By noon Georgia was hungry, and she knew exactly where to go. She drove back to Evanston to a dingy-looking bar off Central Avenue called Mickey’s. Mickey’s was owned by Owen Dougherty, whom she’d known for fifteen years. Owen, now in his mid-sixties, regularly threatened to sell the place and move to Florida. In all the years she’d known him, though, he hadn’t made good on the threat. Some problem or issue always seemed to keep him in Chicago.
She pushed through the door. Covid regulations forbade more than a fifty-percent occupancy rate, but most of the tables and booths were filled with people in various stages of eating and drinking. Owen himself, tall, stout, and wrinkled, was behind the bar, pulling beer from taps and polishing an occasional glass with his bar towel, which was permanently attached to his shoulder. She sat at an empty stool at the far end of the bar.
When Georgia caught his eye, he acknowledged her with a nod. She spread her hands, palms up. He went over.
“What are all these people doing here?”
“You back on the force?”
Surprised, she shook her head.
“Then why’re you acting like the damn law?”
“You’re supposed to be at fifty percent capacity.”
He took his time and gazed around. Then he looked straight at her. “Yup. And I’d say that’s just about what we got.”
“Owen…”
“I never was real good with percentages.”
“And to think I worried you’d be going out of business.”
“Me too.” He winked.
“Where’s Gemma?” Gemma, a waitress who’d worked at Mickey’s ever since Georgia had first started coming there, was nowhere in sight. A single mother of three, she’d been working part time while earning her MBA from Northwestern.
“She had to go. Couldn’t risk it when we reopened. You, know. The kids.”
“That’s too bad.”
“She had a good run.”
“You gonna hire someone new?”
Owen folded his arms. “You looking for a job?”
She laughed. “If business doesn’t pick up, I might be.”
“Well, let me know. Pretty soon we’ll set up outside like we did last summer,” he said. “I still can’t figure out what we did to deserve this plague, you know? Was God trying to warn us not to screw up the world worse than we have?”
Georgia had never heard Owen mention God. Not in fifteen years. After being cooped up for a year, everyone was acting a little strange. If Elon Musk offered her a ticket on one of his rockets to Mars, she would seriously consider it.
Then, as if Owen realized he was acting peculiarly, he dropped his arms and fingered the towel draped over his shoulder. “How about I get your Diet Coke with lemon and order up your cheeseburger—rare and bloody—with fries?”
She gave him a thumbs-up.
Georgia was sipping her Diet Coke with lemon when the door opened, and a man came in. He was in jeans and a brown leather jacket. Despite the warmer March temps, a plaid muffler wound around his neck. It wasn’t a Bloomsbury but close to it, and it looked familiar. When her gaze lifted to his face, the curly dark hair and glasses sparked a jolt of surprise. Matt Singer. Her former boyfriend. Her lips parted. They used to come here together, but she hadn’t seen him in years. His hair was grayer, his face more lined and weathered. But he still wore the glasses she always told him gentled his expression, and he was still slim and lithe.
He hadn’t looked her way yet, and her few seconds of private observation were perversely pleasing. As if she had the edge in their relationship. At last. He’d dumped her. Broken her heart. At the time, she’d thought it was end of her world. It nearly was. A few nights afterwards, in the dark hours between reason and madness, Georgia, drunk and reckless, had sped down Halsted and smashed into the concrete wall of the Chicago River viaduct. She’d been in a coma for a week and in the hospital almost a month.
Now, though, she’d recovered completely, and time had softened the emotional pain. She’d consigned the entire experience to the pain-accelerates-growth layer of her brain. She could afford to be charitable. So when their eyes finally met, she smiled. He brightened, the way he used to when he saw her, and made his way over.
She took the initiative. “Hey, Matt. How’s it going?”
He shrugged.
She sighed inwardly. Was he still full of self-pity and guilt? She remembered how that had appealed to her years ago. Although he was a fine detective, he seemed hopelessly lost when it came to being happy, and she had taken on the responsibility to fix him. Drive out all the demons that plagued him. Create a special, joy-filled world for both of them. For a while it had worked. But she was younger then. Barely out of her teens. She didn’t know how ill-equipped and powerless she really was. She had no control at all, and when everything went sideways, she did too.
“I’m hanging in,” he replied.
“What are you up to? Back on the force?” They’d been cops on the same force; he a detective, she a patrol officer. They’d lived together almost eight months.
“I’m consulting for an organization that works with refugees from authoritarian or religious backgrounds. We teach them the wonders of democracy.”
Georgia was puzzled. “There’s actually an organization that does that?”
Matt nodded and started to explain when Owen sauntered over. He knew the whole story between Georgia and Matt, and Georgia knew he was checking up to see if she was okay with Matt being there. She flashed him a grateful smile and gave him a quick nod. Owen might complain about everything under the sun, but he was fiercely protective of her, and she loved him for that.
“How you doing, Matt?” Owen said as if he’d seen him yesterday rather than six years earlier. “What can I getcha?”
“What’s on draft?”
“Michelob and a German Pilsner.”
“I’ll have the Pilsner.”
Matt turned to Georgia. “Join me?”
She shook her head. “Not drinking.” Not since I got wasted for four days straight and nearly died after we broke up. “So tell me more about this organization.”
Matt launched into a detailed explanation. She only half-listened. She kept wondering if he was still an observant Jew, which he’d been when they were living together. Even though she’d offered to convert, his heritage had destroyed their relationship. His parents, Holocaust survivors, had pegged her as his blonde shiksa, a plaything every good Jewish boy yearned for and should experience. Nothing serious. Just a temporary shtup when they were horny. His mother, especially, made her feel like an outsider. The shiksa who came to dinner. Wiser now, Georgia realized that attitude had been baked into him since birth. Matt couldn’t change it any more than he could change the color of his eyes.
When he finally paused, she asked “How are your parents?”
“My mother passed about three years ago. Dad’s in assisted living.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“It is what it is.” Owen brought Matt his beer, and he took a swig. “What about you?”
“My mother came back, and I have a half-sister who has a baby boy. She and I—and Jimmy sometimes—are all living together.”
“Big changes.”
She almost replied, “It is what it is” but smiled instead. “You said it.”
“And Jimmy is…”
“Jimmy Saclarides. Police Chief of Lake Geneva.”
“Right.” Matt hesitated. “I knew his name sounded familiar.” A scrim of formality seemed to come over him, as if he realized any hope of rekindling their intimacy was a lost cause.
Owen brought her burger and fries. The meal looked delicious, but Georgia dug out her phone and checked the time. “Owen, could you box that for me? I forgot about a Zoom meeting I need to go to. It starts in ten minutes.”
“Sure thing,” Owen said a little too quickly and hurried back to the kitchen to pack it up.
“Sorry I can’t stick around,” Georgia said.
“I understand,” Matt said. But his face flooded with disappointment.
“Really nice seeing you,” Georgia said. And it was, but not for the reasons he thought. She was finally over him.