“Thanks. No, he’s fine. He’s always sleeping when I get home.” Roscoe is a lovable mutt I got at a shelter. He’s part basset hound, and I strongly suspect the rest of his genetic material came from a sloth. He enjoys a morning walk with me, but actively resists any additional physical exertion.

Sheila slides off her stool. “You sure you’re okay?” Though she’s only about ten years older than me, she tends to mother me, maybe because her own children have grown and moved away.

“It’s probably just my birthday that’s on my mind.”

“Age is only a number,” she says. “Forgive the cliché, but it’s true.”

“But forty is a big number,” I say.

“Aging is better than the alternative.” She gives me a grin before she turns to go.

I’m not sad about turning forty, or even particularly concerned about getting older, but it’s a milestone number, and I guess it has me taking stock of my life, thinking about how my reality measures up to what I imagined for myself when I was younger.

I think we all create pictures in our minds about how our lives will look, and mine is nothing like what I had envisioned. Not to say that it’s bad — just different.

It’s still early on a Saturday, so I check my supplies. Things will get much busier before the night is over. Sheila’s seat is quickly filled, and Becca and Scott, who are waiting tables tonight, come up to the counter regularly with drink orders.

I’m chatting to customers and mixing a dirty screw, one of our longtime signature drinks that survived the bar’s recent upscale changes, when Tom comes over. My fellow bartender, a heavily tattooed man in his late 40s, doesn’t speak much and typically stays on his side of our workspace, so I can assume he has something important to say.

“What’s up? Running low on something?” I ask.

He shakes his head before tilting it meaningfully toward the far end of the counter. “You know those guys?”

Tourist season hasn’t started yet, so the bar is mostly full of locals, though there are almost always a few unfamiliar faces in the crowd. “You’re going to have to be more specific,” I say.

“Those three just to the right of the corner, brown hair.”