Saturday evenings at the bar are my favorites. They’re most crowded so I’m most forgotten. They’re most normal, like what I imagine regular bars in regular towns look like on regular Saturday nights—drinking that seems more fun than depressed, laughter that seems more genuine than sarcastic—what’s supposed to be rather than what is.
All the way over, Nora’s reassuring herself while pretending she’s reassuring me. “There’s no way, Mir. None. No way. He’s wrong. He’s just a kid. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. A company that size is never going to tell its secrets to a sixteen-year-old, even if he is the CEO’s grandson. Besides, Omar would never let it happen again. It’s got to be that the lawsuit’s got everyone panicked. That has to be it, don’t you think? I know you do. You’re so smart, Mir-Mir. Don’t you worry. Everything’s going to be just fine, Mirabel, my belle.”
Her nicknames get more inane the more manic she gets. It’s good Mab’s still out and Monday has a job to do. Otherwise Nora would have left me home, and clearly she needs a chaperone tonight. My plan for the evening had been biochemistry homework. I realize that doesn’t sound Saturday-night exciting, but pickings are slim as splinters around here, and anyway I’ve started a project on vertical farming (no soil, little water, perfect for Bourne) that’s at least as thrilling as most teenagers’ weekend plans. The wifi at the bar is no worse than the wifi anywhere else in town, so I’m happy to den-mother my mother while I work.
But when we arrive, I see my presence won’t be enough to keep her sane because there, at the end of the bar, is Omar. Norma’s is already as crowded as it gets, even though it’s only just five, and, we can hear from the back entrance, loud, but as Nora emerges behind the bar, a hush falls over the whole place. Everyone’s eyes dance back and forth between Nora and Omar, Nora and Omar. Frank passes behind her, rests his hands lightly on her shoulders for a few beats before moving on. I’m on your side, his hands promise. Don’t start a scene in my bar, they add. Everyone waits to see what Nora’s got in store for Omar tonight—this is what passes for entertainment in Bourne—but everyone (except Omar) is disappointed.
“Omar!” She forces a smile. “Just the man I was hoping to see.” She pours him a beer, even though he has a nearly full one in front of him already. He looks at it nervously.
“You were?”
“I was.”
“To yell at me?”
“No!” She laughs. “Well, maybe. Depends what you say. But probably not. I hope not.” She’s grinning now, but even she doesn’t quite look like she’s buying it.
“Me too.”
“You too what?”
“I hope not.” Then he turns to me. “Whatcha think, Mirabel? Is she going to yell at me?”
“Signs point to yes,” my Voice pronounces, a saved joke because my Voice sounds kind of like how you imagine a Magic 8 Ball would if it could talk. Omar throws his head back and laughs, a real laugh. “You’re a funny, funny girl. And probably a correct one.”
People are turning back to their own drinks and conversations but much quieter than before, one eye on their beers, one on Omar and Nora, so they won’t miss it if fisticuffs break out.
“I heard an appalling, ridiculous rumor this afternoon,” Nora begins lightly, like she’s going to tell a joke or a story.
“From whom?” Omar goes back to looking nervous.
“A little birdie.”
Omar raises his eyebrows to mime Who? but the rest of his face falls. He knows.
“What little birdie?” Hobart asks.
“Well, see, that’s an interesting story itself.” Nora nods. “You’ll never guess who stopped by my house this afternoon.” She takes a breath, maybe to build suspense, maybe just to give everyone one more moment before she delivers the bad news. “River Templeton.”
A pause.
“Who the hell is River Templeton?” Zacharias says.
“Well, wouldn’t you know it”—no one is buying, but everyone is made edgy by, Nora’s extreme good cheer—“Duke Templeton has a grandson.”
“And he came to your house?” Zach says.
“He did.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Me neither,” Nora says.
“They named him River?” Tom’s trying to catch up.
“They did. Can you believe that?”
“Apt.” He smiles at his beer.
“Because they destroyed ours?” Nora says.
“Not like a river. Like one who rives.”
“What’d he want?” Frank asks.
“To flirt with my daughters,” Nora says darkly.
I wish.
“What did he say?” Omar just wants to get it over with, I think.
“Well, that’s where it got weird.” Nora’s taking her torturous time. “I asked what brought him and his family to town—”
“Good question,” Tom says, but it’s everyone’s.
“And he said Belsum is reopening the plant.”
I hear the bottoms of beer glasses hitting the bar, forks and knives clattering onto plates, a few scattered gasps, and then that falling sound that is no sound at all, everyone’s conversations lapsing into silence at once.
“No fucking way,” someone says.
“That’s what I said.” Nora nods.
“What did he say?”
“Well, I didn’t say it until after he left. Mirabel made Mab take the kid for a walk.”
“Lucky kid,” Hobart says, and everyone grins at me, picturing the alternative: Nora dismantling the Templeton scion with her teeth.
“But I told the girls he was an idiot. Had to be wrong. Or lying. Or screwing with us. Something. Because there was no way Omar would let it happen. Not again. Never. Didn’t I, Mirabel?”
I work hard to nod, but no one’s looking at me because everyone’s looking at Omar, Nora included, who looks at him—it must be said—with surety, certainty. Faith. This isn’t a setup or a trap. In fact, it’s Omar’s moment of redemption, and she holds it out to him like a prize he’s won off her fair and square. Her look is equal parts proud of him for earning it at last, grateful to him for doing so, and slightly sheepish for all the shit she’s given him in the past, and mostly, it is beyond-a-doubt confident of his fealty and good sense.
Which is why what happens next is heartbreaking. Not because of what he says. Because of the gap between what he says and what she vividly finally imagined he would.
In fact, at first he doesn’t say anything at all. But the hesitation tells her all she needs to know. The whole bar is holding its breath (except for me; I am pointedly breathing, deep and steady, so as not to distract from the scene playing out before us).
Nora is the one to break—her will, this silence, and a great deal more. “You said yes to them again.” Halfway between a question and a keen. She is furious. Of course she is. But beneath that, her face shows something else. She is betrayed. She so believed deep down, beneath all those years of animosity she’s held toward Omar for getting us into this mess in the first place, that he wasn’t really the bad guy here. And he failed her, deserted her, broke her faith and trust which, however small, were hard won. She looks heartsick. Him too.
“Worse.” Omar can’t look at her. He sees what I see in her face. “I didn’t say yes again. This was in their contract to begin with.”
She pales. “How is that possible?”
“The land is theirs. And when we zoned it, we zoned it for them. We gave them their designation and land-use rights for a hundred years.”
“A hundred years!”
“As a gesture, obviously. To show them we were all in, we’d support them now and into the future.”
“Why?”
“We wanted them to stay.” Omar shrugs miserably but raises his head to take everyone in. He is our leader, after all. “And we didn’t want to give them a chance to renegotiate the deal five years down the road when they were employing half the town and could demand whatever terms they wanted. I thought we were being smart. I could envision them wanting to leave us behind. I never imagined there’d be a time we wouldn’t want the jobs. I never imagined we would want to get rid of them.”
“Or keep them from coming back.” Nora looks, more than anything, exhausted. “Fucking hell.”
“Yeah,” Omar agrees. “But listen—”
I would like to. Everyone would like to. Even Nora, if only out of desperation, would like to. But no one gets the opportunity because the door opens and in walks Nathan Templeton.
He stands inside the doorway for a moment, letting his eyes adjust, being seen, and my brain pulls up from its cloudy nethers the second half of that “Speak of the devil” saying. Both the rest of the aphorism and the man himself seem conjured not from thin air but from its opposite—thick opaque substances: mud, sludge, primordial stuffs—like they were there all along, only dormant, lying in wait to rise up at the merest suggestion. We conjured Nathan Templeton by speaking of him. As usual, it feels all our fault, never mind that, as usual, there was no avoiding it and nothing we could do.
We have not seen him before, any of us, but there is only one man he can be. I suppose that’s why the saying isn’t “Speak of the devil, and some dude shows up with goat feet and a flaming pitchfork, and you’re all, ‘Who the hell are you?’” He is a clean bright light in Norma’s sticky dankness, and I see what Mab means. There is something strong about him—something whole, something sure and neat and well rested—that no one else in Bourne possesses. Nora literally recoils, and all the blood drains from Frank’s face, and everyone falls silent as snow.
“Norma’s Bar.” Nathan Templeton opens his arms into the gloaming. “No wonder everyone speaks fondly of this place. I can see I’ll be a regular.”
His smile is a lightbulb in the gloom. He looks around quite pleased—with himself for discovering such a gem of an establishment, with all of us for being in the know, with Nora and Frank for doing a fine job running the place—and not at all bothered that everyone’s staring at him. He ambles from door to bar slowly, stopping to shake hands with the few bewildered people dotting the tables in the middle of the room—both of his soft ones grasping one of theirs, looking into their eyes—and inserts himself on the empty stool between Zach and Tom.
He reaches out and puts one hand on one man’s shoulder, one on the other’s.
“Great to meet you guys.” He looks and sounds like he means it. “I’m Nathan Templeton.”
They nod mutely. Nora hasn’t closed her mouth in minutes.
“So”—Nathan picks up a menu and looks it over—“what’s good here?”
Zach considers the lately frozen neon wings before him. “Nothing?”
“Hey!” says Frank.
Nathan winks at Frank and laughs with Zach. “Now, I’m sure that’s not true…”
“Zach,” Zach supplies.
“Zach.” Knowing. Proud of him. Like Zach is a perfect name. Like Nathan is certain Zach must be a wonderful man to have such a wonderful name. “Pleasure.” He turns the other way. “How about you…”
“Tom.” Tom looks surprised to hear his own voice.
“So, Tom, you seem like a man of taste. What’s the best thing on the menu?”
“Beer?” Tom guesses.
Nathan laughs, loud and warm. “Isn’t it always? You’re a wise man, Tom.” He turns to Nora. “Beers for everyone, if you please, Madam Barkeep. This round’s on me.”
She stands there, frozen, and Nathan’s smile wavers just slightly.
“Nora,” Frank’s voice warns.
She shakes her head, blinks, shakes, and starts pulling each of the guys’ favorite beer. As she puts them on the bar, she leans in and whispers, “On the house.”
“No, hey,” Nathan protests, “let a guy buy another guy a beer. I’ll buy you one too, pretty lady.”
She takes in a breath deep as a sea trench. I watch her brain flip through thousands of clamoring options in search of where to start her response, but Frank leaps in first. “Frank Fiedler. Owner. Very generous of you.” They shake.
“And look!” Nathan crows. “It’s my main man—and yours—the great Omar Radison.” He comes down the bar and shakes Omar’s hand. “Good to see you again, man.” So I was wrong. None of us have ever seen this man before except Omar.
“We were just talking about you,” Omar admits.
“All good things, I hope,” Nathan says in a tone that suggests he’s never in his life doubted it. But as he turns to make his way back to his beer, he trips over my footrest.
It is normal to regard something you’ve tripped over with surprise. After all, if you’d known it was there, you would have walked elsewhere. But the look he gives me is less surprise than shock, shock verging on horror.
Which, to be honest, is interesting. It is probably true that people who use wheelchairs in the rest of the world get appalled looks and disgusted stares, but not here. Here, no one looks at me twice.
But the look is fleeting. I catch it for only a moment before Nathan Templeton wrestles his smile back into place. “Well, hi, hello there.”
I give him a little wave. He waves back.
“I’m learning everybody’s name tonight.” He’s talking too loudly. Maybe he thinks I might be hard of hearing. Or maybe he wants to make sure everyone notices him talking to me. He needn’t worry about the latter. All eyes in the place are on him. “So tell me who you might be.”
I have to type in the first part: “I might be”—then tap my name—“Mirabel.”
He is dumbfounded at first by my Voice but recovers quickly. “You might be, eh?”
I nod.
“Are you one of the famed Mitchell sisters?”
I might look surprised he knows—I am—or he might just be showing off because he laughs too loudly, goes to clap me on the shoulder, changes his mind, and brags, “I keep my ear to the ground, don’t I?”
I don’t know what to do but nod.
“You look too young to be in a place like this, Mirabel,” he says. “Must be clean living.”
Frank watches Nora consider breaking a bottle over the edge of the bar and impaling this guy. He redirects. “So, Nathan, what brings you to town?”
Nora is so angry she’s shaking, but I see her take this question in, see how she wants this answer more, if only just more, than she wants to exsanguinate this man. She finds my eyes and shakes her head: No. No what? It could be anything. Then she finds emptied pint glasses to wash and pretends to turn away. Frank passes behind her and brushes lightly between her shoulder blades as if accidentally. She nods nearly imperceptibly and keeps her eyes on her dirty dishes.
“Many things, many things.” Nathan puts his hands back on Zach’s and Tom’s shoulders. “Among them, I’m here to offer these good men jobs.”
Nora looks up and blinks.
Omar drops his head into his hands.
I remind myself about slow deep breaths.
And no one says a thing.
“All of you, actually.” Nathan swings an arm out wide to take us all in. “If you’re a hard, honest worker—”
“Honest?” Nora chokes, but Nathan keeps right on as if he hasn’t heard her.
“—we’d love to have you on board. We’ve got jobs for all skill levels, all education levels, all”—the pause is infinitesimal—“ability levels.”
“Where?” Frank says breezily, like Nathan has mentioned a really good deal he got on curtains. Later, Monday will wonder why Frank asked when Omar already told everyone. It’s the kind of thing that bugs Monday, but it’s a fair question. He needed to hear Nathan say it? He thought the rest of us needed to hear Nathan say it? He wanted to help Omar out, transfer the earlier ire away from our mayor to where it belonged?
“Maybe he wanted to pretend he didn’t already know and hadn’t already heard,” Mab will guess.
“Why?” Monday will press again.
“Didn’t want to give him the satisfaction,” Mab will posit, “of thinking we’ve just been waiting all these years for their return. Didn’t want him to think he’d just pick up where he left off?”
Whatever the reason Frank asked, Nathan’s answer seems canned. “Well, friend, you may have heard of a little company called Belsum. It’s a new day for us. New plan, new facilities, new name—Belsum Basics—but old stompin’ grounds. We’re renewing the old plant from the inside out, building our operations better than ever, and we wouldn’t dream of doing it without the good people of Bourne. So what do you say? Anyone around here need a good job?”
Nora looks like she’s going to cry. Nora looks like she’s going to scream. Nora looks like she’s going to smash the teeth of Nathan’s lightbulb smile from his mouth. She’s got her hands flat on the bar now, probably to stop them from shaking, but she looks like she’s going to vault over the top, take Nathan in her mouth, and shake him until blood and hair and guts rain down and his neck snaps and she spits his limp body into a broken heap on the bar floor and retreats to her corner to lick the gore off her haunches. Her eyes are on me, and I give her a small smile, a we-will-figure-this-out-too smile, a remember-we-have-each-other smile, an I-believe-in-you smile.
And maybe that’s why or maybe she’s lost her mind, but what Nora does is laugh. She throws back her head and laughs. She throws back her head and holds her belly and wipes her eyes and laughs and laughs and laughs.
Nathan laughs along with her. “What’s so funny?” He’s friendly, a little kid eager to be in on the joke.
Then she stops laughing. “Get out of my bar.” And when he doesn’t move, she leans across to him to add, “No matter the salary, no matter the job description, no matter how desperate, there is not a single person in this bar or in this town who would ever work for Belsum Chemical again.”
Nathan props his elbow on the bar before her and proffers his pinky finger. “Wanna bet?” Still smiling. All in good fun.
She struggles to hold on to her mirth.
“It’s a new day, Nora Mitchell. Even your daughters came to visit. Even they’re on board.” How does he know her name? How does he know Mab and Monday are her daughters?
“Get. Out. Of. My. Bar.” Her cool is slipping off her like snakeskin.
“My understanding is it belongs to my friend Frank here”—Nathan holds up both hands—“but I get it. I do. Didn’t mean to rattle you. It’s Saturday night. You’re busy. A handsome stranger comes to town and shakes things up.” He winks again, possibly at me. “Just wanted to say hello, buy some friends a beer, and check out the hottest place in town.”
Without looking, he takes two hundred-dollar bills out of his wallet and lays them on the bar, shoots in-cahoots smiles all around, and disappears with a whiff of brimstone which is probably just my imagination, but I look at Nora looking at me and wouldn’t swear to it.
“Never.” She starts cleaning up—wiping down the bar, clearing still half-full glasses, sweeping around her shell-shocked customers—all the while, under her breath, “Never never never never.”
And no one disagrees.
But I remember that other saying about the devil, that idle hands are his playthings. And honestly? There are a lot of idle hands around here.