“You should come back tonight at eleven.” I don’t give her a chance to tell me no or explain why she can’t. I go back inside the bar, hoping my request makes her curious enough to show back up tonight.
CHAPTER FIVE
KENNA
I’m sitting on an inflatable mattress with my unnamed kitten, contemplating all the reasons I shouldn’t go back to that bar.
I didn’t come back to this town to meet guys. Even guys as good looking as that bartender. I’m here for my daughter and that’s it.
Tomorrow is important. Tomorrow I need to feel Herculean, but the bartender unintentionally made me feel weak by pulling away my glass of wine. I don’t know what he saw on my face that made him want to take the wine away from me. I wasn’t going to drink it. I only ordered it so I could feel a sense of control in not drinking it. I wanted to look at it and smell it and then walk away from it feeling stronger than when I sat down.
Now I just feel unsettled because he saw how I was looking at the wine earlier, and the way he pulled it away makes me think he assumes I have an active issue with alcohol.
I don’t. I haven’t had alcohol in years because one night of alcohol mixed with a tragedy ruined the last five years of my life, and the last five years of my life have led me back to this town, and this town makes me nervous, and the only thing that calms my nerves is doing things that make me feel like I’m still in control of my life and my decisions.
That’s why I wanted to turn down the wine, dammit.
Now I’m not going to sleep well tonight. I have no reason to feel accomplished because he made me feel the complete opposite. If I want to sleep well tonight, I’m going to need to turn down something else I want.
Or someone.
I haven’t wanted anyone in a long, long time. Not since I first met Scotty. But the bartender was kind of hot, and he had a great smile, and he makes great coffee, and he already invited me to come back, so it’ll be simple to show up and turn him down.
Then I’ll sleep well and be prepared to wake up and face the most important day of my life.
I wish I could take my new kitten with me. I feel like I need a sidekick, but she’s asleep on the new pillow I bought at the store earlier.
I didn’t buy much. The inflatable mattress, a couple of pillows and sheets, some crackers and cheese, and some cat food and litter. I decided I’m only going to live two days at a time in this town. Until I know what tomorrow will bring, there’s no sense in my wasting any of the money I’ve been working six months to save up. I’m already running low, which is why I choose not to call a cab.
I leave the apartment to walk back to the bar, but I don’t carry my purse or my notebook with me this time. I just need my driver’s license and my apartment key. It’s about a mile-and-a-half walk from my apartment to the bar, but it’s nice out and the road is well lit.
I’m a little concerned that someone might recognize me at the bar, or even on my walk there, but I look completely different than I did five years ago. I used to care more about self-maintenance, but five years in prison has made me less concerned about hair dye and extensions and false lashes and artificial nails.
I didn’t live in this town long enough to make many friends outside of Scotty, so I doubt many people even know who I am. I’m sure plenty of them know of me, but it’s hard to be recognized when you aren’t even missed.
Patrick and Grace might recognize me if they saw me, but I only met them once before going to prison.
Prison. I’ll never get used to saying that word. It’s such a hard word to say out loud. When you lay the letters out on paper individually, they don’t seem that harsh. But when you say the word out loud, “Prison,” it’s just so damn severe.
When I think about where I’ve been for the last five years, I like to refer to it in my head as the facility. Or I’ll think of my time there as When I was away, and leave it at that. To say “When I was in prison” is not something I’ll ever get used to.
I’ll have to say it this week when I look for a job. They’ll ask, “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?” I’ll have to say, “Yes, I spent five years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.”
And they’ll either hire me or they won’t. They probably won’t.
There’s a double standard for women, even behind bars. When women say they’ve been to prison, people think trash, whore, addict, thief. But when men say they’ve been to prison, people add badges of honor to the negative thoughts, like trash, but badass, addict, but tough, thief, but impressive.
There’s still a stigma with the men, but the women never get out with stigmas and badges of honor.
According to the clock on the courthouse, I make it back downtown at eleven thirty. Hopefully he’s still here even though I’m half an hour late.
I didn’t pay attention to the name of the bar earlier, probably because it was daylight out and I was shocked it was no longer a bookstore, but there’s a small neon sign above the door that reads WARD’s.
I hesitate before going back inside. My return presence is more or less sending this guy a message. A message I’m not sure I want him to receive. But the alternative is my going back to that apartment and being alone with my thoughts.
I’ve spent enough time alone with my thoughts over the past five years. I’m craving people and noise and all the things I haven’t had, and my apartment reminds me a little of prison. There’s a lot of loneliness and silence there.
I open the door of the bar. It’s louder and smokier and somehow darker than it was earlier. There are no empty seats, so I weave through people, find the restroom, wait in the hall, wait outside, weave some more. Finally, a booth opens up. I cross the room and sit in it alone.
I watch the bartender flow behind the bar. I like how unbothered he seems. Two guys get into an argument, but he doesn’t care—he just points to the door and they leave. He does that a lot. Points at things, and people just do the things he points out for them to do.
He points at two customers while making eye contact with the other bartender. That bartender walks up to them and closes out their tabs.
He points to an empty shelf, and one of the waitresses nods, and then a few minutes later she has the shelf restocked.
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.