Gracie ordered a beer to settle her stomach while she waited for Books to arrive.
“Is it Happy Hour yet?” she asked the bartender.
He frowned a sympathetic frown and shook his head. “Not yet.” He pointed to the clock above the cash register. “Not for another half hour.”
She sighed and looked at the clock on her cell phone. Dammit. She paid for her beer and thought about how nice a cigarette would be. That meant going outside; there were tables out on the patio, and she could sit and smoke and drink. It was even pretty comfortable outside. But she just KNEW if she stepped away from the bar for even a second – even just long enough to smoke – Books would come in, not see her at the bar, and walk back out. He wouldn’t wait. He never waited.
Sigh. “What a crock of shit,” she muttered to no one in particular. The only other person at the bar was a youngish guy with glasses. Very smart looking. Intellectual, even. She imagined what Books might look like in those same glasses. She shook her head a little. On Books, glasses looked ridiculous. The only way he looked right was the way he always looked: wearing a pair of ratty shorts, sandals held together with tape, an old t-shirt and that disgusting ball cap that didn’t really fit his head right. Not quite the intellectual look. More like garbage sheik.
She looked up from her thoughts, and over at the man in glasses. He must have felt her staring, because he looked over and smiled. “How’s it going?”
“Oh, fine,” she said. “Just trying to relax.”
The man nodded. “Long day at work?”
Gracie laughed. “Yeah, I guess. Though, technically I guess I’m still working.”
“Can’t be too bad of a job if they let you drink on the clock.”
“Well… it just FEELS like a job, I guess. You know what I mean? Sometimes you have to do something and it just…”
The man nodded. “I know what you mean,” he answered. “If it feels like work, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it. I mean, if it makes you feel bad.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she answered a little too quickly. “I mean, I guess I do. But I don’t.” She laughed nervously. “Does that make sense?”
The man nodded. “Must be a family thing.”
She brightened up. “Yes. It IS a family thing. That’s exactly it.” She extended her pudgy hand to the man. “My name’s Gracie.”
The man shook it and smiled. “Call me Charlie.” His eyes were so gray they were almost silver. Like steel. She couldn’t remember ever seeing someone with eyes that color.
“Nice to meet you, Charlie.” Gracie smiled. “So what do you do Charlie?”
“Oh, a little of this and a little of that,” he answered. “I’m sort of in between jobs at the moment.”
“That’s too bad.” Her tone was sympathetic. And he looked so professional, too.
“Oh, I’m not worried,” he answered. “Tough times, I know… but I’ve got another job waiting on me.”
“Well that’s nice,” Gracie said. “So you’re sort of on vacation, then.”
Charlie smiled. “Sort of.”
She checked the clock on her cell phone. She’d only been sitting for five minutes. Why bother showing up early, she thought, when I know he’s not going to? Books wouldn’t show up until it got closer to Happy Hour. Cheaper beer, for one; though she still wasn’t sure why he bothered since he never bought his own booze. More than once, she’d threatened to stop paying for him when she saw him. After that, he didn’t call for six months and she’d convinced herself he was dead in a ditch somewhere, or one of the John Doe bodies like on CSI and Law and Order. That was more than she could handle; Books was a pest, a weight around her neck. He never bought his own drinks and rarely bought food. He lived where ever he could and was impossible to find. But that didn’t mean she didn’t worry about him.
Family, she thought. Not quite. Though she had known Books for as long as she could remember. She’d grown up with him, gone through school with him – until he dropped out – and they were still friends. As much as he aggravated her, Gracie understood that their friendship was a rare thing; hardly anybody stayed close friends – GOOD friends – with someone their entire life. She was closer to Books than she was to anybody in her piece of shit family. And actually, they WERE family – technically. Fifth cousins by marriage. Something like that. They’d figured it out once when they were kids. “Oh well,” Books had said. “So we can’t never get married.”
Gracie had trouble imagining anybody being able to marry him. Books had his share of women over the years; but none of them stayed. None but her. She was his friend even after a few of his girlfriends told her to fuck off and get a life. One even demanded Books choose between her and Gracie. As if. All Books did was laugh. That was all he ever did. He never said ok, or no, or yes. He never defended Gracie or took up for the girl who was pushing him to decide. He simply laughed. He laughed and the women all left, and things went back to normal.
She down her beer and looked at the clock. She didn’t know a half hour could last so long; all she wanted to do was be able to order a happy hour beer and save a few bucks. The bartender came back over and asked if she wanted another. She nodded and he took the empty mug, replacing it with a freshly filled frosty one.
“Preparing?” Charlie spoke.
Gracie looked at him. He nodded towards the beer. “Oh.” She chuckled a little. “Not really. It’s not that big of deal, actually. I’m just waiting for a friend.”
“Hot date?”
She giggled again. “Ah… no. We’re just friends. Old friends.”
“Ah. Well, good,” Charlie answered. “He’s not running late is he?”
“No,” Gracie responded. “It’s still early.”
“But you came early just in case… right?”
She shrugged and took a drink. “Well, yeah.” She shrugged again. It was the same shrug she gave whenever she talked to someone else about Books. “Besides,” she smiled, “miracles DO happen.”
“Do they?” Charlie smiled.
“I’ve known Books my entire life,” she said.
“Really?”
She nodded. “I think we first met in kindergarten.”
“Wow,” Charlie said, though he didn’t seem too impressed. “You’ve known him a long time.”
“Yes.” She opened the huge purse sitting on the stool next to her, pulled out a mostly empty wallet, and removed a small square of paper. She showed it to Charlie, handling it like a sacred document. “This was Books in when I met him.” The picture was bent and worn along the edges. The little boy in the picture smiled a big, toothless grin. His hair was cut in a shaggy bowl, and he wore a bright yellow and green colored turtle neck. She loved that picture of him. Sometimes, she he laughed, he still got that same look in his eyes – the same as the one in the picture.
“Cute,” Charlie commented, looking over the rims of his glasses. She looked up at Gracie and smiled. “Do you have one of you?”
Gracie felt her face burn. “Me? No.”
“I bet he carries one of you, though. Right?”
No, she thought. He doesn’t. She changed the subject. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before, Charlie.”
“I drive by this place all the time,” he answered. “Just thought I’d check the place out.” He smiled. “Is that alright?”
Gracie smiled and took another drink of her beer. It was nice to talk to a man who wasn’t Books; a man who bought his own drink and who was polite to her. The way Charlie talked to her reminded her of when she was younger – junior high, maybe – before she gained weight and right after she developed. The boys ogled and circled around her. They bought her lunch. They reserved seats for her in the crowded lunch room. Books had hated it, too. He hadn’t liked sharing her. That was also around the time they played truth or dare and … things happened. After, she thought maybe he –
She stopped the train of thought. She drowned the metallic taste in her mouth another drink of her beer. There wasn’t any use in going back over all that. Books had never shown any interest in her, and he never would. He liked those skinny girls. The ones who push their tits together to make them look bigger and look good in a bikini. He liked them young and dumb, too. “Old enough to buy beer,” he’d explained to Gracie once, “but not old enough to start sagging and dragging.”
And that’s what she was. To him, anyway. Sagging and dragging. But that doesn’t matter, she reminded herself. We’re friends.
“So can I ask why you’re meeting your friend?” Charlie interrupted her thoughts. “It doesn’t seem like you’re all that excited about seeing him.”
“Oh, it’s no big deal, really.” She sighed. “I just want to make sure he gets something to eat.”
“He can’t buy his own food?”
“He’s between jobs.” That was what she told people. The truth was Books had been between jobs for as long as he’d been old enough to work. Between jobs and in and out of jail. But she was his friend. She had always been his friend.
“You’re a good friend,” Charlie said, “to be willing to take care of him.” He took another sip from his drink. “Though I suppose he’d do the same for you.”
Gracie didn’t answer. Once, when she thought she was pregnant and the guy ran off, she’d gone to Books. At the time he was leaching off some girl or another. He drank a beer and listened to Gracie cry and blubber. She didn’t know what she was going to do. Then he offered to punch her in the stomach so she’d lose the baby. “You could blame the guy,” he’d explained. “That’d teach him.” Luckily she turned out not to be pregnant; that was the last time she took any of her problems to Books.
“He looks kind of familiar,” Charlie said. “Reminds me of this kid I went to school with. His real name’s not Harold, is it?”
She shook her head. “No. Ellis Booker. His real name is Ellis Booker.” She didn’t say his full name often. When she did, it sounded like a name that belonged to someone else. A lawyer or a captain of industry. She liked to imagine what Books would have been like if. If he’d stayed in school. If her had become a doctor or a lawyer. If he’d had any interest in her.
At one point, she’d had their entire lives planned out. Their junior year of high school, she was determined to marry him. They were the best of friends, after all. And wasn’t that what a good marriage needed? She knew she could be a good wife. She knew she could take good care of him. She just had to be patient and let him see it. But then, he decided to drop out. And then he hooked up with some junior high girl (who Gracie knew and knew better than to think that Books had forced himself on her) and he went to Juvie for a few years. When he got out, he had trouble finding work because of his record, and Gracie felt like she had to help him. After all, weren’t they friends?
She looked at her clock. Still not Happy Hour yet. Her beer was gone, and she was debating ordering another.
“You think he’s coming?” Charlie asked.
“He’s coming. He’s got to come.”
“Who else’ll buy him a beer, right?”
Gracie didn’t answer. Just then she didn’t like the tone in his voice.
Charlie stood up to leave. He through a few dollars on the bar to pay his tab. “Will you do me a favor?” He smiled.
“What?”
He handed her a card. “Will you tell Ellis I’m looking for him?”
She looked at the card. DET. CHARLIE BUSHFELL. She wrinkled her nose. “What’s this about?”
“Parole violation,” the detective answered.” Your friend Books apparently decided to pay a visit to your old junior high. We have a report of someone matching his description exposing himself to two seventh grade girls on their way home.”
Gracie started shaking. She felt herself go numb.
“Take care, Gracie,” Charlie said. “And be careful, huh? Your friend, he’s not such a nice guy. Call me if you hear from him.”
The detective left and Gracie looked at the clock on her cell phone. Ten minutes, she thought. She looked at the card in her hand with the detective’s name and number. Then she ordered another beer.
