3 A Brewski for the Old Man by Phyllis Smallman Read Free Book Online

Ray John to come back.
    At the Sunset I fended off the staff with their lists of shift changes and complaints and went to the restaurant’s ladies room. Sweat glued the drenched tee to my body, limp hair stuck to my face. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the fact I was alive. But how long could I stay alive? I leaned over a sink and sobbed.
    Gwen Morrison, our glamorous blonde hostess who had been at the Sunset as long as I had, came through the door. I hid my face from her but she wasn’t fooled. “What’s up?” she said, full of concern.
    The problem with confusing staff with family is they start thinking they own you, think they have a right to all of your life. “I just need a moment, Gwen. Can’t you just leave me alone?”
    “Well, excuse me,” she said and left.
    “Shit,” I swore into the mirror.
    The good thing about Gwen, her annoyance wouldn’t last to the front desk and she always forgave my bitchiness.
    I pulled off my tee before I splashed cold water on my face.
    I used paper towels to wash and dry my upper body. The shaking was easing as I pulled my hair back into a ponytail. There was a clean blouse in my office but I hadn’t thought to bring it with me. I didn’t care. I walked out of the washroom in my bra and unlocked my office door, the only place on the planet which was truly my own.
    When I’d rebuilt the Sunset after Hurricane Myrna, I’d indulged myself. What did a few thousand more dollars’ worth of debt matter with the shitload I was carrying? Now two walls of the office were covered in a cream-colored paper that looked like nubby raw linen while the other two were covered, floor to ceiling, with bookshelves that held every book I’d ever owned or Jimmy had ever stolen. Jimmy had played on the pro golf circuit all over the South and had this really bad habit of stopping at every library he came across and walking out with a few books for me, often very big glossy coffee-table books. Those were the presents he brought home from the tour. I think the thefts gave him a rush and Jimmy was all about putting a little excitement into his life with risky behavior, only one of the many reasons I’d left him.
    No matter how I yelled at him about robbing libraries, he never stopped and I’d never gotten rid of the books. So now my shelves held books with the stamps from a multitude of libraries all over the South, my secret reward for another’s crime.
    Books give me comfort; like old friends they make me feel calm. When the bookshelves were first built, they were neat and tidy, but the contents seemed to migrate on their own. Here and there books had been slipped in on top of the stacks. In some spots books had gone missing while in others they now lay piled on their sides. Today I didn’t even look at them.
    My desk sat in front of the bookshelves, facing into the room. There was a second desk shoved against the opposite wall where Mary Harley sat a few hours a week inputting data and doing bookwork. She came in early and our days only overlapped for about a half-hour where we caught up on details. The desk chairs were both brown leather wingbacks. When Mary wasn’t there, her chair was used by visitors and slid easily over the dark walnut floors to face my desk.
    With trembling hands I pulled on the white blouse. A knock came at the door. Couldn’t they get by for ten minutes without me? “What?” I yelled.
    “It’s me, Styles.”
    I threw open the door, so glad to see him I could have kissed him but that would have crossed a line we’d never even tip-toed close to.
    I thought of Styles as the beige man and as usual he was wearing a beige suit and tie. Even his green eyes were pale, weird and slightly hypnotic. Only the white shirt and highly polished brown brogues relieved the eye. Everything about Styles said safety and dependability, two things I had great need of at the moment.
    Words tumbled out of my mouth. He already knew the beginnings of the story, how I’d once