Thirteen days ago
Bully Betty’s grand reopening was a triumph threatening to collapse into tragedy. By midnight the main room of the bar was almost bulging at the seams, a crush of two dozen warm bodies past any sensible capacity.
Word about the new location had spread, and then some. Betty’s first weekend on Capitol Hill attracted her kind of crowd. Queer techies. Theater vamps wearing tailored tartan suits. Horn-rimmed creatives with enough side hustles to fill a résumé. A combined target demo that might be narrow anywhere but Seattle. All the revelers temporarily free from their holiday obligations and end-of-year deadlines. Ready to shake themselves slack.
“Van.” A-Plus, shouting from ten feet away. I read her perfectly glossed lips more than I heard the words over the din of a hundred other voices: “Two sour ales, three tequila shots with lime, two house bourbon.” She flashed French-manicured fingers to make sure I caught the count.
A-Plus and the other bartenders handled the showy job of making cocktails. I pulled all the pints and poured bottles with both hands to keep the river of well drinks flowing. Factory work. The arrangement suited both sides. They kept the tips, and I didn’t have to make small talk.
Betty had allowed a few concessions to her loyalists in the new place. At the corner of the bar nearest me, a muted television streamed a rerun of the U-Dub women’s basketball game against Oregon State. The Huskies had an ace power forward this year who was expected to turn pro a year early. I knew all this because the knot of women glued to the action had been singing the player’s praises since tip-off.
“All that technical crap, like executing the game plan,” one fan in a sleeveless T-shirt proclaimed. “The team can learn that shit from the coach. But that.” She jabbed a finger at the screen. “That’s fuckin’ mean. You can’t learn mean.” Her nugget of wisdom prompted affirming whoops from the others.
Betty had noticed my self-imposed exile, of course. She’d thrown me the side-eye, but that was all she had time for. Too busy keeping order, nostrils flared for anyone vaping, making sure Maurice on the door was confirming that every pretty face matched with an ID photo.
“I’ll have a gin fizz,” a woman said to my back, over the babble of the crowd.
I knew the voice and angled my gaze downward before I turned around.
The bar counter was tall. Addy Proctor was not. Only her head and shoulders could be seen above the edge. Her cherubic crinkled face poked out from the hood of a cherry-red quilted parka lined with fake fur. A scowling circle.
“Do I look like I know how to make a gin fizz?” I said.
“No more than I look like I belong here.” Her neck trapped in the parka, Addy turned her whole body to examine the throng that moved like wheat stalks in wind every time the door opened to admit just a couple more. Drops of rain suspended from her fur collar broke loose. “I’m a gnome among mermaids. Look at these children. It’s marvelous.”
“I’m working,” I said.
“You can spare a minute for an old woman up past her bedtime. If you can’t make a decent drink, pour me a vodka. Something that pairs nicely with a fixed income.”
I ignored Addy’s restriction and pulled the Woody Creek Reserve from the top shelf to fill a shot glass for my former neighbor. A-Plus brought another stack of orders. I waved her toward the taps to fend for herself, ignoring the gorgeous pout she fired my way.
“You haven’t returned my phone calls,” Addy said, sniffing at the vodka.
“It’s been busy.” I nodded to the bar. “Betty lost her lease. We wanted to relocate before the end of the season.”
She frowned. “That’s not the cause. You’ve been a damn ghost since you got back from Oregon, and that was over two months ago.”
I didn’t want to talk about Oregon. I had been practicing hard to not even think about what had happened there, and I had finally reached the point where I managed the trick most hours of the day.
“I’ve come by your house,” I said. “At Thanksgiving, with Cyndra.” Cyn was Addy’s foster kid.
“You came, you brought a pie, big whoop. You spoke about ten words, Van. It hurt her feelings. I know Luce getting married must have been tough for you—”
“What do you want, Addy?”
“Fine. Cyndra went to L.A. to have Christmas with her father. Which means she spent the holiday in a convalescent home with Mickey, who is nowhere near a suitable host for her, dad or not. She’ll be on the morning flight back. You’re going to help me welcome Cyndra home and make sure she has some fun. Starting with taking her to her team practice tomorrow afternoon.” To underline her point, Addy downed half of the shot glass.
Betty had spotted our conversation and angled her path toward us through the crowd. I was reminded of an icebreaker, its armored prow shoving aside tons of frozen floes.
“If I say yes, are we done?” I said to Addy.
“For now,” she muttered, understandably distracted by a seven-foot sylph in green sparkle makeup using the bar mirror to freshen their mascara.
“Bring your next luncheon group here,” I teased.
“Please,” Addy said. “I lived through Haight-Ashbury.”
Betty reached us. She had no problem making room for herself at the counter. Besides wielding shoulders as wide as mine, twin ebony boulders covered in purple tattoos advertising the combined Aztec and Ghanaian heritage she claimed, Betty possessed a force of personality that encouraged the world to make way, or else.
“You got to be Addy. Hello,” Betty said, giving our parka-encased guest the once-over.
“I must be. I’m surprised Van has mentioned me. Congratulations on your new place.”
“I’ll exhale when it’s still standing in the morning. I’d forgotten how wild the Hill can get.” Betty turned to me. “Maurice is taking over the taps.”
I shook my head. “He made me a deal. He’s on the door. I close up.”
“Big Mo doesn’t frighten off drunks. Dickless wonders keep cruising past and hollering shit at the clientele.”
“That’s harassment. Can’t the police help?” said Addy.
Betty and I both looked at her.
“Or is that a foolish question?” Addy finished, eyeing me.
She knew enough of my personal history to predict my opinion. Being raised by my grandfather, a professional thief and onetime armed robber, had lent me a different true north on my personal compass. Betty had suffered her own challenges with the cops, like pretty much anyone black and queer and raised in poverty. Maybe that shared suspicion toward the rest of the world was why she and I got along.
“I’ll take care of it,” I told Betty.
“Don’t forget about Cyndra,” Addy said. “Tomorrow morning. And we’re not done talking about this.”
Betty offered me a penlight to use when checking licenses. “No one paying you for conversation here. Go scare somebody.”
I retrieved my jacket and gloves from the back room.
Addy wanted to know what had been bothering me since my return. She’d assumed it was my ex-girlfriend, Luce, tying the knot earlier that month. Wrong guess, Addy. Thanks for playing.
I had made some choices in Oregon that I couldn’t ignore, or walk back, if I had cared to try. I hadn’t. Living day by day had been tough enough these past weeks without worrying about something as ephemeral as atonement.
On my way out into the cold, I reflected that the basketball fan had been dead wrong, too.
Someone could learn to be mean. Start as young as I had, and there was no limit.