“An Australian?”
“Yeah. Drinking’s like the national past time there. Dan, our field manager, he’s originally from Australia. Not Sydney . . . Brisbane, I think it is.”
“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know that.”
“He’s only got a little bit of the accent left, which comes out a lot more when he’s drinking. So,” he said as we walked down the sidewalk. “What do you think of Jonathan?”
The question caught me off guard. “Jonathan?” I said. “He’s great.”
“Yeah, he is a good guy.”
“I really appreciate that he was able to get me a job interview with you, and that you decided to hire me.”
“Anything to help a friend out,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if he was referring to me as a friend, or to Jonathan. “You want to take a cab or drive?”
“Where are we going?”
“Back Bay. The Knock. Ever been?”
“No.” It was an upscale bar that Caroline had been to once before. “Um, we can drive I guess. My car’s right here.” I pointed a few feet ahead of us.
“This little thing?” he said. “Jesus Christ, you drive a Prius.”
But he said it with a smile on his face, like he was giving me a hard time, but in a good-natured way.
“Yes I do,” I said. “I don’t think I’d be able to manage to par
allel park anything bigger.”
We got in and he directed me to The Knock. I tried to remember what Caroline had said about the place, but I couldn’t really recall anything. Right away I could tell it was filled with people I wasn’t going to feel very comfortable around. Everyone in there looked like they could be on the cover of a magazine—handsome men and beautiful women all dressed immaculately, exuding an air of confidence that seemed to saturate the place. The walls were backlit with a warm pink light that cast everyone in a cheerful glow. I felt shy as we stepped through the door, though I shouldn’t have; no one was going to notice me.
But people were certainly going to notice Ian.
He was just the sort of person that couldn’t go somewhere without being checked out, and heads immediately swiveled our way. There was music playing, some sort of electronica that sounded like it had been mixed with jazz. The whole atmosphere felt very elegant and grown up; this certainly wasn’t Failte’s, the dive bar that Caroline and I most often frequented.
“You want a table or you want to sit at the bar?” Ian asked.
The tables were circular and small, meant for two, maybe three people. I let my gaze travel around the long, narrow space and saw that every table was already taken.
“It doesn’t look like there are any tables available,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter. I can get us one.”
“The bar is fine.”
I didn’t want to be that person who walked into a place and got special treatment for no good reason. Maybe Ian had a reason, but I certainly didn’t.
I followed him over to the bar where there were a few empty stools.
“So you’ve never been here before?” he asked.
“No,” I said, sliding onto the seat. “I haven’t. It looks pretty nice, though.”
“It is; if you like this frou-frou sort of thing.”
The way he said it, I couldn’t be sure if he was into it or actually didn’t like it at all. But then the bartender sauntered over, a beautiful woman with high cheekbones and full lips, and gave Ian a look that told me she knew him quite well, which meant he probably had been here a number of times before.
“What’s your poison?” he said to me. “Shellie here makes a great flirtini.”