sat down at the far end of the bar.
“What makes you think I’m looking for something to happen?” Will asked.
The look he got back said it all. Dressed too well for a country-western bar in the country. The mark from his wedding ring still on finger. The fact he was alone in a bar on a Friday. Had the man said anything, it couldn’t have made Will feel more obvious.
“OK, then,” Will said. “How much longer should I have waited until something happens?”
The bartender smiled. “My friend, it all depends on how you define ‘something’.” He pointed over Will’s shoulder. “You take that group at the table over there. Two men, four women, big appetizer plate, on their fourth pitcher of beer. I’m guessing there are two couples, with a couple friends dragged along. One of them I know’s a couple, because I see them in here, oh, once a month. Maybe the other couple’s from out of town, like you. Maybe the friends, too, what do I know? I’m guessing the out-of-town folks are getting sloshed enough to pretend to enjoy our version of ‘the night life’, then it will all end in a big mess by morning. One or another of those guys will wind up in the wrong bed, and what was supposed to be a great weekend with old friends turns in to a shitstorm.”
Will looked at the bartender for a moment. “That’s the most cynical thing I’ve heard in a long time. And I’m a reporter.”
The bartender smiled. “Thank you.” A server brought a tray with glasses for refills from a booth near the back, and the bartender walked over and filled them.
“That doesn’t exactly answer my question, you know,” Will said.
“No, I guess it doesn’t,” the bartender said. “Still, it does, too. What kind of something you looking for? A pretty face besides the wife’s nodding in all the right places, laughing at your jokes because she hasn’t heard them? Maybe a quick smooch on the dance floor while you play grab-ass but aren’t quite brave enough to ask her back to your place?”
Will just looked at the man.
“Ah. Silence tells me you haven’t quite made up your mind what the hell something means. You want another?” the bartender said, pointing at the empty bottle in front of Will. Will nodded and the empty was replaced by a cold, full bottle with an expertise that impressed Will.
“Maybe I’m just looking for a quiet place to sit, have a few beers, then retire to my hotel room before a quick drive back to Chicago in the morning,” Will said.
The bartender laughed. “Mister, if that’s all you’re doing, then I suggest you think about not finishing that beer in front of you and heading out now. One of those out-of-town ladies at the table has been giving you that look for about ten minutes now.”
Will started to turn and look, but the bartender snapped. “Don’t look! Jesus, you want to spoil this? She’s down for her third whispered comment back and forth with her friend.”
“Which one?” Will asked.
The bartender smiled at him. “You’re about to find out.”
“Hi,” said a voice at his right elbow. Will turned and saw the country music fan standing there. No taller than five-four in heels, her blonde hair long and curly, wearing a black, scoop-neck tank top underneath a long-sleeve black blouse, black jeans, her store-bought tan and blonde hair, set off by the black clothes made her even more noticeable up close.
Will smiled. “Hi.”
“I don’t want to sound forward or anything, but I saw you sitting here all alone, and I thought, what the hell, right? It isn’t like I get to see a good looking guy like you on his own every day.”
“That’s very flattering. It isn’t every day I a beautiful woman walks up and talks to me.”
She lowered her head, and was she blushing? Will thought she just might be. “I’m Will,” he said. “Will Chambers.”
Her eyes widened. “Really? Will Chambers who writes that Chicago Now stuff for the Trib?”
His smile widened. “In fact I am. The one and the same.”
“Wow. I, like, read your stuff all the time. People think I’m nuts, politics is so dull, you know? But, I just love the picture you paint with words.” She laughed, putting her left hand over her face. Will noticed a tan line on her fourth finger. “Oh, shit. That was horrible, wasn’t it?”
Will laughed. “Not really. I usually get worse when I’m introduced to speak somewhere. In fact, I might just borrow that, you know? A kind of tag line or something: Will Chambers: He Paints Pictures With Words.”
They both laughed now.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Will asked, and then felt stupid. She had been sitting at a table, downing beer from pitchers for the past half hour.
“Well,” she looked at Will, and then at her table of friends, who all smiled at her, then back at Will. “I guess. Yeah. Maybe we could, I don’t know, sit at one of those booths in the back?”
Will smiled. “I’d like that.” Then he stopped. “You know, I don’t know your name.”
She smiled. “Melissa Short. Call me Missy.”
He put out his hand, and she laid hers inside. They went to the booth, their fingers interlaced, and all the questions and fears in Will’s head, the urgency that had almost propelled him out the door just a few minutes before, was gone.
An hour later, there were several more empty beer bottles on the table between them. Light headed from the beer and Missy’s presence, Will wasn’t sure what to think beyond the sheer pleasure of the company of a woman who talked freely and lightly. Their conversation ran over and across places of mutual interest, the hassle of getting to work in downtown Chicago, the beauty of the Lincoln Park Zoo in spring. Neither of them talked about the one thing they had in common: both of them were married, quite obviously looking for something outside their marriages. They skirted around this uncomfortable reality, even though Will knew she had to have seen the mark on his finger.
“So, I was wondering,” Missy began, when one of her friends from the big party came over.
“Hey, Missy, we’re heading up to the Slipper.” Her friend’s eyes darted to Will. “Just in case, you know, you want to catch us up. ‘K?”
Missy smiled. “Thanks, Tara. I’m not really interested in strippers. I think I’ll just stay here, maybe see you back at Mark and Sherry’s?”
“That’s cool,” the young woman named Tara said. She smiled at Missy, her eyes darting to Will again. “Have fun.”
“Thanks,” Missy said. She turned and waved as her friends left the bar, then looked back at Will. With a quick scan around the room, she reached across the table and took Will’s hand in hers. The feeling was electric.
“So. Strippers, huh?” Will said.
Missy rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Yeah. That’s what they think is fun out here, if you can believe it, some strip club called The Silver Slipper.” She drained her bottle. “Skanky drug addicts wanting me to stick my face between their boobs with a dollar bill? Not my idea of fun.”
“Mine, neither,” Will said. “In fact, I think women should never remove their clothes.”
Missy laughed. “Oh, right. Like I buy that.” She traced a line on the side of his palm with her thumb.
“You were going to say something before your friend came up to invite you to watch other women undress?” Will prompted.
She blinked. “Oh. Yeah.” She shook her head, then laughed. “Must have had too much to drink. Shit.” She looked Will in the eye. “I was thinking.” A glance down at the table. “I don’t usually do this kind of thing, you know.”
“I don’t either,” Will said.
“No?” she asked, glancing back up at him.
“Well, I don’t really do much of anything, so whatever ‘this kind of thing’ is, I’m pretty sure I don’t do it.”
Missy laughed again. Then she closed her eyes. She opened them. The grip on Will’s hand became tighter. “Can we just skip all the bullshit and go back to wherever it is you’re staying?”
Will
smiled. “If we don’t leave now, we never will.”
Neither of them saw the bartender shake his head at them as they walked out the door, hand in hand.
The hotel room clicked shut behind Will. Missy looked around, then turned to him and said, “Wow. This is, like, way too cliché, huh.”
It was the first reference to the reality they were trying so hard to ignore. Will smiled. “If you mean a couple people coming to the All-American Hotel Room for whatever happens behind closed doors, then, yeah, I guess it is.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said, her voice almost too soft to hear.
Will said, “I know.”
She looked him in the eyes. The moment seemed to drag out. Will wasn’t sure what might happen. If they kissed, he understood he would be lost, unable to stop until the inevitable conclusion. From there, his vision clouded. Neither of them, however, moved.
“Why are you doing it?” she asked.
Will opened his mouth. He shut it. He opened it again. Missy reached up and pushed on his lower jaw, closing his mouth. Her smile was sad.
“Yeah, I don’t know either,” she said. “It isn’t like Linc - that’s my husband, Lincoln, only I call him Linc, you know, cause we’ve known each other for like ever and that’s what I’ve always called him - is bad to me. In fact, he’s sweet and kind and loving and he’s really good in bed.” She turned from Will, sitting on the end of the king size bed. “Tara called me and invited me down here for a weekend. We were in college