Reminders of Him

He points at the floor, and the other bartender disappears through the double doors and reappears with a mop to clean up a spill.

He points to a hook on the wall, and another waitress, a pregnant one, mouths, “Thank you,” and she hangs up her apron and goes home.

He points, and people do, and then it’s last call, and then it’s time to close. People trickle out. No one trickles in.

He hasn’t looked at me. Not even once.

I second-guess being here. He seems busy, and maybe I read him wrong earlier. I just assumed when he told me to come back that he said it for a reason, but maybe he tells all his customers that.

I stand up, thinking maybe I need to trickle out, too, but when he sees me stand, he points. He makes a simple motion with his finger, indicating for me to sit back down, so I do.

I’m relieved to know my intuition was right, but the emptier the bar gets, the more nervous I grow. He assumes I’m a grown-ass woman, but I barely feel like an adult. I’m a twenty-six-year-old teenager, inexperienced, starting from scratch.

I’m not sure I’m here for the right reasons. I thought I could just walk in, flirt with him, and then walk away, but he’s more tempting than any bougie coffee. I came here to turn him down, but I had no idea that he would be pointing all night, or that he would point at me. I had no idea pointing was sexy.

I wonder if I would have found it sexy five years ago, or if I’m pathetically easy to please now.

By midnight, we’re the only two people left. The other employees have gone, the door is now locked, and he’s carrying a case of empty glasses to the back.

I pull my leg up and wrap my arms around it. I’m nervous. I didn’t come back to this town to meet a guy. I’m in this town with a much bigger purpose. One he looks like he could derail with the point of a finger.

I’m only human, though. Humans need companions, and even though I didn’t return to this town to meet people, this guy is hard to ignore.

He walks through the double doors with a different shirt on. He’s no longer wearing the purple collared shirt with the rolled-up sleeves that all the other employees were wearing. He put on a white T-shirt. So simple, but so complicated.

He smiles when he reaches me, and I feel that smile slip over me with the warmth of a weighted blanket. “You came back.”

I try to act unaffected. “You asked me to.”

“You want something to drink?”

“I’m okay.”

He touches his hair now, pushing it back, staring down at me. There’s a war in his eyes, and I am by no means Switzerland, but he comes to me anyway. Sits next to me. Right next to me. My heart beats faster, even faster than when Scotty came to my register for a fourth time all those years ago.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

I don’t want him to know my name. He looks like he could be the age Scotty would be now if Scotty were alive, which means he might recognize my name, or me, or remember what happened. I don’t want anyone to know me, or remember, or warn the Landrys that I’m in town.

It isn’t a small town, but it isn’t huge either. My presence won’t go unnoticed for long. I just need it to go unnoticed for long enough, so I lie, sort of, and give him my middle name. “Nicole.”

I don’t ask him what his name is because I don’t care. I’ll never use it. I’ll never come back here after tonight.

I pull at a strand of my hair, nervous at being so close to someone after so long. I feel like I’ve forgotten what to do, so I just blurt out what I came here to say. “I wasn’t going to drink it.”

He tilts his head, confused by my confession, so I clarify.

“The wine. Sometimes I . . .” I shake my head. “It’s dumb, but I do this thing where I order alcohol specifically to walk away from it. I don’t have a drinking problem. It’s more like an issue with control, I think. Makes me feel less weak.”

His eyes scan my face with the slightest hint of a smile. “I respect that,” he says. “I rarely drink for similar reasons. I’m around drunk people every night, and the more I’m around them, the less I want to be among them.”

“A bartender who doesn’t drink? That’s rare. Right? I’d think bartenders would have one of the highest rates of alcoholism. Easy access.”

“That’s actually the construction industry. Which probably isn’t good for my odds. I’ve been building a house for several years now.”