Waking Charley Vaughan (5 page)

But, when I looked up, he was smirking. It was like all my attitude, at its fullest force, still wasn’t fierce enough to be taken seriously. That pissed me off even more, but I decided to keep my apparently amusing attitudes to myself for the time being. I had all night to pick a fight with the bartender if need be.

I knew it was going to be a long night of hiding. But I also knew that facing Matt would mean my surrender. I would give in, and take him back because he would make me see things his way. I was sick of seeing things his way, and the longer I could keep away from him, the better my chances of not backing down were.

The bartender made his way back to my side of the bar a few minutes later, a small glass full of what I assumed was my order in his hand.

“Thanks,” I said as he put the shot glass down on the bar. He smiled at me. It was a sweet smile. The kind of smile that takes over a person’s entire face, and makes everyone who sees it want to smile, too. If I hadn’t been in such a bad mood, I would have been smiling with him.

“So, have you decided what kind of beer you like yet?” He asked as he continued to grin at me. Why was he so happy? What was there to be so dammed happy about?

“No. I can’t remember,” for some ridiculous reason, this made me sad. What kind of person doesn’t know what kind of beer she likes? How could I have become so dependent on a person that I didn’t even bother remembering what I liked to drink because I figured he was going to remember it for me.

“I’ll just have a Gin and tonic,” I said. He wasn’t smiling anymore. Anger didn’t faze him, but I could tell sadness did.

“I can let you taste a few different kinds that we have on tap?” He was trying to be helpful, but I wasn’t in the mood to tackle a beer tasting adventure.              

“No, thanks,” I said quietly. “Just a gin and tonic.”

“Okay,” he said politely. “At least let me bring you an extra lime for your tequila shot. It’s going to burn.” At that, he walked back to the other side of the bar to get my drink.

I looked down at the small shot glass full of the threatening amber liquid.
It’s going to burn,
I mocked him in my head; and then, in an action consisting mostly of stupidity and partially of spite, I picked up the glass, put it to my lips, and slammed the drink back.

“blech!” I sputtered while shaking my head violently. It was disgusting. I couldn’t imagine how a lime would have improved that in any possible way. I must have been making quite a face. When the bartender made his way over to me, I could tell he was trying not to smile. Jerk.

I pushed the shot glass toward him. “Thanks,” I coughed. He put my gin and tonic down on the bar, and produced a lime from a tray behind him. “You forgot this,” he smiled at me, and left again.

If he wasn’t such a condescending jerk, he could have been cute. He had a sweet smile.

That line of thinking, of course, led me back to Matt. Had it started like that with my Yoga instructor? Just a simple observation of how cute she was? Was it one of those, “One thing lead to another, and we were kissing,” kind of things? That sounded so stupid. Thinking about it was so depressing. It was like, the instant I thought his name, or thought about what happened, a wave of sadness crashed down on me again. I let it take me under once more as I looked down, my teary eyes on my drink.

***

I had hoped that the fact that I was sitting at the end of the bar, literally crying into my drink would have stopped anyone from trying to approach me. Turns out, I was wrong.

About 20 minutes after I sat down, I was approached by a guy who I can only describe as “douchey looking”. He was wearing not one, but two obnoxiously colored polo shirts, with both collars sticking up. His hair was slicked back, and half of his face was hidden behind a pair of aviator style sunglasses. That’s right, he was wearing sunglasses inside a dark pub. At night. I took all of this in during the brief moment between Mr. Polo’s tap on my shoulder, and his charming opening line.

“Hey Beautiful. You look like you need a friend. Why don’t you come sit with me? I’ll be your friend.” I couldn’t see where he was staring because of his stupid glasses, but his eyebrow movement alone was enough to make me uncomfortable. Even though this guy deserved the kind of witty tongue lashing and nasty look that I’d seen Sara produce, and even though internally I was thinking all of the same kinds of things that Sara would say, my response was still polite—too polite.             

“No thanks. I’d kind of just like to be alone,” I said softly.

“Aww, come on baby,” a member of Mr. Polo’s douche patrol chimed in from behind him. I hadn’t noticed him until then. “Just come hang with us. We’ll make you feel better,” he said. He and Mr. Polo exchanged a look. It must have been some sort of douche code. I tried to be less polite this time.              

“No, really,” I said more sternly, “I’m fine. Thanks.”

“At least let me buy you a drink,” Mr. Polo insisted.

“Yo,” he motioned toward the bartender with the nice smile. “We need a drink over here!” As the bartender made his way back over to where I was seated, I tried to insist that Mr. Polo and his friend did not, in fact, need to buy me a drink.

“Really,” I pushed back, “I can buy my own drink. Thanks anyway.” I was getting agitated. Couldn’t a girl just go to a bar on a Friday night and cry?

The bartender was standing in front of me then, and Mr. Polo was giving him instructions on what I wanted to drink. It was some apple concoction that I had no interest in trying. Finally, Mr. Polo and his sidekicks went back to their booth, being sure to point out to me where they were sitting, so I could come “thank us later, babe”. The thought of the type of thanks he had in mind made me cringe a little. What a creep.

The bartender walked over with a martini glass containing bright green liquid. He raised one eyebrow, “Do you even want this thing?”

“No,” I said, probably sounding like a petulant toddler for the second time that night, “I told him that and he wouldn’t listen. If he thinks I’m going to go gaga over some idiot with a Top Gun complex just because he bought me a stupid green drink, he’s got another thing coming.” Maybe my tequila shot and follow up drinks were acting fast. I always thought things like this in my own head, but saying them out loud, and to a total stranger for that matter, was something I had never done.

“No worries,” the bartender said coolly, “I’ll handle this.” He winked as he walked a few steps down the bar toward a woman who could best be described as a “cougar”, and she was clearly on the prowl. The two of them exchanged a few words that I couldn’t hear, and I saw him point in the direction of the Douche Crew’s booth. He gave me a slight smile, and then went to take care of some people who had just come in. I went back to my drink.

A few minutes later I looked up and saw the cougar lady get up from her place at the bar, and walk over to the Douche Crew’s booth. She was wearing a skin tight leopard print top, black leather pants of equal or greater tightness, and a pair of five inch heels that looked like they were made of plastic. She wasn’t old: maybe early to mid-40s. She had to have been really pretty at one point; but now her face was coated with makeup in what I guessed was an attempt to cover the leathery texture her skin had taken on. Her skin color was a darker shade of brown than my own, but you could tell from her features that she was supposed to be Caucasian. I winced at the thought of how many hours she must have spent in a tanning bed to have that sort of complexion in December.

She sat down at the booth without a word. I could tell from her body language that she had no intention of going anywhere, or taking no for an answer. It served them right for being jerks.

The bartender came over then, interrupting my catty reverie.

“Can I get you another?” he asked, glancing in the direction of the now Cougar occupied booth. He gave a grin. “I told you I’d take care of your friends. That’s Lonnie. She’ll be on them like a hawk until they leave the place.

A couple of hours later, I had ordered a few more drinks, finding that the more I drank, the less I felt like randomly bursting into tears in public. I had also discovered that the bartender’s name was Brennan, and that every female in the place, including those who worked with him, had seemed hell bent on flirting with him. It was hard to blame them, but it was still disgusting to watch. Didn’t they know how stupid they looked?

I didn’t know why I was so annoyed that these girls were flirting with him. I certainly had no claim over him. He just seemed better than the type of guy that would be interested in those giggly girls with tiny shirts and painted on jeans. I was probably wrong, but since there was no one around to correct me, I went with my own theory.

Shortly after one in the morning, the crowd in the bar started to file out. Even the Douche Crew had left, glaring at me as they passed. Lonnie followed behind them, chatting away. She smiled and waved at the bartender as she left.

Soon after that, it was just the two of us at the bar, and few old guys in back by the dart boards. Since arriving at the pub, I had set my phone to vibrate. After the fifth time Matt called, it almost buzzed its way off the bar, so I just turned it off. I made an exasperated noise.

“It seems like someone really wants to get a hold of you,” Brennan noted, eyeing the phone as I put it into my pocket.

“Yes,” I said in a clipped tone. “And I don’t want them to succeed.” I raised my eyebrows in an expression that I hoped would say ‘let’s just leave it at that’, and Brennan went back to his busy work of wiping down the bar. A feeling of guilt hit me hard, and I leaned over the bar in an effort to make my voice reach him on the other side. “I’m sorry,” I called. “It’s just been a bad night.” Brennan walked toward me once more.

“Do you want to talk about it?” his green eyes were looking straight into mine. I gave a slight chuckle.

“Sure, why not?” I said, eyeing my glass as I swirled the ice cubes around inside of it. Maybe not knowing Brennan and not having a reason to care what he thought of me would be reason enough to open up. In all honesty, my fourth or fifth Gin and Tonic was just as good a reason as any.

CHAPTER 2 - BRENNAN

In response to my question, the girl put her glass down on the bar with only a sip left among the ice cubes.

“You know, Brennan,” she contemplated, “those are getting better.”  I rolled my eyes, grinning at my own joke. The poor girl was clueless to the fact that only the first couple of drinks she ordered had been served to her at full potency. I could see after the first drink she was a light weight, and I was not about  to serve five full strength gin and tonics to a girl who stood no taller than 5’4 and was probably a buck twenty soaking wet.  It was almost closing time and I was wiping down the bar. This girl had been here for 3 hours, 5 gin and tonics (3 of which were watered down), and two bowls of pretzels. Clearly, something was not going right for this girl.

“Think you’ve had enough?” I asked, half grinning. Her big brown eyes looked up at me through the mass of dark curls that had been falling in her face since she ran into the bar.

“eh…” she mumbled incoherently. “’Enough’ is a meaningless word, Brennan. One day, you think you have enough…and the next day, you’re sleeping with your fiancé’s Yoga instructor.” She stared down at the bar, and continued, her tone soft and her voice close to cracking, “Suddenly, the things that were enough, and the people who were everything, mean nothing…or at least…they don’t mean enough”

I ducked my head downward, trying to get in her line of sight. “Were you the fiancé , or the Yoga instructor?” I asked, raising one eyebrow. I was relatively sure of the answer, but I thought it was better to not assume. 

She laughed, apparently finding my question funnier than I had meant it to be. “The fiancé” she sighed. “The stupid fiancé who is soon to be the
ex
fiancé.” She hit the emphasis on ‘ex’ hard, and her words held the unsteadiness of a woman who did not need another gin and tonic.

“ I want to hate them,” she muttered, and stared into her glass of ice cubes. She slowly brought her hands up to cover her face and I heard her sniff.

“Hey,” I said, handing her a tissue from under the bar. “you don’t have to talk about it anymore. For what it’s worth, it sounds like your fiancé is an idiot.”

“Thanks” she gave me a half smile. “You aren’t the first person to say that tonight”

I didn’t know this girl, but that sad face of hers just killed me. She was like a puppy: too cute for her own good, and something just drew me to her. Not that she looked anything comparable to a dog. She was beautiful. Even in all her sadness, her eyes were beautiful, chocolate brown-- the most demanding feature on her soft face. The closest competition were her lips-subtle, yet full, and right under a small, round nose. I couldn’t see her body, but I was imagining it was—