by Mary Simses
“What can I get you?”
I considered having a glass of wine, but then I saw a sign that said BEST MARGARITAS NORTH OF TIJUANA, and I thought, Well, what the hell.
“I’ll have one of those.” I pointed to the sign.
I opened my Forbes and flipped through a few pages, but there was so much noise it was hard to concentrate. Instead, I focused on a flat-screen TV hanging behind the bar. There was a reality show on about a truck driver taking a big rig through a remote, mountainous area at night in the middle of a blizzard. I was starting to become nervous for the driver and was about to bite my nail when the bartender placed a margarita in front of me.
I took a long sip and asked for a dinner menu. Scanning the selections, I looked for something healthy. Shrimp with rice and green beans? No, the shrimp was fried. Twin lobsters with drawn butter? Too much food, and that butter…There was a chicken breast that might work if I told them to hold the marinara sauce and cheese.
The bartender served the couple sitting next to me. The man had ordered the meat loaf, and maybe I was just really hungry, but his dinner looked kind of appetizing. There was a mound of mashed potatoes with a little gleam of butter on top, green beans that looked fresh, and a slice of meat loaf that smelled like onions and herbs. And I thought I saw mushrooms.
I wondered about the fat content and how many miles I’d have to run to burn off the calories. If Hayden were here, he’d be picking out something healthy for me. I glanced at the man’s plate again. Yes, there were definitely mushrooms.
Well, Hayden wasn’t here, and I suddenly felt famished for old-fashioned comfort food.
“I think I’ll have the meat loaf,” I told the bartender.
“Any starter?”
A starter. I thought about ordering a house salad. I looked to see what else my neighbors had ordered. The woman was having some kind of soup. I glanced at the menu again and sighed. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll have the clam chowder.”
I looked back at the television. The driver was crawling along the side of the mountain on a very narrow road. There was a close-up of his front wheels, chains grinding through ice. My foot began to twitch.
“Hey, Skip, can we get another round back there?”
I turned and saw someone standing in the empty space to my left—a skinny man in a T-shirt that had a yellow swordfish on the front.
“Yeah, Billy,” the bartender said. “I got you covered. Sorry, we’re a little shorthanded tonight.”
The man named Billy looked up and down the bar. “Where’s Sassy?” Then he looked at me for a moment and I could feel him staring at me as though somebody had taped an OUT-OF-TOWNER sign to my back.
“Ah, she had to go to Portland. Sister just had an operation.”
Billy shook his head. “Oh, well, hope everything’s all right. Tell her I said hey when you see her.” He walked toward a little seating area where there was a sofa and a couple of big armchairs, and I noticed that some men were playing darts.
I sipped my drink as Skip mixed cocktails and doled them out to customers at the bar and to the three waitresses who circled like airplanes waiting for runway assignments. Then he filled several frosted mugs with beer from a tap and said, “Bridget, take these to Billy and the guys over there, would you?” Bridget, a skinny-legged girl with bleached white hair, put the mugs on a tray and headed toward the dart players.
I looked at the television again and saw that the truck driver was off the mountain road and pulling into a big truck stop, where it appeared he was going to spend the night. Thank God.
My clam chowder arrived and I stirred it for a minute, gazing at the steam rising from the bowl. As I brought the spoon to my mouth I had the feeling I was being watched. I looked up and caught Skip peering at me.
He snapped his fingers. “It is you. I thought so, but then I thought, no, it’s not her, but it is. You, I mean.”
“Excuse me?”
He smiled a big toothy smile, showing off a space on the side where a molar was missing. “You’re the Swimmer! Caught your picture in the paper. Some kiss.”
I started to stammer something, but he put his big bear hand over mine and leaned closer. “Look here,” he said. “This is on the house. The whole meal, in fact. We treat tourists right here, especially after a…er, situation like yours.”
I shook my head vigorously. The last thing I wanted was any connection with swimming, near drowning, or that picture in the paper. I shuddered when I thought about Hayden ever seeing that photo. “No, no, that’s fine,” I said. “I really insist—”
But Skip was already in sixth gear. He stepped back and waved his hands. “Hey, everybody, it’s the Swimmer!” He pointed to me. “The girl who almost drowned. The Swimmer!”
I could feel the heat in my face as I got up from the bar stool to make my escape. What was going on? I thought I had bought every newspaper out there. I wanted to run through the door and back to the inn. I wanted to leave Beacon and never return. In fact, I never wanted to see the state of Maine again.
But when I tried to leave, I didn’t get farther than three steps.
A man with a ruddy complexion and DAVE stitched on his shirt came rushing toward me, followed by a group of people all talking at once.
“Hey, Swimmer, let me shake your hand,” Dave said.
“Another drink for the Swimmer,” a man with a shock of whitish hair shouted to Skip. “Lucky to be alive.”
Oh, God, this was like a bad dream where you try to run but your legs don’t work. “I wasn’t drowning,” I said, turning to the white-haired man, my eyes blazing with humiliation. “I was perfectly fine. That guy who helped me…I just let him do it so he wouldn’t be insulted. He’s…he’s got a fragile ego.”
“Oh, she’s funny, too,” he crowed as he slapped me on the back. “Didn’t want to insult him.” The crowd began to laugh.
“You know, I really need to get going,” I said, trying to squeeze through the group.
A woman with a wad of gum in her mouth tapped me on the shoulder. “Did you have hypothermia? My cousin had that once and his skin started flaking off. It was really nasty.”
I instinctively touched my arm. “No, I did not have hypothermia.” I turned away.
A bald man grabbed my hand and kept shaking it. “Did you see your whole life flash before you when you fell in?” He wouldn’t let go of me. “’Cause once I fell off a ladder, you know, and I swear I saw my whole life flash before me—even the night I had too much to drink and tried to put the moves on my wife’s sister.”
“If you don’t mind,” I said as I yanked my hand away. A couple of college girls from Vermont asked me if I’d ever go back in the water, and then got into an argument between themselves about whether or not I should, and an ex–police officer from Bangor asked me if I had been on drugs when it happened.
“Here’s to the Swimmer,” somebody shouted, and everybody had a glass raised…but me.
Then Skip passed a margarita to a girl and she passed it to a man who passed it to me. I drank it down in a few gulps, while people continued to pelt me with questions about whether or not I had a death wish.
The crowd was pressing in closer, and I began to feel as though people were pushing on my lungs. Pushing and pushing. I couldn’t get enough air.
Then Skip said, “Hey, leave her alone, she’s been through enough,” and slowly the group dispersed. Skip motioned for me to come back to my seat.
“You look a little pale,” he said. “I think you need to finish your soup.”
I noticed that he’d placed another margarita at my spot. I gazed at the chowder. He was right; I was hungry. But I went for the margarita first, downing half of it. A sudden feeling of warmth washed over me.
Then I tried the clam chowder. It was loaded with baby clams, and the flavor of the clams was balanced nicely with diced potato and finely chopped onion and celery. Tiny sprigs of fresh dill floated on top. The combi
nation was heavenly, and I ate every drop, doing my best not to think about what else was in there. There had to be cream—at least half-and-half—and butter for sure. And I could taste little bits of bacon. Hayden would think I’d lost my mind. But it was good. It was so good.
People kept coming into the Antler, crowding around the bar. Drinks were being passed over my head to customers standing two and three deep behind me. The music pulsed, Keith Urban’s “Long Hot Summer” blasting from the speakers, and the whole place felt like it was glowing, humming.
“Skippy…hey, Skippy,” I called out, but I could barely hear my own voice over the noise. For some reason, that struck me as funny, and the louder I yelled, the harder I laughed.
I held up my glass and pointed to it. “What is this again? What is this, Skippy?” I couldn’t remember the name of the drink.
Skip nodded and gave me a thumbs-up, but I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. I yelled his name again and held up my glass, trying to get his attention. “What is this again? What’s it called?”
Before I knew it, Skip had passed another drink my way. And soon the music became even louder and livelier and people crowded onto the dance floor.
“Hey, do you want to sit with us?” A woman with a pageboy haircut and sleepy eyes was standing next to me. She reminded me of a paralegal who used to work at Winston Reid.
“I’m Bliss and this is Wendy,” she said. Wendy looked like the cheerleader type, with an athletic build and blond hair.
I shook their hands and introduced myself. I was glad for the company.
“Yeah, we know who you are. You’re the Swimmer,” Wendy said, beaming her big smile and pulling me to a table near where the men were playing darts.
We tried to talk over the music but all I could figure out was that they were dental hygienists having a girls’ night out.
Skip sent a round of drinks and menus over to us, with the message that dinner was on the house. How many drinks was this now? And hadn’t I already ordered dinner? I thought so, but just to make sure, I ordered clam chowder and meat loaf again.
Bliss began talking about an argument she’d had with their office manager, and I sat back and watched the dart game. Four men were playing 301, a game I learned in college, in my junior year abroad at Oxford, where I dated Blake Abbott. Blake was British and a whiz at darts, and he taught me how to play.
One of the men threw a dart and the guy named Billy laughed and said, “Jeez, Gordon, where’s your arm tonight?”
Gordon made a face. “Get real. You think you can beat me?”
A man leaning against the wall said, “Come on, get out of there, it’s my turn.” He stepped up and threw three darts.
“You throw like a girl, Jake,” one of the other players said. I couldn’t tell which one, although I thought it might have been the guy named Gordon.
What kind of a stupid comment was that? I slapped the table in front of Bliss. Maybe I hit it a little too hard, because my hand began to sting. “Did you hear that?” I asked.
Bliss looked at me, her eyes wide. “What? What?”
My finger wiggled as I pointed at her and tried to form the words. “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “One of those guys over there…”
“Yeah?” Bliss and Wendy looked at me, waiting.
I shook my head. “Yeah, one of those guys over there told another one of those guys over there that he throws like a girl.” I felt a rush of indignation blast through me, sending goose bumps along my arms. “Don’t you hate it when men talk like that?”
Wendy leaned toward me. “I completely hate it. There was a guy at Dr. Belden’s office, the periodontist I used to work for, and he was always saying stuff like that.”
I leered at the dart players, not quite sure where to cast my outrage but pretty sure that they all deserved it.
“Throw like a girl,” I said. “What is that supposed to mean? That girls can’t throw? That they can’t…what? Play darts?”
I was mad. I was infuriated. I was intoxicated. And I would show them.
I pulled my wallet from my purse and rifled through the cash until I found a hundred-dollar bill. Then I pushed back my chair and climbed onto the seat. I stood there, looking across the room, feeling invincible. I would show these small-minded men a thing or two.
“Okay, I’d like to say something.” I tried to project my voice over the din, but it was impossible. “Hello!” I yelled, waving my hands. “Hello. Excuse me.” I tried to whistle with my two pinkies in my mouth, the way my father had taught me, but I couldn’t get anything but a hiss to come out.
Finally I took a deep breath and screamed, “Quiet! The Swimmer would like to say something!”
Everything around me stopped. The conversations, laughter, arguments, clinking of glasses, clanking of forks and knives, all came to a halt. Everyone stared at me.
I held up the hundred-dollar bill and snapped it between my hands. “See this hundred-dollar bill?” I snapped it again. “I bet I can beat any of you at a game of darts. Any of you,” I repeated, leaning over my chair like a figurehead on the prow of a ship. “Including the idiot who told what’s his name…Jake over there”—I pointed a limp finger in the general direction of the group—“that he throws like a girl!”
I smiled and waited to see what kind of mountain man would come out of the woodwork and take up the challenge. There was a movement from the sofa near the dartboard. Two men were sitting with their backs to me. One of them stood up, stretched his arms, and turned around. He began walking toward me. He was tall, with dark wavy hair, a square jaw, and a slightly rugged face. He could have been anyone from an airline pilot to a logger. In another situation, he might even have been handsome. He was dressed in faded jeans, a pale blue button-down shirt, and a brown leather jacket. As he came forward and stepped into the light, I recognized the jacket, and my throat tightened. It was Roy.
“I guess I’m that idiot,” he said quietly. “I’ll take you on.”
I stepped down from the chair, feeling a chill of sobriety pass through me. The dock, the tired swimmer’s carry, the kiss. What had I done? The last person in the world I ever wanted to see again, and now…
“Um…hi,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. I smiled and gave him a casual wave, as though none of this was a big deal.
He put a bottle of beer and a handful of darts on the table. “I see you’ve recovered.”
“Recovered?” I picked up one of the darts and gripped the barrel, trying to get a feel for the weight. It might as well have been an anvil.
He took off his jacket and put it over a chair. “From your swim the other day.” I thought I saw a glint in his eye.
“There was nothing to recover from,” I said, holding the dart to my ear and extending my arm in a practice motion.
He shrugged. “Well, good.” Then he added, “Thanks for bringing back my jacket.”
I nodded. “No problem.” I adjusted my grip a little, hoping to give the impression that these subtle moves were part of some complex strategy. “I didn’t know the jacket was yours.”
He took a sip of his beer. “I hope you play darts better than you swim,” he said, crossing his arms and peering at me.
I hoped so, too. Oxford was in the distant past and I hadn’t exactly been keeping up my game. Add a few of those drinks Skippy kept sending me, and…
“I can play darts quite well,” I said. “Quite well indeed.” I flashed a big, confident-looking smile.
Roy cocked his head. “Well, name your game, then. Cricket? Three-oh-one? Shanghai?”
I began to think, trying to come up with the most straightforward game I could remember. Something that wouldn’t involve complicated scoring, because math calculations were not going to be my strong suit at the moment. Finally I had an idea.
I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said. “Dead Presidents.”
Roy laughed. “Dead Presidents. You want to play Dead Presidents?”
No, what I really wanted
to do was get the hell out of there.
“All right, tell you what. You hit Franklin first, you get to keep your hundred and another hundred from me. I hit it first, I get the bills.” Roy took out his wallet and removed five twenties. “But you’ve got to nail him in the face.”
Nail him in the face. Nail him in the face? Impossible.
“That sounds fine.” I shrugged and waved my hand at him as if I did this every day. Meanwhile, people had come off the dance floor, a crowd had formed around us, and someone had turned the music down low. Beads of perspiration eased their way down my back. I began to feel a little hot, a little sick.
Roy walked to the board and removed Jake’s darts. All right, get it together, I told myself. Get it together. I rolled up my sleeves. Just get the damned things on the board. Don’t throw buckshot and have them fly all over the place. He’ll end up winning—that’s a given—but as soon as he does, you get the hell out of here.
Roy held a fistful of darts. “Shall we warm up?” He had the edge of a smile on his face as he presented the darts to me.
I could warm up for a week, I thought, and it wouldn’t help. I shrugged. “Well, I don’t really need a warm-up, but if you insist…” I took the darts.
Okay, let’s get this over with. I walked to the toe line and stepped behind it. I tried to hold the grip as I would a pencil, the way Blake had taught me, but my arm felt like it belonged to somebody else. I raised the dart until it was parallel to my ear. Then I aimed and let it float. It arced high and landed on the opposite side of the board from where I was aiming. I didn’t care. I was just happy it hit the board.
I threw the second dart, aiming for the same spot. This time it went much closer. The next five were better, and as I kept throwing I realized that there was something enjoyable in this out-of-body experience I was having—holding the darts, seeing them float, watching them hit the board. I threw the last two warm-ups. They landed in the general vicinity of my targets, and that was close enough to make me feel better.
From the look of Roy’s warm-up, though, I had no doubt about who would win. He was skillful and accurate and was probably already deciding what he was going to buy with my hundred dollars.